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ATP Malaysian Open: British No 2 James Ward suffers first-round defeat

James Ward suffered a narrow opening round defeat to Philipp Petzschner at the Malaysian Open to prevent him from furthering his push towards the top 100.

The British No 2, who is at a career-high ranking of 117 following a fine run of results, had eased through qualifying in Kuala Lumpur.

A draw against Petzschner looked positive for Ward given the German is ranked 524th, but that is largely due to a lengthy spell out with a shoulder problem.

And, although Ward recovered from a set down, it was Petzschner who edged the deciding tie-break to win 6-4 3-6 7-6 (7-5).

Victory helped the 30-year-old set up a second-round meeting with Ernests Gulbis, who has already secured titles in Nice and Marseille as well as reaching the French Open semi-finals this year.

Kyrgios burnt out

Nick Kyrgios' breakthrough season was brought to an end with a first-round loss to fellow Australian Marinko Matosevic 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-3).

The 19-year-old, who burst on to the world scene by beating Rafael Nadal to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals, has pulled out of the rest of his scheduled tournaments for the year citing burn-out.

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Kyrgios, who also made the third round of the US Open, told the Sydney Morning Herald ahead of the tournament: "I've pulled out of the other tournaments because I'm emotionally spent, I'm a bit gone and burnt out.

"This is my last tournament of the year, so I'm going to just go out and give everything I can."

There was disappointment for two other Australians, with Bernard Tomic losing 6-4 3-6 7-6 (9-7) to France's Pierre-Hugues Herbert while US Open junior champion Omar Jasika was edged out 4-6 7-5 6-3 by Rajeev Ram.

The American next plays top seed and US Open runner-up Kei Nishikori.

Seventh seed Pablo Andujar dismissed Frenchman Gregoire Burquier 6-2 6-4 while there were also wins for Go Soeda, Jarkko Nieminen and Philipp Petzschner.

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