One wonders where this Roger Federer was a few weeks ago with backhand flying out and losing early.  It seems Roger’s priorities are to win Slams and that early losses are not bothersome to Roger, or for the conspiracy-minded, Roger selectively loses so as not to tempt injury or to keep some of what he does hidden until it’s too late to adjust.

Falla is probably the kind of player Federer wants to play: a hard-hitting lefty.  He’s no Rafa, but he does give Roger a lefty look and that’s something Roger probably wants to see.

For a while, Falla was winning serves easily and even had a break late in the first set.  However, Federer quickly broke back, pushed it into a tiebreak and won it handily.  From that point on, Falla missed more than he had in the first set and Federer’s confidence grew.

This match was interrupted by rain twice.  The first delay was rather short last 10-15 minutes and both players agreed to forgo the warmup.  The second delay was closer to an hour.  After Falla was broken early in the 3rd, it was just a matter of time for Federer to serve out the match.  Roger played this match with a lot less finesse than he did against, say, Peter Luczak, where he hit lots of drop shots.  Against Falla, he opted for a more straight-forward play.

Final score: 7-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Taylor Dent was hoping his serve and volley style would give Robin Soderling trouble.  Soderling had other ideas and hardly lost a game winning 6-0, 6-1, 6-1.  Tsonga rebounded after a five set first round match and had a much easier time with countryman Josselin Ouanna.  If Gianni Mina is little Monfils then maybe Ouanna is Tsonga-lite.  Tsonga easily won this 6-0, 6-1, 6-4.  Leonardo Mayer beat the guy that beat Gulbis, Julien Benneteau 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Cilic won in straight sets over Gimeno-Traver.  Youzhny needed four sets to beat Lukas Lacko.  Troicki beat Aussie Carsten Ball in straight sets.  The X man, Xavier Malisse beat Simon Greul in 3 close sets.  Albert Montanes had a fairly easy match over Tobias Kamke in straight sets.

Currently, Garcia-Lopez, the 32nd seed, playing Thiemo de Bakker.  Julien Reister has a 2 set to none lead over Olivier Rochus.

Monfils, Murray, Berdych, Baghdatis, Isner, and Wawrinka scheduled to play today which has seen a few rain delays.