BEIJING, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- World number five and second seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic crashed out of the China Open at the first hurdle, falling 6-4, 6-4 to Uruguay's Pablo Cuevas on Wednesday.
Former China Open winner Berdych was returning to Beijing having won his first ATP World Tour title of the year in Shenzhen on Monday. Against World No. 37 Cuevas, however, he was unable to back it up.
The Czech No. 1 reached the final in the Chinese capital last year and won the title in 2011 but committed 32 unforced errors to just 16 winners to bow out in the one-hour and 46-minute opener.
He now heads to Shanghai Masters hoping to finish his China swing on a high note.
"I made one tournament title, the other one didn't go my way," Berdych said. "Now I'm just going to try to do well in the third one, my last one."
"It's always a difficult part of the year. We have to travel a lot. The conditions are always very different, very difficult, week by week here in China. It's not easy to adjust. It's the same for all of us just ahead of the last and big tournament."
Cuevas had only beaten one Top-10 player before - Andy Roddick in the 2011 ATP Miami Masters 1000 - but struck 21 winners to add Berdych to his list.