On the heels of the news that Rafael Nadal will not play the US Open, the top seeds were on court at Cincinnati after receiving byes in the opening rounds.

Last year, unknown Alex Bogomolov beat Andy Murray during one of his slumps.  That victory was still enough to boost the former and now Russian’s confidence to win enough matches to get his rank high enough that he decided to play for Russia despite having lived and trained in the US since he was a teen.  This year, his play has been sketchy, much like Donald Young, who also had a victory over Murray last year and went on to have a decent US Open.

Bogomolov’s struggles continued as he had to face top seed, Roger Federer, who had an efficient, 63 62 win.

On Tuesday, a second round match was played amidst a bunch of first rounders being completed.  That was quirky, finesse player, Bernard Tomic, and the feel-good story of the year, Brian Baker.  Baker had made the finals of Nice, having not played in the main tour for years due to a succession of surgeries that left the Nashville native wondering if he’d ever play pro tennis despite a promising junior career.  Baker made it to the second round of the French Open and the fourth round of Wimbledon where he lost to Kohlschreiber, a player he beat in the first round of Cincy.

Baker’s return to home soil, despite fields that were decimated by players playing in the Olympics and playing on surfaces he’s most familiar with in his own home country, has shown that it’s hard to play the upset king for long.  Baker had not won since Wimbledon.

Baker played in Atlanta and lost to Kunitsyn in the opening round, then went to Los Angeles and lost to fellow American, Rajeev Ram.  In Washington DC, Baker lost to Florent Serra.  Finally, Baker decided to play a Challenger event and lost to Maxime Authorn, ranked nearly 200.  All four men are ranked between about 120 in the world to about 200.  These are the kinds of losses that typical Challengers deal with, but usually, a few wins sprinkled in, so it was a surprise that Baker seemed on track with a win over a highly ranked played in Kohlschreiber.

Tomic, who has himself struggled since the Australian Open, wanted to follow up his opening round victory over Ryan Harrison with another win over an American, and did so comfortably, 64 63.

Mardy Fish had a nice win over Carlos Belloq, 63 61.  Radek Stepanek upset Juan Monaco, 76 61.  Monaco recently made the top ten, but is noted as a clay courter.  Stan Wawrinka had a nice upset of David Ferrer, 64 61.  Nishikori needed 3 sets to beat James Blake, 26 64 64.  Raonic beat Baghdatis, 67 63 64.  Tomas Berdych, who has been struggling as of late, beat Yen-Hsun Lu, 63 64, and will play Raonic next.

In the stacked bottom half, Juan Martin del Potro made easy work of Tommy Haas.  He’ll face Troicki, who had a surprisingly easy win over Lleyton Hewitt.  Andy Murray had a comfortable win over Sam Querrey and will play Jeremy Chardy next.

Tipsarevic had to retire as he felt unwell against Pablo Andujar.  Andujar will play Marin Cilic who had to play two close sets to beat Jesse Levine.  Davydenko shows a bit of form beating Florian Mayer, but will have to play top seed, Novak Djokovic, who had a tight opening set against Andreas Seppi, but close comfortably in the second.