INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- Andre Agassi, last weekend's winner in Arizona and the defending champion at Indian Wells, made a quick exit Tuesday when he lost his opening match to Michel Kratochvil.

Kratochvil won 7-6 (5), 7-6 (6), dropping Agassi's record in tiebreakers this year to 1-6 -- which also accounts for the only sets he's lost.

	Michel Kratochvil converted on match point with his 37th winner.

The 22-year-old from Switzerland beat Agassi at his own game, keeping his 31-year-old opponent moving from side to side until Agassi eventually made a mistake.

While he also was mistake-prone, Kratochvil was the steadier of the two in the tiebreakers, ending the first with a booming overhead.

Kratochvil, ranked 44th in the ATP entry system, wrapped up the match by taking the final two points of the second-set tiebreaker. Agassi hit a backhand wide to fall behind 7-6, then had no chance on the final point as Kratochvil whipped a hard backhand just inside the left line.

Agassi made 43 unforced errors -- to 45 by his opponent -- but Kratochvil hit 37 winners to just 21 for Agassi. Unusual for Agassi, he also had only eight winners on groundstrokes.

Agassi said Kratochvil was able to raise his game a notch at critical times.

"I didn't step up in the biggest moments of the match, never found my rhythm," Agassi said. "He stepped it up even on match point after a long rally, went for it on the line.

"So all in all, he played a better match than I did."

Kratochvil was excited to beat Agassi.

"That's one of those matches you're looking forward to, playing Andre in the U.S., a tournament he won last year, on center court," Kratochvil said. "I just had a lot of courage on the big points; I went for them."

Agassi beat Pete Sampras in the final a year ago but this time became the first defending champion in the desert tournament to lose his opening match since Jim Courier fell to Patrick Rafter in 1993. This year, the tournament name became the Pacific Life Open.

Agassi, who earned his 50th career title by defeating Juan Balcells in Scottsdale on Sunday, also had reached the final in his previous tournament, at San Jose, Calif. He lost tiebreakers to Lleyton Hewitt in the final two sets of that title match.

Kratochvil, looking for his first tour title, won for just the seventh time in 16 matches this year.

After Kratochvil ousted the fourth-seeded Sampras, Greg Rusedski knocked off No. 3 Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-4, 6-3.

On the men's side, 14th-seeded Goran Ivanisevic withdrew because of inflammation in his left shoulder. He had retired from his doubles match on Monday because of soreness in the shoulder.