SAN JOSE, U.S. — Ernests “The Gull” Gulbis’ early season stumbles continue, this time falling in the first round of the SAP Open.

Playing Argentine Leonardo Mayer, who has a slightly better current world ranking than Gulbis, the Latvian was broken once in each set on the way to his 7-5, 6-4 defeat.

Producing similar first serve statistics, Gulbis’ biggest problem seemed to be his ability to win points of his second serve, doing so just 52 percent of the time.

Failure to win through to the second round means that the Latvian will miss out on a tantalizing match-up with the tournament’s defending champion Andy Roddick.