SHANGHAI, East China, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Top seed Roger Federer played an uncharacteristic and erroneous game as he lost to Gilles Simon of France in his first match of the Tennis Masters Cup here on Monday. The Swiss, who was made the first seed at the injury-forced absence of World No. 1 Rafael Nadal, made a spate of 50 unforced errors compared to Simon's 38 on his way to the 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 loss.

Like Simon, another Masters Cup debutant Andy Murray of Britain beat Andy Roddick of the United States 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 in another group match.

Federer, whose shots seemed not as sharp as before, blamed his loss on self-doubt about his back conditions and lack of practice.

Roger Federer of Switzerland serves to Gilles Simon of France during their Masters Cup tennis match in Shanghai November 10, 2008. Federer lost to Simon 6-4, 4-6, 3-6

"I was sort of skeptical going into the match because the practice sessions haven't been hard at all. I really tried to not push it at all. So I was actually happy that the back felt okay," he said. "I had matches in Basel I was serving 15 aces. Here I was serving three aces. Definitely it was a factor today, you know, the serve. I haven't been basically serving all week, except maybe50 serves in total," he said.

"The shoulder gets a little rusty and things don't work out the way you want it. I still expect myself to have more serves in. I didn't serve full blast especially from the start. So I don't know if that cost me the match," he added.

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