Technically, it wasn’t an upset.

After all, Julien Benneteau, the wily French veteran that pushed Federer to 5 sets last year at Wimbledon, was the 32nd seed, not the young Bulgarian, Grigor Dimitrov.  Never mind that Benneteau reached the semis of Sydney, so he had a good tournament, but Dimitrov reached the finals of Brisbane, and was the darling of the tennis crowd, so much so, that he’s been asked about his relationship with Sharapova, who recently was un-engaged.  While Sharapova has a double-bagel win, Dimitrov lost in straight sets.

Defending champ, Novak Djokovic, showed that he’s the man to beat, beating a fairly tough Paul-Henri Mathieu in straight sets.  Mathieu used to be a top 20 player about 5 years ago, but lost an entire year due to injuries in 2011, and has worked hard just to get to the top 60.  While Mathieu hit a few solid shots and had Djokovic working, he didn’t have enough (not surprisingly) to pull the upset.

Fellow Serb, Janko Tipsarevic, appeared, on paper, to have a really tough first round in playing perpetually injured, Lleyton Hewitt.  Hewitt is making yet another comeback.  He recently won the AAMI exhibition beating Berdych and del Potro en route.  Tipsarevic has been in the top 10 for two years, and attributes his success to a more focused view on tennis, treating it more like an obsession than a 9-5 job that he could walk away from.

Tipsarevic was down a double-break, but played a strong game to come back in the set (called it “crazy playing”), and won the second set in a tiebreak.  Tipsy took the third set with a solid break late in the set and served it out.

How did the Americans fare?  Ryan Harrison drew Santiago Giraldo, a clay courter.  Harrison, however, was the one scrambling, trying to keep up with the wily Colombian.  Giraldo seemed to be a bit unhappy, and Harrison kept his normally volatile emotions in check to win this match in 4 sets.

Brian Baker had to go the full five sets to beat the Russian turned American turned Russian, Alex Bogomolov, Jr.  Baker has been struggling beating Americans lately, so maybe Bogomolov’s switch of nationality helped.  Baker recently lost to a Canadian turned American turned Canadian, Jesse Levine.

Sam Querrey was solid in a four set win over relatively unheralded Spaniard, Munoz-de la Nava.

Steve Johnson, who had to play qualies (and beat Aussie wunderkind, Thanasi Kokkinakis, 17-15 in the third set), pushed 10th seed Nicolas Almagro to 5 sets, but dropped an early serve to give the Spaniard the lead and ultimately the match.

Tim Smyczek, who qualified for the Open, had a tall order in facing Ivo Karlovic.  Karlovic is, these days, frequently injured, and plays on-and-off.  In this case, the American won the match in three close sets, and proceeds to the second round.

Nishikori, who has been bothered by an injury, dropped the first set despite being up a break, and 3-0 in the tiebreak, to Romanian veteran, Victor Hanescu, but took control of the match to win the next 3 sets.

Bautista-Agut, who reached the finals of Chennai and lost in 3 sets to Tipsarevic, won a tough 5 setter over Fabio Fognini.

Jerzy Janowicz, seeded based on his strong showing at the Paris Masters last year, had a shaky lead-up to the Australian Open, but had a comfortable straight sets win over Simone Bolelli.

In the battle of the perpetual Challengers veterans, Somdev Devvarman beat Bjorn Phau in straight sets.

David Ferrer also had an easy win beating one of the few players that’s shorter than him, Olivier Rochus, in straight sets.

Roger Federer and Andy Murray are scheduled to play on Day 2.