Justifying his 10th place in the ATP rankings, Puerta, 27, overcame a game Soeda in three hard fought sets that stretched to two hours and nine minutes. The Argentine clearly had not recovered fully from the jet lag of a long flight from Davis Cup exertions in Slovakia over the weekend.

The 21-year-old Soeda, seeded 359 in the ATP rankings, proved a tougher opponent than his obscure ranking would have suggested by holding his serve and winning the tiebreak in the second set to stretch Puerta to a third set.

In the third set, Puerta was leading fairly comfortably at 4-2 before the resilient Soeda staged a rally that saw him narrow the gap at 4-5, at which point he lost his serve for the more experienced Argentine to wrap things up at 6-4.

Afterwards, clearly relieved that he was on course to qualify for the Shanghai Masters in November, Puerta said: “I was surprised by Soeda’s play in the second set but I remained confident that I would win in the third set.”

He praised Soeda as a player “with potential” who could go far if he continued to improve. For Soeda, ranked No. 5 in Japan, it was his first time on the ATP circuit. He is headed for the Japan Open next week.

The only seeded player to fall in the first round was Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen who was beaten 6-3, 6-4 by Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden. The Swede’s win was not all that surprising given that there isn’t a great deal of difference between Carlsen’s 58th place in the ATP rankings to Bjorkman’s 81st.

Third seed Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic beat Lee Hyung-Taik of South Korea 7-6, 6-1 in another first round match. Stepanek said he had a long hiatus from the game after having played in the U.S. Open and attributed his first set struggle to the rust of the long break.

“I found my rhythm in the second set and hope to sustain it from this match on,” he commented.