"I was absolutely exhausted,'' Fleishman said after his first ATP Tour match of the year. "I felt like I would after a five-set match when it was 3-all in the first set. I'm not quite in playing shape right now.''
In other first-round matches, Denis Gremelmayr of Germany beat Fabio Fognini of Italy 6-4, 6-2, and Florent Serra of France defeated Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-1.
No. 6 seed Mardy Fish was to play Alejandro Falla of Colombia in a night match.
Fleishman had been sidelined all season after seriously injuring his left shoulder in a mountain biking accident Feb. 1. He said that he and a fellow tour player went for what he thought was a normal bike ride when he suddenly found himself going down a hill.
"I actually walked the bike about three-quarters of the way down. Then I jumped on the bike and hit a rock,'' he said. "The tire popped and I went over the handlebars and absolutely shredded my shoulder.''
The injury couldn't have come at a worse time in his career.
His quarterfinal showing here last year had helped him climb to a career-high No. 127 and he was starting to make good money. But instead of building on his results, he underwent surgery in March and "couldn't hit a backhand until 14 days ago. It was incredibly frustrating,'' he said.
Fleishman, who still has six screws in the shoulder, played well enough in two matches to win a wild card entry into the tournament. But he said after losing to Gicquel that getting the wild card "may have given me false confidence.
"I was a little rustier than I hoped I would be.''
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