Wimbledon:Marin Cilic became the first big-name casualty of Wimbledon 2010 when he lost in the first round today, but Nikolay Davydenko narrowly avoided joining him through the exit door.
The 11th-seeded Croat, a semi-finalist at this year's Australian Open and rated as a dark horse by some in SW19, slumped to a straight-sets defeat at the hands of Florian Mayer.
The German triumphed 6-2 6-4 7-6 (7/1) at the All England Club.
Mayer reached the quarter-finals on his Wimbledon debut back in 2004 and will be hopeful of another good run after this result.
Davydenko, meanwhile, had to dig deep before finally seeing off Kevin Anderson in a five-set thriller which lasted more than four hours.
The Russian enjoyed his last visit to London - he won the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena last November - but it appeared his return was turning sour when he fell two sets down to the big-serving South African.
Davydenko only recently returned to the tour after suffering a broken wrist earlier in the year and he looked a little rusty in the opening exchanges.
But he showed plenty of character to turn the match round, much to the delight of the crowd on Court One, and he recovered to post a 3-6 6-7 (3/7) 7-6 (7/3) 7-5 9-7 victory.
Anderson was the first to flinch in an epic final set, which went with serve for 15 games until Davydenko grabbed the break to book his place in round two.
Meanwhile, two of the surprise packages at Queen's Club continued their good form.
Feliciano Lopez, who beat Rafael Nadal at the recent AEGON Championships, was a four-set winner over Jesse Levine, while Andy Murray's conqueror Mardy Fish beat young Australian Bernard Tomic in straight sets.
Gael Monfils, the French 21st seed, impressed as he saw off Leonardo Mayer 6-1 7-6 (11/9) 6-2, while Jurgen Melzer, a semi-finalist at the French Open earlier this month, also progressed.
However, one other seed to fall at the first hurdle was number 17 Ivan Ljubicic.
The former world number three has returned to somewhere near his best form this season to climb back up the rankings, but his poor record on grass continued as he was beaten 7-5 7-6 (7/5) 6-3 by Poland's Michal Przysiezny.