Novak Djokovic, sporting his new Sergio Tacchini clothing (once worn by John McEnroe), had a weird match against Marco Chiudinelli, the 3rd best Swiss player and a friend and comtemporary of Roger Federer.

Djokovic looked pretty lackluster, missing easy shots and seemingly distracted losing the first set.  Fortunately, Djokovic woke up taking the next two sets 6-1 before Chiudinelli played a bit tougher in a 6-3 loss in the fourth set.  It’s hard to say why Djokovic struggled a bit, but better to do it against an opponent that wasn’t going to hurt Djokovic much rather than later in the tournament.

There was a handful of each matches.  Nikolay Davydenko was down a little early in his match, but then went on a roll to an easy 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 rout of Illya Marchenko of Ukraine.  Davydenko seems to have a newfound confidence after beating the top 2 players twice in two consecutive tournaments.  There was a question whether he could maintain his level of play for so many matches in best of 5 situations, but he’s hardly being tested, so he should be pretty fresh.

Donald Young has been trying to break through and get into respectable rankings.  A top 30 rank would be nice.  His parents had hoped, with the success he had as a junior, that he’d be in the top 10, perhaps challenging for number 1, and yet, his career has been disappointing and he’s been nowhere near that close.  Young had to qualify because his rank wasn’t high enough.  He reached the second round.  Although Hewitt might be suffering from injuries, he’s still a difficult player.

The first set started off with Hewitt going up 2 breaks and things didn’t look well for Young.  Young, however, broke back twice, and even had a set point at 6-5 with Hewitt serving.  Young netted a down the line shot with Hewitt serving an ace then playing a good point to force a tiebreak, which Hewitt went on to win.  Alas, this was more a blip in Hewitt’s game, and he easily took the next two, 6-4 and 6-1.

Mikhail Youzhny had to work hard to get past Richard Gasquet in the 1st round, cramping at the end.  He had no such trouble in the 2nd round beating Czech, Jan Hajek.  Verdasco also had an easy win over Ukrainian Ivan Sergeyev, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2.

Roger Federer struggled mightily in the first round.  In the second round, he played a player who is just a month older than Roger, Romanian Victor Hanescu.  Hanescu lacks the scary forehand of Andreev.  He serves well, has solid groundstrokes, but lacks the footspeed of Andreev.  Federer had a pretty easy match looking dominating in a way he didn’t in the previous round.  He wrapped up a 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 match with Prince William catching the last few games.

Tsonga had an easy straight set win over Taylor Dent.  Alejandro Falla also won in straight sets over Spaniard Marcel Granollers who defeated Robin Soderling in the first round.  Istomin and Koubek also won their matches in straight sets.

There were quite a few tough matches too.  Nicolas Almagro, the 26th seed, was up 2 sets to none before Becker took the next 2 sets.  Almagro held on in the fifth set to take the match.

Juan Monaco of Argentina was down two sets to love against Frenchman Michael Llodra, then took the third set in a tiebreak before an easy fourth and fifth set.

Albert Montanes, the 31st seed, was in a similar predicament.  Down two sets to none against Frenchman Stephane Robert, he took the next three sets, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.  His reward?  Roger Federer in the 3rd round.

Tommy Haas, the 18th seed, found himself in a dogfight against Serb, Janko Tipsarevic.  Tipsy took the first set, then Haas the next 2, then Tipsy the fourth.  Haas closed out the fifth set, 6-3.

Perhaps the most intriguing of the tough matches was 17th seed David Ferrer against Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus.  Baghdatis has been a crowd favorite ever since he reached the final back in 2006.  He has huge crowd support each time he plays.  For a while, the speedy Ferrer seemed to have too much, and took the first two sets.  Baghdatis scrapped to win the 3rd set in a tiebreak.  This buoyed his confidence and he took the third set, 6-3.  It’s not quite clear why Ferrer found it harder to beat Baghdatis.  He wasn’t moving as well and Baghdatis played aggressive.  Late in the fifth set and up 5-1 and serving for the match, Baghdatis found himself cramping.  Cramping was an issue with Baghdatis back in 2006 when he lost to Agassi.  Baghdatis shook it out and managed to play a few tough shots and close out the fifth set, 6-1, in a big comeback for the Cypriot.

Finally, Lukasz Kubot of Poland won his match against Santiago Giraldo of Colombia, in a match of two unseeded players.

Tomorrow, Andy Roddick faces his first challenge against the big lefty server, Feliciano Lopez.  del Potro is scheduled to play after that match.  Nadal takes on the German, Philipp Kohlschreiber in the evening match.

Andy Murray will play the Frenchman, Florent Serra.  The battle of the Croatians will pit Ivan Ljubicic against Ivo Karlovic.  John Isner will take on the athletic Gael Monfils (the French have a lot of good players, comparable only to Spain).  In a rematch of the Chennai final that took place a few weeks ago, Marin Cilic will play Stanislas Wawrinka.  Wawrinka had a pretty good head-to-head up that point, leading 4-0 until that loss in Chennai.  Expect this match to be a tough one.

Gonzalez is sneaking his way through the draw.  The Australian Open has been the Chilean’s best Slam so far.  He reached the final in 2007 losing to Roger Federer.  He plays Evgeny Korolev of Ukraine tomorrow.

The third round is the first round where seeded players can meet each other, and yet there are only three matches with seeded players playing each other (Isner/Monfils, Wawrinka/Cilic, Nadal/Kohlschreiber).