Bjorn Phau is a rather ideal opponent for a struggling Federer.  Federer lost to Ernests Gulbis and should have had a week to train.  His level of play should look better than Gulbis, but it looks about the same.  The scores tell you that Federer won 6-3, 6-4 which seems like a comfortable win.  But consider that Nadal recently played Monte Carlo where he lost 1 game to a top 10 player (Verdasco).  Federer should have won this match more easily, but ended up with one break per set.

It helped that Bjorn Phau was at least as error prone as Federer, but Phau was able to save 7 of 9 break points, saving games that Federer could have won.  Federer did a pretty decent job of rushing to net to win points.

Federer would say that he played reasonably well, that his first serve percentage was low (under 50%), but he only faced 3 break points and saved them all, and was never broken.  However, all this additional rest does not appear to have made Federer that much sharper.  The only solace Federer can take is that he generally plays better as the tournament goes, but he doesn’t seem much sharper than he did in Rome, and certainly far from his great play in Melbourne.  Even so, he moves on to play veteran Arnaud Clement in the next round.

Sometimes it helps to be Roger Federer where opponents feel the need to come up with big shots and give you a few free points.

Montanes, the 4th seed beat Gimeno-Traver, and Cuevas, the 8th seed, beat Granollers.  This event also hosts a women’s tournament simultaneously.

In Munich, Cilic had an easy win over Berrer.  Kevin Anderson won when his opponent, Zverev, retired late in the firstset.  Almagro had an easy straight set win.  Kohlschreiber had to work a little harde to win his match.  In 2nd round play Petzchner over Koellerer in straight sets, Berdych over qualifier Riba in straight sets, Hajek over Benjamin Becker in straight sets, Youzhny over Beck in straight sets.

In Belgrade, Querrey wins over Korolev in straight sets.  Andreev upsets Karlovic in straight sets.  Troicki over Serra in two easy sets.  Wawrinka over qualifier Di Mauro in straight sets.