French wild card Julien Benneteau upset sixth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis 7-6 (3), 6-2 in the first round of the Open de Nice on Tuesday.
Benneteau converted three of four break opportunities to claim his third win in five matches over Baghdatis and avenge a straight-set loss three weeks ago in Munich. It was also his first win on clay this season.
Fourth-seeded Andy Roddick pulled out of the tournament ahead of Wednesday's match against Victor Hanescu after injuring his right shoulder at last week's Italian Open.
''I was looking forward to playing here in Nice,'' Roddick said. ''It's a beautiful stadium, the club is great. It's always disappointing; it's always a little bit of an empty feeling when you have to pull out of an event.''
Roddick said he doesn't want to take any risks ahead of the French Open, which starts Sunday.
''Obviously the situation is not perfect for Roland Garros, but I still have a couple of days to hope for something to get better,'' he said.
Latvian wild card Ernests Gulbis rallied to beat eighth-seeded Fabio Fognini 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 after saving nine of 11 break points.
After a strong start to the season that took to the semifinals in Doha, Gulbis went through a poor run of form. He will now try to win consecutive matches for the first time in four months.
Sergiy Stakhovsky also advanced by beating Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia 7-6 (5), 6-3.
The seventh-seeded Stakhovsky, a quarterfinalist at the warm-up event for the French Open last year, broke his opponent three times to set up a match against Robin Haase. The Dutch lucky loser defeated Yen-hsun Lu of Taiwan 6-3, 6-4.
Carlos Berlocq came from behind to beat Austrian qualifier Andreas Haider-Maurer 5-7, 6-3, 6-0. The Argentine will play third-seeded Nicolas Almagro of Spain.
