That’s more like it.  Federer had been struggling with his game, including a loss to Albert Montanes in Estoril last week.  Although there was a tiebreak in the 2nd set, Federer will look to several positives.  First, his serve percentage was way up, almost near 70%.  More importantly, Benjamin Becker never had a break point on Federer’s serve.  Meanwhile Federer has several break opportunities.  Indeed, one might argue that he should not have gone to a tiebreak.

Late in the 2nd set, looking to break Benjamin Becker, Federer got a short drop shot and had a chance to put the shot away and win the match, but missed wide.  Federer needed a tiebreak where he played solid tennis to win.

Federer looked to different ways to win.  In particular, he drop-shotted a fair bit on short returns and came to net more than he usually does.  While Federer made some errors that has plagued his game lately, they were far fewer than usual.  In two sets, he had 35 winners to 17 unforced errors.  On a bad day, Federer’s unforced error count can easily be twice that high or more, even in a straight set match.

Federer struggled a bit with Becker’s first serve, finding it a challenge to return his serve, but Becker hit enough errors, and Federer played a smart enough game that in the end, the match outcome did not seem in doubt.

Speaking of losses to Federer, the last two men to beat Federer played against each other in the 1st round.  Ernests Gulbis played Albert Montanes, fresh off defending his title in Estoril.  Gulbis was down a break early, but managed two breaks to take the first set, 6-4, then ran away with the second set, 6-1.

Stan Wawrinka had a tight match against Marcel Granollers winning 6-4, 6-4.

Another player that is struggling a little after winning a title in Munich is Mikhail Youzhny who is down 4-1 to Lukas Lacko.

Hanescu beat Andreev who retired late in the 2nd set despite winning the first set.  Baghdatis in straight sets over Chiudinelli.  Schwank in straight sets over Mathieu.  Bellucci in straight sets over wildcard, Riba.  Garcia-Lopez in straight sets over qualifier, Gimeno-Traver.  Petzchner needed 3 sets to beat Fognini.

Sam Querrey is deep into the third set against Munoz-De La Nava.  Querrey won the first set 7-6, lost the second 6-3, and it’s on serve at 5-all, possibly going to another tiebreak.  (It didn’t–Querrey lost 7-5 in the 3rd).

Yesterday, there were some upsets.  Giraldo beat Kohlschreiber.  He had a good run in Rome beating Ferrero and Llodra.  He needed to qualify to get into the main draw in Madrid.  Dolgopolov Jr beat Seppi in straight sets.  Almagro beat Troicki in a tough first rounder in straight sets.