The desert giveth, and the desert taketh.

Any momentum Andy Roddick had carefully built – by virtue of his recent tournament title in Dubai – abruptly vanished in the Indian Wells air this afternoon at the Pacific Life Open in a wave of passing shots from unseeded Tommy Haas. It was Roddick’s earliest exit in six appearances at this tournament.

Haas beat the sixth-seeded Roddick, 6-4, 6-4, in the second round in 1 hour 24 minutes. Though it appears to be an upset on paper, Haas now has defeated him seven times in 10 meetings.

And Haas had one other weapon in his arsenal, or, more accurately, his camp: Roddick’s former coach, Dean Goldfine. This is the first tournament for the Goldfine-Haas partnership.

“I don’t feel like I hit the ball badly,” said Roddick, who became unnerved in the second set and tossed his racket. “I maybe didn’t play as well as I should have on the points I should have won… . Whenever that happens and someone is in form and plays a good match, you’re going to get beat. That being said, I’ve been playing very, very well for the last month, and so I’m not going to freak out over this loss and forget everything I’ve been able to kind of work towards in the last month.”

Roddick’s resurgence in Dubai – where he beat No. 2 Rafael Nadal and No. 3 Novak Djokovic – had been an intriguing story line heading into this tournament, and made the quarter here of No. 1 Roger Federer, who played later today, and No. 11 Andy Murray look like a mini group of death.

Murray stumbled and nearly fell at the first hurdle, needing three sets to beat Jurgen Melzer of Austria in the second round. He had a first-round bye, as did Roddick.

Haas, who had right shoulder surgery in New York in November, only recently returned to the tour, rejoining the circuit in February in Delray Beach. He had his customary sharpness against Roddick, breaking him at 30 in the ninth game of the first set when Roddick netted a volley.

In all, Haas was two of two on break-point opportunities. That was enough today, and he saved two break points himself. Haas won it on his third match point with a net-cord winner after having blasted an easy forehand sitter long on the first match point.

Haas, who will play either Victor Hanescu of Romania or Albert Montanes of Spain in the third round, spoke about the effort it took to return after the latest surgery and what motivated him to stay in the game.

“That’s really the part where a lot of times you really do think about, ‘Am I going to continue? Is this the right thing?’ ” Haas said. ” … Until you really are stepped on a hundred times and you really fall very far behind in the ranking and can’t win any matches anymore, then you might consider it [quitting].

“But really on a day like today when everything clicks, it’s going to be pretty hard to think about that.”

Lisa.dillman@latimes.com