Roger Federer has come to an age where, in the rare circumstances he plays someone his age, he’s generally overwhelmingly favored.  After all, Roger Federer is 30 years old, the age that many tennis players begin to fade.  And even if Federer hasn’t faded much, his competition has.

Indeed, many of Federer’s rivals reads like a who’s who in frequently injured.  David Nalbandian, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Tommy Haas, James Blake, and Andy Roddick to name a few.  Federer’s success is as much due to his health and that he owes to a playing style that generally puts less stress on his body than most, but also one that allows him breaks if he feels he’s hurting his body.

It’s not that Federer hasn’t lost to players his age, but these moments do come far and few between.  Earlier in the year, Federer lost to Jurgen Melzer.  He’s lost to Lleyton Hewitt.  He’s lost to Nikolay Davydenko.  But he hasn’t lost to Roddick in years, and that’s been his biggest rival of someone his own age.

So it must have been some relief that Roger Federer saw his name near Jarkko Nieminen for his second round match.  The two go way back.  They first played against each other on the pro tour back in 2002.  Unfortunately for the Finn, it’s been all Federer in their 11 meetings over the last decade.  Jarkko hasn’t even taken as much as a set off Federer in all 11 meetings.  The one plus for Nieminen was his recent good play.  He recently reached the finals of Stockholm, the closest thing Jarkko has to a home tournament as there are no ATP level events held in Finland.

Federer looked like he wasn’t planning on dropping a set, however, despite Nieminen’s good play.  Federer won the first set, 6-1.  But Nieminen picked up the aggression in the second set.  With Federer’s first serve percentage in the second set under 50%, Nieminen began to tee off to good success and went up a double-break to completely turn the match around.  Federer secured one of those breaks back, but Nieminen hung tough to win the second set to win his first set ever against Federer.  Nieminen used a strategy that most people use against Nadal which is to outhit Federer, and that’s hard to do.

Unfortunately, Federer’s experience proved too much.  Federer was Federer and broke early in the third set and then kept Nieminen at bay for a 6-3 third set win.

Michael Lammer was hoping to join Roger Federer as another winning Swiss.  Lammer is nearly as old as Federer but, of course, far less successful.  He’s somehow channeled his energy and played well in the Swiss Open.  He pushed Marcos Baghdatis to 3 sets, but ultimately, still lost 76, 67, 63.

In a battle of the geriatric set, Andy Roddick played Tommy Haas.  Haas has been on a perpetual comeback tour.  Every time he plays well, as he did when he reached the Wimbledon semis a few years ago, he gets injured, and has to go back to square one.  Roddick hasn’t been immune to these injuries either as he’s suffered an injury each of the past 3 years.  But today, Roddick had a little too much for Haas beating him 63, 64 to move to the second round.

Valencia

Earlier in the day, David Ferrer beat Vasek Pospisil 63, 63.  Marin Cilic beat Pospisil’s Canadian countyman, Milos Raonic, 64, 64.

Alex Bogomolov continues to show that he has what it takes to be a top 30 player.  It’s interesting that both Bogomolov and Dolgopolov both had dads that coached top Russians in the 1990s.  Bogomolov pulled the upset over Feliciano Lopez  46 64 76.

Juan Martin del Potro continued to play well beating the veteran, Dmitry Tursunov, 64, 61.  Gael Monfils beat Pablo Andujar, 62 76.