Falla packs off fancied Monfils; Simon exits

Jankovic tumbles out early in Montreal meet

Fish produced a spirited display to defeat Simon 7-6, 7-5 and set up a match with Spanish eighth-seed Fernando Verdasco.Monfils, the 16th seed, fell to Colombian qualifier Alejandro Falla 6-3, 6-4 while Blake's slide down the rankings continued with a 6-3, 6-0 loss to Russia's Denis Istomin.The good news for France came with Richard Gasquet defeating 12th seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny 2-6, 6-4, 6-1.

Bopanna-Qureshi advance
Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi overcame a second set lapse to beat American Rajeev Ram and Bobby Reynolds and progress to the second round.
The unseeded Indo-Pak pair scored a 6-3, 1-6, 10-4 win over the wild card holder pair of Ram and Reynolds in the first round of the $2,430,000 hard court event.
They will next face eighth-seeded Polish pair of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski in the pre-quarterfinals.

Third seeds Leander Paes and Czech Lukas Dlouhy will take on American Mardy Fish and Bahamas’ Mark Knowles while fourth-seeded pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi of Belarus are up against American combo of John Isner and Sam Querry.

 Jankovic ousted
Top seed Jelena Jankovic's US Open chances continued to dim with a listless 7-6, 6-3 loss to 75th-ranked Czech Iveta Benesova in her opening match at the Montreal Cup.
Jankovic's buildup to Flushing Meadows has not inspired hope that the Serb will be making a return to the final this year with her play on the North American hardcourts falling flat and concern over a nagging ankle injury mounting.

"I don't have any pain anymore, I just need to work hard on the practice court and work on getting better," Jankovic, runner-up at the 2008 US Open, told reporters. "I'm not where I would like to be, my game is not there.

The loss marked the third consecutive hardcourt event that the world number three has made an early exit, having also fallen at the first hurdle in San Diego to Russian Alisa Kleybanova.

The 25-year-old from Belgrade won her opening match last week in Cincinnati but then was dispatched in straight sets by Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan in yet another upset.Jankovic, who showed no signs of an injured ankle, had looked in control, serving for the first set at 5-3.But the 27-year-old Czech broke the Serb to get back on serve, forcing the set to a tiebreak which she dominated 7-3.

Benesova stepped up the pressure in the second set, breaking Jankovic at the first opportunity on her way to a 3-0 lead.Jankovic offered a brief fight back with a break in the fifth game but Benesova would not buckle, breaking back to go up 5-3 and serving out the match.

In other action, Wimbledon finalist and eighth seed Vera Zvonareva led a Russian charge into the second round with 6-1, 6-2 demolition of Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova.
Svetlana Kuznetsova, the first Russian woman to win the US Open, flashed her hardcourt pedigree dispatching Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 as six Russians made it safely through.

Aside from Jankovic, it was a good day for the seeds, with number 10 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus crushing Ukraine's Kateryna Bondarenko 6-1, 6-1, and Italian 15th seed Flavia Pennetta rolling past Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova 6-0, 7-5.