Kei Nishikori sent top-seed Dudi Sela crashing out of the XL Bermuda Open last night.

The teenager made short work of the pre-tournament favourite, seeing him off 6-3, 6-3, in little more than an hour.

Unlike his first round defeat of Daniel Marcos however, Nishikori was less than convincing and was helped in no short measure by Sela having a serious off-day.

At times watching the Israeli number-one was like watching train-wreck tennis. Not that Nishikori was much better.

Not one of the first four games in the second set went to serve, and like the hypnotic sound of a long rally, the new and interesting ways that the pair discovered to lose their service games was equally captivating.

For Nishikori it was his serve, which on occasion was comparable to a professional golfer duffing a tee-shot and seeing it shoot off at some crazy angle.

Sela meanwhile went through a period of five or six games across the two sets where no matter where he was on the court, the ball ended up in the net.

Even when it hit the net cord, the ball would invariably fall back on the Israeli's side of the court. The top-seed also seemed to be cursed by some incredibly bad luck with the bounce of the ball.

A factor of clay courts is that the line is slightly raised and can cause a ball to take a funny bounce. Sela seemed to find every funny bounce on centre court, and just for good measure he also found some which probably no-one knew existed as well.

It was somewhat fitting then, given the action up until that point, that the game would be decided by a bad bounce, and the ball ending up in the net.

At five-three down and serving to stay in the game, Sela and Nishikori were at deuce when a Nishikori return hit the line and managed to bounce under his opponents racket.

The air appeared to leave Sela at that point, and he sent his next return into the net to bring an abrupt end to a rather strange game of tennis.

Those in the know were of the belief that the eventual winner of the tournament would be one of the four players involved in last night's singles.

The loss of Sela may see that expectation revised, but the winner of the second of last night's games may well have something to say about that.

Having demolished Alex Bogomolov in the first round, Ernests Gulbis had a tougher opponent in Nicolas Massu.

That he came through, was because unlike Massu, he adapted to the conditions of the court better

Gulbis eventually came through a first set tie-break, after Massu lost his composure and concentration, and the second set was a much more clean-cut affair.

The Latvian took the first five games without much difficulty, and although he had a slight blip afterwards, he eventually wrapped up a 7-6, 6-2 win.

Gulbis now faces Nishikori this evening, and along with Marcel Granollers, must be considered one of the favourites to win this year's tournament.