The top seed Richard Gasquet battled his way into the second round with a 3-6 6-4 6-4 victory over Oscar Hernandez in 2 and a quarter hours, but did not look convincing for most of it.

The Frenchman who came into the BCR Open as a wildcard following his early loss at the US Open, looked a sure bet for a quick exit when he lost the opening set with some wretched errors to concede a second break of serve.

Hernandez looked as if he might cause a straight sets upset with Gasquet struggling to find consistency from the back of the court, but the Frenchman came to life in the nick of time and broke the lanky Spaniard in the ninth game, setting up two break points with a searing backhand winner down the line and converting with a forehand volley winner.

Gasuqet levelled the match in the next game with a wonderfully disguised backhand drop shot winner that the Spaniard, stranded flat-footed at the baseline could only admire.

Hernandez looked in big trouble at 0-40 in the opening game of the final set, but somehow managed to fight back and hold serve. Gasquet paid the price for not breaking and immediately dropped serve when his opponent converted at break point with a backhand passing shot rifled down the line for a clean winner.

At 0-3 down, Gasquet must have had that all too familiar sinking feeling having lost in the opening round of several tournaments this year, most recently at Flushing Meadows to Tommy Haas.

After holding serve, Gasquet engineered a much needed break of serve when Hernandez assisted with a mishit backhand which flew over the baseline to the relief of the struggling Frenchman.

Playing with much more belief, Gasquet broke again when the furious Spaniard serving at 4-4 and 30-40, dumped a forehand into the net off a very deep and looping forehand return that caught his baseline.

Gasquet closed out the match with the minimum of fuss to 15 when the Spaniard went wide on the forehand wing to the delight of the many fans of the top seed, not to mention the tournament organiser.

"It was really hard for me because I lost a little bit of my confidence", Gasquet admitted. "I lost in the first round of the US Open and didn't play for 15 days, so it's difficult, especially as it is on clay court and this year I played really bad on this court. I withdrew from Roland Garros and then having to play a clay specialist in the first round. I was playing bad, but tried to fight and to keep getting better and better. So I am happy to win because it was really tough."

Gasquet is now hoping to boost his brittle confidence which must surely have been at a low ebb for him to accept a wildcard into a minor clay court event at this stage of the season.

"I need to win matches, I need to play matches", Gasquet said. "I've been practising a lot. I played bad at the US Open when I lost to Haas; it was a tough draw. Now I feel confident to play matches and play well at the end of this season."

There were no problems for defending champion Gilles Simon who breezed past Evgeny Korolev 6-1 6-2. The No.2 seed looks to be in imperious form and must surely be the favourite once again to hold the trophy at the end of the tournament.

Joining Gasquet and Simon in round 2 is the third seeded Nicolas Almagro who dispatched Indian qualifier Somdev Devvarman 6-2 7-5.

The surprise of the day came with the exit of the talented Latvian Ernests Gulbis, seeded 5, a 6-2 2-6 6-4 casualty at the hands of unheralded Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili.

Andre Jones

BNR Arena

Bucharest