Berdych, Santoro out as seeds tumble in Stuttgart

BERLIN (Reuters) - Third seed Tomas Berdych became the highest ranked casualty in the first round of the Stuttgart tournament on Tuesday, losing to Germany's Nicolas Kiefer 6-3 6-3.

World number 40 Kiefer needed only 78 minutes to ease past the 23-year-old Czech, ranked 21st in the world, who produced an error-ridden performance.

France's Fabrice Santoro, seeded seventh, and eighth seed Argentine Jose Acasuso also saw their tournament hopes end at the first hurdle.

Veteran Santoro, playing his last year on the tour, grabbed the first set against Italy's Fabio Fognini before slumping to a 5-7 7-6 6-1 defeat while Acasuso lost 6-2 7-6 to Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.

Top seed Gilles Simon, the world number seven, had little trouble moving into the second round with a 6-3 6-4 win against German Philipp Petzschner, setting up a tricky second round encounter against 21-year-old German Misha Zverev.

The left-hander had earlier powered past Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-2 6-4.

Fellow German Rainer Schuettler also moved into the second round, battling past Czech Ivo Minar 2-6 7-6 6-4 as did Philipp Kohlschreiber with a comfortable 6-3 6-2 win over Argentine Diego Junqueira.

(Writing by Karolos Grohmann in Berlin, editing by Nigel Hunt)