Defending champion Stanislas Wawrinka must seriously have regretted his decision to apply for a wildcard after his ignominious defeat at the hands of four-time champion Carlos Moya 6-3 6-2 in just 64 minutes.

Having played so well to get to the final of Stuttgart, the Swiss would have hoped for better things in defence of his Umag title, however, he was very much second best today against the far more consistent sixth seeded Spaniard who with a ranking of 20 is enjoying something of a renaissance in the latter stages of his distinguished career. 

After a 1 hour rain delay during which the court was prepared after suffering a barrage of heavy rain and hail stones the size of marbles, Wawrinka got off to a good start and broke early to go ahead 3-1. However, the wheels swiftly came off from there and he proceeded to lose 5 games in a row to hand Moya the set in 37 minutes, committing a whopping 22 unforced errors to the Spaniard's 11.

Things did not improve for the Swiss in the second set when he dropped his serve in the fourth game when he drove his backhand long.

Wawrinka's wretched day at the office came to an end when he was broken to love in the final game when yet another backhand flew long.

The match statistics made depressing reading for the fans of the Swiss no.2 who committed 35 unforced errors to Moya's 22. The Spaniard made life easy for himself with an impressive 5/7 break point conversion rate.

"It was a good match for me", Moya beamed afterwards. "It's not easy for him coming from the final of Stuttgart. It took me a while to get into the match, but once I did I played well."

Earlier, former champion Guillermo Canas, seeded 5, had a safe pasage into the second round when he saw off Croatian wildcard Roko Karanusic 6-3 6-3. Joining him in the second round is no.4 seed David Ferrer who breezed past compatriot Albert Montanes 6-2 6-2 and no.7 seed Filippo Volandri who eased past Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic 6-2 6-1.

Andre Jones

Umag