If you were to take a bet as to who would make it deeper, Roger Federer or Stanislas Wawrinka, surely you would have said Roger Federer.  Of course, Roger Federer had to play Tsonga, a former top tenner, where Wawrinka played Kevin Anderson who is hoping to be in the top ten.

Roger Federer was saying that reaching 30 was no big deal.  But Tsonga made him look every bit his age and more.  Tsonga was attacking both sides, especially with a powerful angle forehand that often left Federer struggling to get that shot back.  Federer seemed to struggle with the Tsonga serve as well. As usual, Federer had his chances to break in the first set, but didn’t, and Tsonga took it in a tiebreak.  Federer then took the second set.

Just when the momentum appeared to head to Roger’s favor, Tsonga broke Federer not once but twice.  Roger finally held again, to prevent the bagel, and Tsonga served out the third set, 6-1.  Federer was a finalist last year, so he will lose points, but since he’s number 3, and Murray is defending champ, Murray will lose even more points, so Fed is safely ranked 3.

Tsonga is joined by fellow Frenchman, Gael Monfils, who needed 3 sets to beat Viktor Troicki and two tiebreaks.  Richard Gasquet was unable to make it a trio of Frenchman as he fell in straight sets to Nicolas Almagro.

The Serbs did have some success today.  Janko Tipsarevic beat Ivan Dodig, the man that upset Rafael Nadal,  It’s not uncommon for a person to upset the top player to fall in the next round, so giddy with excitement and perhaps also fatigued that they aren’t ready to play.  Roger Federer upset Pete Sampras in their only meeting at Wimbledon, but succumbed to Tim Henman in the following round.

Novak Djokovic seems to be the only top seed that wants to win.  He held off a very steady Marin Cilic.  Cilic kept the first set close, but Djokovic won it 7-5.  He was in more control of the second set comfortably, 6-2.

Mardy Fish was able to turn around the loss he had against Ernests Gulbis in Los Angeles.   Gulbis won the first set, but Fish came back.  Fish had won his match against Lopez last night quite handily, again avenging the Davis Cup loss from about a month ago.

Tomas Berdych managed to hold off big-serving Ivo Karlovic in straight sets.

Novak Djokovic will play the highest remaining seed in Gael Monfils.  Djokovic has played Monfils well in their head-to-head.  They’ve met 6 times, surprisingly 5 on hard courts, with Djokovic winning all 6 times.

Tsonga takes on Almagro.  Tsonga has never lost to Almagro in 4 meetings, 3 in 2010.  Fish has only met Wawrinka once and beat him back in New Haven.  Tipsarevic meets Berdych whom he has beaten twice.

So in four matches, one player has won all the meetings (although in Fish’s case, that was just one meeting).

And Djokovic is the lone top-4 seed.  One imagines his road to a title should be much easier, but sometimes it’s easier to face an opponent you’ve played many times then the ones you meet occasionally.