Third seed Robin Soderling got his early 2010 season back on track after rallying from a set down to defeat Frenchman Florent Serra 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the first round of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam. World No. 8 Soderling had lost in the first round of his two tournament appearances of the season in Chennai (l. Ginepri) and the Australian Open (l. Granollers) in a disappointing follow-up to his breakout season in 2009.

But the powerful Swede avoided a third consecutive defeat as he fired 26 aces past Serra and faced just one break point in the final two sets. Played at the Ahoy Stadium, the indoor hard-court tournament is the first of 11 ATP World Tour 500 events this year.

“I am satisfied with the win but I can play much, much better," Soderling said. "I started off really bad but then worked my way into the match and played okay in the end. The first match of the tournament is always the toughest for me. I haven’t played matches for a couple of weeks and was a little tight in the beginning."

Soderling said that his slow start to the year had not dented the confidence he gained during his banner season in 2009. “I played a lot of matches last year and it wasn’t too long ago that I beat a lot of good players. I wish I could have played a little better in Australia, but the season has just started.”

German Florian Mayer held his nerve to beat Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(6) in a hard-fought first-round encounter. Mayer, who led 3-0 in the deciding set only to see Tipsarevic fight back to 3-3, hit 12 aces and won 67 per cent of service points for victory in just under three hours.

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Tipsarevic, who reached the Aircel Chennai Open semi-finals (l. to Cilic) at the start of the 2010 ATP World Tour season, also fell to Michael Berrer in the first round at the PBZ Zagreb Indoors last week. The World No. 37 hit nine aces, but could only convert one of 10 break point opportunities in the pair’s first tour-level meeting.

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Mayer won an ATP Challenger Tour title at Noumea, New Caledonia, prior to the Australian Open. The 25 year old improved to a 3-2 tour-level record this year.

Spanish fifth seed Tommy Robredo faced just two break points on serve (and was broken once) in a 7-6(4), 6-4 win over Dutch wild card, World No. 361 Robin Haase. Robredo, who at No. 15 in the South African Airways ATP Rankings is 10 places below his career-high mark, had won just one match this year prior to today. Robredo next faces Mayer.

World No. 46 Andreas Seppi converted six of 17 break point opportunities to record his second meeting with Stephane Bohli, an Italian qualifier, by a 6-1, 7-5 scoreline in 88 minutes. The Italian will next meet either No. 8 seed Viktor Troicki of Serbia or Austrian Jurgen Melzer.