TENNIS in DEPTH.

Benjamin Becker upset third-seeded Fernando Verdasco 6-1, 6-7 (2), 6-3 Tuesday in the first round of the Brisbane International. “It’s always good to get a win under your belt … it’s not every day you beat a top 10 player,” Becker said. “I had a good game plan and it worked well today.” Becker, ranked 53rd, raced through the first set in 30 minutes, with Verdasco failing to hold serve until the sixth game. The 27-year-old Spaniard, the 2009 Brisbane runner-up, recovered a break in the second set and leveled the match by winning the tiebreaker but dropped his opening service game in the third set and Becker didn’t let him back into the match.

Radek Stepanek, the 2009 champion and runner-up here last year, beat Germany’s Tobias Kamke 5-7, 6-1, 6-4, while South African Kevin Anderson beat Australia’s Peter Luczak 6-4, 6-4 and veteran Frenchman Arnaud Clement went down in straight sets to Richard Berankis of Lithuania.

Czech Lucie Safarova reached the women’s quarterfinals for the third straight year when she beat second-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 in 2 1/2 hours. The former Australian Open quarterfinalist is the girlfriend of 2010 Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych. “Of course people ask me about Tomas, but so far it (Berdych’s success) is motivating me to do better and to try to reach a better level of tennis,” Safarova said.

Russian No. 5 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova also won her second round match, beating Serbian Bojana Jovanovski 6-2, 7-5.

In women’s first-round matches, Italy’s Roberta Vinci had a 6-2, 7-6 (2) win over American Christina McHale, a late replacement for Fed Cup champion Flavia Pennetta, who withdrew due to sickness.

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Fernando Verdasco suffered a blow in his bid to add valuable points to his South African Airways 2010 ATP Rankings on Thursday, when the Spaniard fell in his opening-match at the PTT Thailand Open. The World No. 8, who is hoping to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London for the second successive year, was beaten by No. 65-ranked Benjamin Becker of Germany 6-4, 6-4 in 87 minutes. It was Becker’s first win over Verdasco since June 2009 at the UNICEF Open. Becker, the 2007 runner-up, hit nine aces for the fifth Top 10 victory over his career (5-16 lifetime). Verdasco has a 2-2 record in ATP World Tour finals this year and a 41-18 match record.

Jarkko Nieminen, a quarter-finalist at the Open de Moselle last week, continued his run of form by reaching the last eight of an ATP World Tour tournament in Bangkok. The 29-year-old Finn saved an astonishing 14 of 15 break points to defeat seventh-seeded Serbian Viktor Troicki 7-6(4), 6-2 in one hour and 41 minutes. Nieminen improved to a 19-22 match record on the season.

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Ernests Gulbis came through a marathon battle with Rainer Schuettler to seal his place in the third round of the Thailand Open in Bangkok. The fourth seeded Latvian took the first set 7-4 in the tie-break, but his German opponent hit back by doing the same in the second. But Gulbis did just enough in the decider to finally win a match that lasted just short of three hours.

Third seed Jurgen Melzer enjoyed a more comfortable passage through as he beat David Sela 6-3 6-4 while Daniel Brands overcame a second set wobble to knock out sixth seed Thiemo De Bakker 7-6 (7-2) 1-6 7-6 (9-7).

Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez beat France’s Florent Serra 7-5 6-7 (3-7) 7-5. In the day’s only first round game Germany’s Benjamin Becker was a 6-1 6-4 victor over compatriot Mischa Zverev. Becker will now meet number two seed Fernando Verdasco.

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German Benjamin Becker prevented former World No. 1 Carlos Moya from setting up a second-round confrontation with top seed Roger Federer, as he dismissed the Spaniard in a lopsided 6-0, 6-2 decision on Monday at the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open.

“This is one of the worst beatings I’ve had in my career,” said the 1998 Roland Garros champion. “Perhaps I wasn’t at 100 percent as regards my foot and I may have forced it a bit to play here, but I assure you I have been training much better than I played today. I was confident and was really excited about winning today and having the chance to face Federer. But it couldn’t be, so I’ll have to try to find something positive to take away from today’s match.”

Becker made his main draw debut at Madrid’s ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament in impressive style, winning the first 10 games before Moya finally managed to hold serve. After fighting off five break points in his opening service game, the German went largely unchallenged the remainder of the 63-minute match.

Moya, the oldest player in the draw at 33 years of age, was making his first appearance in two months after being sidelined with a foot injury. He was limited to just four tournaments last season due to a number of injuries, and had entered Madrid at No. 514 in the South African Airways 2010 ATP Rankings.

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