KEY POINTS:
Olympic champions usually carry the advantage or burden of favouritism. Not so at the Heineken Tennis Open, however.
Try naming the 2004 Olympic men's gold medallist, a dual gold medallist in fact.
Twenty-seven-year-old Nicolas Massu may be a household name in Chile. After all, he won his country's
first Olympic gold medal in the tennis doubles in Athens, then went on to win the singles title.
And try naming the man he beat in the Athens final. It was American Mardy Fish, another Open entry.
Massu was ranked ninth in the world in 2005, but he is in the 40s now and was the underdog yesterday against the Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, a former world No 1.
Massu, with a healthy grunt on most shots and the usual Auckland support of Chileans in the stands, ripped past Ferrero 6-4, 6-2.
Massu did the damage in the opening game of each set, breaking Ferrero's serve. In the first, Ferrero struggled with his serve. In the second he made errors.
The sixth-seeded Spaniard faltered badly in the final set. He was lack-lustre in the opening games and committed a string of errors to concede another service break in the seventh game.
The Olympic champion was aggressive and gritty throughout, and now faces a familiar foe in Argentinian Juan Ignacio Chela.
Massu said: "I really played well, I've practised hard and this is very good for me to win like this in the first match of the year.
"I tried to hit a lot of winners. I feel I can do something good in this tournament but there are a lot of quality players." On Chela, he said: "We know each other well. I have a lot of friends among the Spaniard and Argentinian players."
Chela beat Nicolas Mahut of France 7-6, 6-3 to set up the second round showdown with Massu.
Mahut was in theatrical mood, apparently unwilling to continue at one point because of the weather.
"I think he wanted to stop, I don't know what it was about, there was no rain," said Chela, who played in the Davis Cup final against the Russians last year.
Another seed to fall yesterday was eighth ranked Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland, beaten in three sets by Nicolas Almagro of Spain.
Fifth seed Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia was pushed by the South Korean qualifier Woong-Sun Jun before winning 6-4, 7-5. Two-time champion Hrbaty faces German Phillipp Kohlschreiber, who he beat on the way to his last Auckland title in 2004.
Veteran Agustin Calleri, the seventh seed, won an all-Argentinian battle over Juan Martin Del Potro 6-1, 6-3 and will meet unseeded Frenchman Florent Serra.
Croatian star Mario Ancic, the second seed and world No 9, beat Czech Luka Rosol 6-3, 7-6. In an all-American clash late last night, Fish beat Robert Kendrick 6-2, 6-4.