Tenth seeded Croat Marin Cilic (pictured) finally ended his drought in Shanghai, winning his first-ever match at the Shanghai Rolex Masters, 7-5, 6-3, over Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot.
Breaking Kubot's serve on four occasions, Cilic delivered a dominating performance, including eight aces, to earn his first victory in Shanghai in four attempts.
With the win, Cilic advances to face Slovakia's Martin Klizan, earning some much-needed points to stay in the hunt for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals Race to London.
Frenchman Richard Gasquet (pictured below) also improved his chances of qualifying for the tour finals, needing just one hour and ten minutes to finish American qualifier Brian Baker, 6-2, 6-3.
Seeded eleventh, Gasquet, who is coming off a win in Bangkok last week, his first ATP win of the season, converted on four-of-five break point opportunities to end Baker's chances of another miracle run. Gasquet now moves past Juan Monaco in the Race to London standings.
With Baker becoming the second American player to exit the tournament in as many days, California native Sam Querrey now joins countryman John Isner in the second round, after trouncing Chinese wild card Li Zhe, 6-3, 6-1.
Recording 11 aces and breaking serve five times, Querrey looked strong in first round action, as he prepares to make a run through the bracket.
The Shanghai courts were not as kind to ninth seeded Nicolas Almagro, who fell to Germany's Tommy Haas, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2. Almagro notched 18 aces and successfully defended five break points, but Haas proved to be too much, downing the Spaniard for the second time in his career.
Haas now advances to face Tommy Robredo in the second round, after the Spaniard dropped Alex Bogomolov earlier in the day, 7-6 (4), 6-4.
Also advancing to the second round are France's Benoit Paire, who took out Germany's Philipp Petzschner, 7-6 (2), 6-4, Grigor Dimitrov, who defeated Spain's Pablo Andujar, 7-5, 6-3, Kevin Anderson, who downed Finland's Jarkko Nieminen, 6-2, 7-6 (4), Andreas Seppi, who ousted German Michael Berrer, 6-2 7-6 (5) and Alexandr Dolgopolov, who dropped France's Jeremy Chardy.