HAMBURG: German wild card Daniel Brands upset top-seeded Gilles Simon 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the second round of the German Open on Tuesday.

Brands used his third match point to prevail over the Frenchman and advance to the third round. Simon was knocked out in the second round as the top-seeded player for the second straight week, after losing at the same stage in the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart. Ivan Navarro upset fourth-seeded Spanish countryman Tommy Robredo 7-5, 7-6 (2) and another Spaniard, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, ousted fifth-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland 6-2, 6-4.

Robredo was the only returning champion in the field, having won the Hamburg clay-court event in 2006. He lost to a 27-year-old journeyman who has never won an ATP title in his career. Another seed tumbled when qualifier Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay beat ninth-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria 7-6 (5), 6-3.

Viktor Troicki, the 10th-seeded Serb, rallied to beat Teimuraz Gabashvili of Russia 3-6, 6-2, 6-4, and No 13. Paul-Henri Mathieu of France struggled to overcome Spanish qualifier

Pere Riba 6-1, 2-6, 7-6 (3). Eighth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber needed

three sets to overcome qualifier Potito Starace of Italy 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

In first-round action, Julien Benneteau of France beat Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina 6-4, 1-6, 6-1, Juan Monaco of Argentina defeated Mikhail Youzhny of Russia 7-6 (4), 6-3 and Florian Mayer overcame German countryman Rainer Schuettler 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-3.