Roger Federer knows how dangerous it can be to play Alejandro Falla.  Back in 2010, Federer was pushed to the brink, nearly losing to Falla in the first round of Wimbledon.  Falla plays close to the baseline, has a pretty flat style, returns well.  Basically, Falla plays a bit like Federer.  Federer says that he does well if he gets ahead of Falla, puts on a little too much pace for Falla to catch up.  One advantage of staying close to the baseline is robbing time from your opponent, but it works both ways: it robs you of time too.

Throughout this match, Federer looked relatively solid.  He was clearly not playing as well as he did against Murray or Djokovic.  He wasn’t getting easy aces.  He was missing groundstrokes a hair long or a hair wide.  Even so, he had a comfortable lead with a break ahead in both sets.  However, despite getting to match points, Falla started getting more shots in and broke Federer not once, but twice.

At first, it seemed like Federer would run away with the third set with an early break.  But Falla broke back, and kept it even for a game or so.  Despite this bout of trouble, Federer didn’t look like he was in bad shape.  He may not have brought his A game, but his B game is pretty solid.  And, as the match wore on, Federer was starting to find his range again.  He got out of a few tight spots, got a break back, then played a bit of finesse and pulled out a few tricks from his bag to break a second time and take the match.

Up next for Federer will be a familiar opponent in Julien Benneteau who got in the tournament when Monfils was not healthy enough to qualify.  He took care of Mikhail Youzhny in straight sets.  Federer faced both players en route to the title.  Federer won’t have to play Malisse whose ranking was a bit too low and is therefore playing out in Los Angeles.

Malik Jaziri, the Tunisian player that always seems on the verge of doing well in a Slam, but never has a ranking high enough that he’s threatening on a normal tour event, needed three sets to beat Taiwan (listed as Chinese Taipei as a compromise to allow China in the Olympics) player, Yen-Hsun Lu.  Lu had reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon a few years ago when Roddick had a bout with mono, but has yet to reproduce that lofty result.

Dennis Istomin, who beat Alejandro Falla upset Fernando Verdasco in two sets, needing a tiebreak in the second.  Seppi edged out Donald Young, 64 64, in a win that was expected over the American with few good results this year.

Gilles Simon is up a set and a break over Mikhail Kukushkin.

The Murray brothers won a set over Melzer and Peya of Austria.  The Bryans are in a tussle with the Brazilian duo of Bellucci and Sa in a first set tiebreak.