The Argentine joined third seed Rainer Schuettler, fifth seed Mark Philippoussis and sixth seed Tim Henman as a first round loser.

Dutch eighth seed Sjeng Schalken survived to reach the second round, however, with an untroubled 6-3, 6-1 win over Sargis Sargsian of Armenia.

Top seed Roger Federer is in action later on Tuesday against Marat Safin, whom he beat in the Australian Open final in January.

Also Read Philippoussis, Henman lose in Dubai Schuettler makes early Dubai exit Henin wins Dubai Open

Coria and Youzhny struggled to find their rhythm in the first two sets but produced a number of dramatic rallies in the third. Youzhny moved better and struck some fine backhand winners to make him a worthy winner.

Coria took the opening set despite dropping his first service game to love, breaking Youzhny in the third game and once more to lead 3-2.

In the second set, Coria had to fight off two break points to hold for 1-1 before going a break up, but lost five consecutive games after leading 3-1, with Youzhny closing out the set with two aces.

Three early breaks in the final set left Youzhny leading 3-2, but he struggled to close out the match at 5-4. Two double-faults each gave Coria a break point to level at 5-5, but Youzhny survived when Coria sent a backhand wide down the line.