Associated Press

Hamburg, May 10:

Robin Soderling shrugged off a thunder storm to upset David Nalbandian 7-6, 7-5 in the first round of the Hamburg Masters on Tuesday.

The match was interrupted when loud thunder preceded a hail storm and organisers closed the roof over the centre court.

Soderling said he was not bothered by the break and went on to upset his ninth-seeded opponent, who was looking for his second clay-court title of the year.

Nalbandian is ranked 11th and Soderling is ranked 37th.

Dominik Hrbaty beat local favourite Tommy Haas 6-4, 7-5 to advance to the second round.

Also, Fernando Gonzalez beat Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4, 6-4; Tomas Berdych defeated David Ferrer 6-2, 2-6, 6-3; Mariano Puerta rallied to prevail over Olivier Rochus 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 and Juan Monaco outlasted Igor Andreev 6-2, 6-7, 6-1.

The $2.7 million clay-court tournament is a major warm-up for the French Open, which starts May 23.

Also, No 13 Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia defeated Luis Horna of Peru 6-3, 6-3, No 14 Tommy Robredo rallied to beat Germany’s Alexander Waske 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, No 16 Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic topped Cyril Saulnier of France 7-6, 6-2 and Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina defeated Thomas Johansson of Sweden 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Gasquet advanced when Ivo Karlovic of Croatia retired in the second set with a right shoulder injury. Gasquet was leading 6-1, 1-0. Juan Carlos Ferrero, Mario Ancic, Mikhail Youzhny, Greg Rusedski, Nicolas Kiefer and Christophe Rochus also advanced to the second round.