Monaco is humbled by Verdasco

JUAN Monaco was surprisingly brushed aside by Spaniard Fernando Verdasco in the second round of the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

The seventh seed is in the running to qualify for the end-of-season ATP World Finals next month, but was out of sorts as Verdasco coasted to a 6-4, 6-2 victory.

Spaniard Verdasco won 
71 per cent of his service points and broke his opponent on three occasions to seal his passage into the next round in 85 minutes.

Monaco’s loss will be welcome news for John Isner, who is hoping to keep alive his slim chances of qualifying for the tournament at London’s O2 Arena.

However, he had to save three match points before squeaking past fellow big server Kevin Anderson 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (9/7) in a titanic encounter that contained no breaks of serve.

Marin Cilic enjoyed a rather more serene encounter against Martin Klizan, the Croatian tenth seed easing to a 7-5, 6-1 win in 90 minutes.

In the first round, Bernard Tomic admitted to struggling mentally after being hammered 6-4, 6-0 by Florian Mayer.

Canadian 12th seed Milos Raonic, who defeated Murray en route to the Japan Open final last week, comfortably progressed after seeing off Marinko Matosevic 7-6 (7/4), 6-3. His conqueror in Tokyo on Sunday, Kei Nishikori, seeded 14th, thumped Chinese wild card Di Wu 6-2, 6-4, 13th seed Stanislas Wawrinka battled past Albert Ramos 7-6 (7/1), 7-6 (7/5), while Gilles Simon, seeded 15th, eased past Jurgen Melzer 6-4, 6-2.

Former world No 1 Lleyton Hewitt suffered a 7-5, 6-1 defeat to Radek Stepanek, while Marcos Baghdatis cruised past Fabio Fognini 6-2 6-2. There were also wins for Feliciano Lopez, Viktor Troicki, Denis Istomin and Yen-Hsun Lu.