With all the rain that affected play on Wednesday and Thursday, matches were backlogged.  Matches that were supposed to be played Thursday were pushed into today.  In an effort to catch up, matches that were originally planned for today, i.e. 3rd round matches, were played today.

All top 5 seeds play Friday which include Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, and Soderling.  But one of the most intriguing matches came from Mardy Fish.  This year has to be one of the best years for Americans at the French.  This is, alas, not exactly a compliment.  Most years, nearly all the Americans exit in round 1, with maybe 2 going to later rounds and one of the two losing in the 2nd round.

This year, hopes were a little higher with the surprising clay results of Querrey and Isner who reached the finals of Belgrade.   Little did anyone know that Querrey would suffer burnout at the French.  Querrey complained of not wanting to be on court and lost to fellow American, Robby Ginepri.  That left Ginepri, who had had a lackluster year so far into the second round, where he faced Potito Starace.  Starace is one of those clay courters that should have had enough savvy to beat Ginepri, but perhaps, buoyed by his success over Querrey, Ginepri found enough confidence to beat Starace and did so in 4 sets.

Mardy Fish is best buddies with James Blake.  Their fortunes seem inextricably tied with one another.  When Blake was reaching the top 10, Fish was in the top 20.  Now that Blake is about to fade out of the top 100, Fish doesn’t seem too far behind.  Ranked at 97, Fish’s chances at the French seemed unlikely.  Fish is more of a fast court player, playing a style much like Blake.   But Fish won a tough five setter in the first round against Berrer and found himself pitted against 14th seeded Ivan Ljubicic.

This was a match of the old guys.  Ljubicic is 31 and is having a pretty good year.  After 3 runner up finishes in Masters 1000 events, Ljubicic held together mentally tough at Indian Wells, and beat Rafa in 3 sets and beat Roddick in the finals.  Ljubicic found himself down 2 sets to 1 against Fish, but quickly turned around the fourth set, winning 6-2, then going a marathon fifth set.  Ljubicic broke at 8-all to 9-8, and at 30-0 up with Fish approaching the net, Ljubicic blocked a backhand pass past Fish and did a dance.  A big serve and Ljubicic raised his arms in victory.

For those who saw Nishikori win Delray Beach in 2008, where he beat Sam Querrey in the semis and James Blake in the finals, many wondered whether this would be the next great Asian tennis star.  Japan has produced one other recent pro of note, Shuzo Matsuoka, who was a pretty decent grass court player.  Nishikori is more like today’s player, aggressive off the ground.

Unfortunately, Nishikori injured his elbow right before the clay season last year and was out the rest of the year.  This year, he’s been working his ranking up by playing Challengers and has had some success doing so winning Savannah and Sarasota on clay.  Nishikori’s first round match was against Santiago Giraldo.  Normally, this match might be hard to call.  Who is Giraldo, after all?  But a while back, he beat Juan Carlos Ferrero easily, so it seemed he might be a guy on the rise.  Nishikori had only played one ATP level event and lost early.  So it seemed Nishikori wasn’t ready to play with the big boys yet.  Apparently, not so.  The talent that Nishikori showed as an 18 year old winning his first tournament in 2008 was there again, and Nishikori won in 5 sets.

Nishikori’s reward was to play Novak Djokovic.  Under normal circumstances, Djokovic’s name would be put among the favorites to win the French.  He’s got a versatile game that works on clay and hard courts.  And yet, because Djokovic was mentally flaking out since Australia, especially at Miami where he lost in the second round, and in Belgrade where he lost to Filip Krajinovic and then blamed the loss on allergies, many were looking past Djokovic and ready to talk about yet another Federer-Nadal final.

While this is still the odds-on final, Djokovic, when he’s playing well, is still a formidable clay court player.  He pushed Rafa last year during the clay season and had a very good season after the US Open (and including the US Open) up to the ATP World Tour Finals.  Djokovic has alternate bursts of unexplainable mediocrity and moments where he looks like a solid contender to win a Slam.

Late in the third set, with the score 4-3 and Djokovic trying to hold serve, Nishikori had several opportunities to break and perhaps force a fourth set.  In the rallies, you got a sense why Nishikori is one of those promising up-and-comers, but you also got a sense of Djokovic starting to play good tennis again.  Both moved the ball around well, but in the end, Djokovic was able to hold then break and hold and move to the next round in straight sets.

Federer played a qualifier in Julian Reister.  Reister wasn’t expected to give Roger much work, but this was the 3rd round after all, and he had beaten Olivier Rochus who, while not top 10 talent, has remained a solid player his entire career.  As with his other matches, Federer wasn’t able to take advantage right away.  He and Reister played even until 4-all when Federer upped his game, broke, and held for the set.  Then, Reister seemed to lose some belief as Federer broke him 3 more times to win the second set, 6-0.  Apparently, Reister was able to be more competitive in the third set, but still lost 6-4.

