Saketh Myneni would need a herculean effort to make a winning start to the new season after being drawn against Mikhail Youzhny in Chennai Open Round 1

Novak Djokovic's third round opponent Mikhail Youzhny retired in the first set while Rafael Nadal romped in to the last 16 with a straight sets win over Russian Andrey Kuznetsov

World No.1 Novak Djokovic will take on Mikhail Youzhny while Spain's Rafael Nadal will be up against Andrey Kuznetsov in the US Open

Roger Federer's lively 6-3, 6-1 win over Mikhail Youzhny, a regular sparring partner, in the first round of the Dubai Open helped him begin to rebuild after a dispiriting third round loss in Melbourne.

Nick Kyrgios, the man who famously sent Rafael Nadal crashing out of Wimbledon this year, picked up three code violations in his gruelling 7-5, 7-6 (7/4), 2-6, 7-6 (7/1) over the 21st seed Youzhny, a semi-finalist in 2006 and 2010.

High seeds and big names fended off calamity in a stream of matches that turned out more adventurous than expected.

Title favourite and world number eight Stanislas Wawrinka needed just 54 minutes to brush aside the challenge of 79th Benjamin Becker rival in the rain-hit second round match.

On former ace Stephan Edberg coaching players, Youzhny, a great fan of Edberg, recalled his stint as one of the ball boys during a Davis Cup final.

Mikhail Youzhny will begin his 2014 campaign at the Chennai Open, which he last won in 2008 by defeating Rafael Nadal.

Ferrer was aiming for his fourth title in his home region, but was far from his stubborn best as Youzhny's power and depth of ground strokes proved too much for the number one seed.