Tsonga, Venus make first round exit at Cincinnati

It was a day of upsets at the Western and Southern Open tennis as world No.10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and star women's player Venus Williams made a first round exit while men's world No.1 Novak Djokovic struggled to make it to the second round.

Tsonga suffered 1-6, 4-6 loss to Mikhail Youzhny of Russia. The Frenchman won the Rogers Cup last week after beating Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Grigor Dimitrov, but he was simply out of his rhythm here Tuesday, reports Xinhua.

The match lasted for 68 minutes, and Tsonga was barely given a chance. He dropped to a 30-14 match record on the season after the loss.

Djokovic needed three sets to beat Gilles Simon 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to advance to the second round here.

Djokovic was leading 2-1 in the second set, but Simon managed to come back by breaking twice. Simon was unable to hold his serve in the seventh game, allowing Djokovic to break to seal the victory in the decisive set.

Djokovics will face the winner between Tommy Robredo and Sam Querrey in the next round.

Croatian star Marin Cilic also moved into the second round beating Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 6-4. It only cost Cilic 67 minutes to get the victory.

The 25-year-old Cilic would next meet Fernando Verdasco. The two levelled at 4-4 in previous meetings.

Meanwhile, in the women's event, 16th seed Lucie Safarova defeated Venus 6-7(2), 6-3, 6-4 in the first round match. It was Safarova's first victory over Williams. Safarova will meet Zarina Diyas in the next round.