Somdev loses in first round as poor run continues

Somdev Devvarman's poor comeback continued as he lost his sixth consecutive first round match when he suffered a straight sets defeat against Ernest Gulbis at ATP Erste Bank Open in Vienna, on Thursday.

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The unseeded Indian, whose ranking has plummeted to 579 lost to his wild-card opponent from Latvia 6-7(6), 3-6 in one hour and 43 minutes.

Somdev, who missed action for about seven months in the 2012 season due to a shoulder surgery, has now lost all his singles matches since making a comeback at the London Olympics.

He had lost to Finland's Jarkko Nieminen at the Olympics in July and has not won a single match in this season.

He had a phenomenal 2009 and reached a career-best ranking of 62 last year but the shoulder injury put a brake on on his progress.

Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images