It looked like Djokovic would have a nice clean win over Xavier Malisse continuing from where he had left off at the US Open.  Six weeks of no tournament play appeared to leave no rust as Djokovic strolled to a 6-2 first set over the veteran Belgian player.  But there were still a bit of rust that Djokovic had to shake off.  Djokovic threw in doubles faults, made errors and allowed an aggressive Malisse to take the second set 6-4.

Djokovic would get an early break in the third set and up that break, Malisse would try to chase a shot down near the net.  Trying acrobatics to avoid hitting the chair of the chair umpire. Malisse, nonetheless, got caught into the side of the chair and twisted his body and landed on his thigh and hand.  Djokovic quickly came over to see what was going on and requested some ice be brought.  Malisse took a time out as they cleaned the blood and wrapped his leg.

Malisse didn’t seem the worse for wear.  He eventually broke back to tie the match.  But Djokovic had the leg up, so to speak.  At 6-5 up, Malisse served and got up 30-0, but made 4 consecutive errors to lose his serve and gifted the Serb the match.

In an interview afterwards with retired Swiss pro, Heinz Gunthardt, who formerly coached Steffi Graf, Djokovic said he had taken 4 weeks off in his worst injury ever.  He had only been training for about a week and a half.  Djokovic also came out at the start of his introduction to the crowd wearing a Joker like mask (he removed it for play, of course).  He says wearing masks is something he likes doing for Halloween and he’s done it in previous years.  He says he normally does it in Paris because Halloween generally falls in that tournament, but this year it was a bit earlier.

Final score: 62, 46, 75

The battle between the American veterans also had an injury.  Mardy Fish was scheduled to meet a resurgent James Blake.  This lasted all of one game as Fish hurt his ankle and had to retire.

Michael Lammer, a 29 year old Swiss veteran, who had to qualify (and beat Bernard Tomic en route) beat Mikhail Youzhny in the first round 64, 63.  He’ll face the erratic Baghdatis who is trying to get his ranking back up once more in the next round.

Andreas Seppi needed 3 sets to beat Gilles Muller 76, 67, 62.

In the battle of the lefties, veteran Jarkko Nieminen, who reached the Stockholm finals, beat lefty Thomaz Bellucci 67, 64, 63.  Croatian veteran, Ivan Ljubicic beat French veteran, Michael Llodra 75, 64.  Swiss number 2, Stan Wawrinka, got one break in each set to beat Croatian Ivan Dodig, 64, 64.

Tomas Berdych, the fourth seed, is hoping to maintain his spot in the final eight but he had a tough first round match against the talented Japanese, Kei Nishikori.  He took the first set, 63, but Nishikori came back to take sets 2 and 3, 63 and 62.  This is Berdych’s second loss to Nishikori.

Tomorrow, Andy Murray, Andy Roddick, and Roger Federer are scheduled to play.

Valencia

  • David Ferrer, top seed, easily beat Fernando Verdasco 63 62.
  • Marcel Granollers upset 7th seed Alexandr Dolgopolov 63 64
  • Third seed, Gael Monfils, easily handled Albert Montanes 63 61
  • Sam Querrey beat struggling Ernests Gulbis 63 64
  • Tsonga struggled against Spanish wildcard, Javier Marti, 46 75 62

Nicolas Almagro and Juan Monaco are in a third set.