The Rogers Cup is the sixth Masters 1000 event of the year.  Four of the events are held in North America with 3 in the United States.  The events start a few weeks after the Australian Open with Indian Wells, then Miami.  Both are week and a half events.   Then, off to Europe.  Monte Carlo, Madrid, and Rome are the next three Masters 1000 events.  Then, there’s a long break until August when the Rogers Cup kicks off the high-powered hardcourt events.

The Rogers Cup is unique in that it’s not at a fixed site.  Because of the politics of Canada with a mostly English-speaking nation and Quebec, which is French-speaking, the Rogers Cup alternates between Toronto in even years and Montreal in odd years (for the men).  This is the first year that men and women are competing the same week, although the women are in Toronto and the men are in Montreal.

Masters 1000 are notoriously difficult.  Top players often have to qualify just to get into the main draw, and unlike a Slam where you can have about two rounds of players ranked lower than 32, you might meet a top player right away.

Today, qualifier Alex Bogomolov, who is having his best year beat Adrian Mannarino in straight sets.  Ernests Gulbis needed a late break to beat Juan Carlos Ferrero in the third set.  Stan Wawrinka appeared to be cruising to an easy victory when he got a bit nervous and let Nalbandian back into the match, but was still able to close in straight sets.  Tall Kevin Anderson beat Pablo Andujar in two close sets.  Alex Dolgopolov had his hands full with Canadian wildcard, Erik Chvojka, needing three sets for the victory.

Djokovic is playing doubles with Janko Tipsarevic.  They already had an upset beating the team of Knowles and Petzschner.  Knowles is a doubles specialist and Petzschner has played doubles well enough to win a Slam with Jurgen Melzer.  Andy Murray is also entered in doubles playing with his brother Jamie.  They will play a Canadian wildcard team to open.  Nadal is also entered with his “usual” doubles partner, Marc Lopez.

None of the top four players have played since Wimbledon except Djokovic and Murray.  Djokovic was expected to play Davis Cup singles, but as a precautionary measure, he chose only to play doubles.  Sweden was participating without Robin Soderling, so even without Djokovic, the Serbians were heavily favored to win.  Murray also played Davis Cup, but Luxembourg has only one serious player in Gilles Muller.  They’re even worse off than Great Britain.  Murray won both his singles matches, and also played doubles, and won that.  Gilles Muller won Luxembourg’s only point.

Federer and Nadal took the entire month off to rest and train.

Soderling and Ferrer only played one tournament, a clay event in Bastad, where Soderling beat Ferrer in the finals.  This was played after Wimbledon, and neither has played since then.  Intriguingly, neither player is playing in the Rogers Cup.  The next two players are Gael Monfils and Mardy Fish, both of whom have played at least two tournaments each.

The usual questions are: is Djokovic still playing as well as ever?  Can Federer beat either Djokovic or Nadal?  Federer, again, is on the same side of the draw as Djokovic (it is extremely rare that Federer and Nadal are in the same half, and exceedingly rare at the Slams–odds suggest it shouldn’t be this rare, but there you have it).  Can Nadal beat Djokovic?  How is Murray playing?  Last year, he played three very solid matches to beat a hot David Nalbandian, then Rafael Nadal, then Roger Federer.  Nalbandian is already out, having only played well for about a month last year.