ROTTERDAM, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Robin Soderling qualified for the second round of the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam on Tuesday.

The Swedish top seed and title defender was much too strong for Dutchman Robin Haase, beating the local favorite 6-3, 6-2 in 52 minutes.

The first surprise of the tournament was the early exit of David Ferrer, seeded third. The Spaniard, who made it to the semifinals at the last Australian Open, lost 3-6, 4-6 to Jarkko Nieminen from Finland.

Thiemo de Bakker was the only of four Dutch competitors to go through on home soil. He beat German Philipp Petzschner 6-4, 0-6, 6-1. De Bakker was scheduled to play against Ernests Gulbis from Latvia, but he pulled out due to illness.

"I needed this," said De Bakker, who had suffered six ATP Tour defeats in an row.

Lu Yen-Hsun from Chinese Taipei lost 4-6, 6-7(5) to German Philipp Kohlschreiber, eighth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria easily with 6-4, 6-4. Seventh seed Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia defeated Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine 7-6(3), 6-3 and Tomas Berdych from Czech Republic, fourth seed, crashed Guillermo Garcia Lopez of Spain 6-1, 6-2.