Somdev loses to Del Potro

Somdev Devvarman’s challenge in the Dubai Duty Free Championship ended on Wednesday when he was beaten by fourth seed Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina in the second round.

The 315-ranked Indian ace, who got the better of Russia's Igor Kunitsyn earlier, lost 4-6, 4-6.

The world No 7 broke the Indian once in each set, wrapping up the match in a little over an hour, to enter the quarter-finals of the ATP 500 event.

Devvarman did come close to breaking on three occasions but failed to seize the initiative as Del Potro hit some lovely winners.

Later in the evening, Rohan Bopanna and Rajeev Ram will take on Jean-Julien Roger and Aisam-ul Haq Qureshi.

Mahesh Bhupathi and Frenchman Michael Llodra are pitted against the Serbian pair of Janko Tipsarevic and Viktor Troicki.

Meanwhile, Daniel Brands of Germany created a flutter, upsetting eight seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia 6-4, 6-4 in another second round match.

In other second round matches, seventh seed Andreas Seppi of Italy beat Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic 6-4, 7-6(4); Nikolay Davydenko of Russia beat Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-4, 7-6(2) and third seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic beat Tobias Kamke of Germany 7-5, 6-1.