SOUTH Africas Wayne Ferreira got his Hamburg Masters first-round off to a flyer when he knocked out Australian Pat Rafter on Tuesday. Ferreira was in fine fettle, ousting the 11th-seeded Rafter 6-4, 7-5 to reach the second round of the $2,95-million, the fifth Masters Series event of the year. The 25th-ranked Ferreira made the perfect start on centre court – breaking Rafter to love in the opening game, which proved enough to gain a one-set advantage. And he gave Rafter everything he had in the second as well, forcing the Australian to save a break point in the ninth game with a crushing backhand which Ferreira couldn’t get back. But at 5-5 Rafter was in trouble again and was crucially broken when Ferreira whipped over a swashbuckling crosscourt return on second serve, enabling the Johannesburg native to serve out for the match. Double US Open champion Rafter is currently ranked just 77th in the ATP Champions Race 2000 following an injury-blighted 1999 which saw him undergo shoulder surgery – though he briefly reached number one in the world in July. And he was clearly too rusty to find anything like top form on the red Hamburg clay in hot and sticky conditions, bowing out in one and a half hours. Ferreira now faces another familiar face from Down Under – qualifier Richard Fromberg, who beat Brazilian Fernando Meligeni on Monday.