Agassi, Safin stunned
in St Petersburg

Top seed Andre Agassi and number two Marat Safin both lost in straight sets in the second round of the St Petersburg Open on Thursday.

Agassi, still aiming to edge out Lleyton Hewitt as year-end No. 1, lost 6-4, 6-4 to experienced Slovakian Karol Kucera, while Safin suffered an identical defeat at the hands of Belarussian wild card Vladimir Voltchkov.

Agassi raced into a 3-0 lead in the first set but Kucera won the next five games to take control of the match and never lost his momentum.

"He (Kucera) started nervously but then he loosened up and began playing better," Agassi said. "First of all, he is a good player and is a dangerous opponent. Also he served very well."

Kucera, who reached his first quarter-final since January and next faces number seven seed Gaston Gaudio, said he enjoyed playing the 32-year-old American, the runner-up in last month's U.S. Open.

"His game is suited very well for me," Kucera said. "We already played each other seven times and know each other very well.

"My service game is my weaker side but today I was serving just great."

Safin, bidding to win the tournament for the third straight year, was no match for Voltchkov, a Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2000, failing to clinch his place in the season-ending tournament in Shanghai.

Fifth-seeded Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov was another high profile loser on Thursday, going down 7-6, 7-5 to Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty.

But Sebastien Grosjean, the number three seed, did reach the last eight when he beat Argentine Mariano Zabaleta 6-3, 6-1, and Germany's Nicolas Kiefer defeated the eight-seeded Max Mirnyi of Belarus 6-3, 7-5.