Rafael Nadal continues to beat folks he should beat.  Horacio Zeballos is a solid clay courter, much like Seppi or Starace or any number of solid clay courters that don’t give a player of Nadal’s caliber much pause.  Straight set win for Nadal.  Nadal is going to play Lleyton Hewitt in the third round.  Hewitt’s probably tired of seeing Nadal again.  Hewitt has played Nadal 4 times in the last 6 years.  Hewitt needed 5 sets to beat Istomin.  Even if he weren’t tired, beating Nadal will be a tall order.

After the five setter with Monfils, Fognini was not really ready to take on Stanislas Wawrinka who was not going to mess around the way Monfils did.  Wawrinka plays more offensive than Monfils does and won the match over the plucky Italian in straight sets.  Wawrinka’s reward for his hard work is to face his former Olympic doubles partner, Roger Federer.  Federer recently beat Wawrinka in Madrid rather handily.  Even so, Wawrinka will be Federer’s first tough opposition, though one he’s expected to win.

Cilic needed 5 sets to beat Leonardo Mayer of Argentina, a relatively tough clay courter.  Robin Soderling got his first challenge against Albert Montanes dropping his first set, but won in four sets.  The two will meet each other in the fourth round.  The two have never played each other.  Soderling should be favored, but it could be close.

Looking at the draw, it was hard to believe that Murray could beat Baghdatis, but once he fought his way past Gasquet and past Chela, I felt he had good chances to beat Baghdatis.  Murray has finally adapted his game on clay to be more of the kind of offensive player that he needs to be on clay.  In particular, although Murray wasn’t going for winners, he was happy enough moving Baghdatis around making him run and run, then deftly hitting drop shots or luring him to net where he’d make a good pass.  Murray took the first two sets easily, but dropped the third 6-0 and was down a break in the fourth before he turned on the groundies and took the fourth 6-2.

Murray’s recovery into solid tennis is nearly as impressive as Roger Federer.  Where I can see Roger Federer holding back what he wanted to do until the French, I felt Murray has taken a crash course in clay court tennis and adapted his game in only a month’s time.  It probably doesn’t hurt Murray that Baghdatis’s first serve percentage is generally as bad as his first serve percentage and in this match, he put in a very good 62% of his first serves, but Baghdatis was only around 40% (a number not too uncommon for Baghdatis).  In the end, Murray won because he was able to impose himself in the rallies and play enough touch shots to upset Baghdatis’s timing.

Up next for Murray is Tomas Berdych.  Berdych has done what few have done.  Return Isner’s serve.  A typical Isner match goes something like this: Isner serves bombs, and takes you to a tiebreak, and he wins the tiebreak.  Isner doesn’t break a lot, but he usually doesn’t get broken a lot either.  Apparently, Berdych had few issues breaking Isner 7 times, and never facing break point himself, winning 6-2, 6-2, 6-1, perhaps one of Isner’s most lopsided wins.  Berdych will be a tough opponent for Murray, but Murray tends to like big hitters provided they are inconsistent.  I think he has a solid chance to reach the quarters, though Berdych will likely press him.  I don’t quite trust Berdych’s mental consistency yet.

Tsonga had to work hard to beat Dutch player Thiemo de Bakker.  Tsonga lost the first set in a tiebreak, got the second in a tiebreak, and took sets 3 and 4 comfortably.  Tsonga will play the winner of Troicki-Youzhny.  Troicki won the first set 6-2, but is down 4-2 in the second set.  They have maybe another hour to an hour and a half of play before it gets too dark.

Like Andy Murray, Verdasco had a four set win losing the third set, 6-0.  Other than that hiccup, Verdasco looks solid in his 2nd round win.  Melzer, the 22nd seed, beat Mahut in four sets.  Bellucci needed five sets to beat Spaniard Andujar.  David Ferrer continues to roll with a 6-2, 6-2, 2-0 retirement over the Belgian, Xavier Malisse.  Ferrero needed 4 sets to beat fellow Spaniard, Riba.  Hanescu, Kohlschreiber, and Almagro won in straight sets.  In a bit of a surprise, Dolgopolov beat Gonzalez in straight sets.  Gonzalez was a semifinalist last year losing to Soderling.

Tomorrow, Djokovic plays Hanescu.  Djokovic should win.  Nadal plays Hewitt.  Nadal should win.  Roddick plays Gabashvili.  Roddick should win.  Verdasco plays Kohlschreiber.  This is a tough one, but Verdasco should win.  Melzer vs. Ferrer.  Ferrer should win.   Ferrero vs. Ginepri.  Ferrero should win.  Ljubicic vs. Bellucci.  Hard to call.  Bellucci has better results on clay, but Ljubicic is a wily veteran.  The two have never met.

So another day full of action tomorrow!