Sometimes tennis fans forget there are over 1000, nearly 2000 tennis pros.  For many, if there’s 2 digits in your rank, then you’re not worth paying attention to.  Many players with 3 digits to their names are living the dream, playing the pro tour, knowing full well they can’t be a Slam winner.

They hope for a signature win, perhaps like George Bastl upsetting Pete Sampras in the second round of Wimbledon.

So Paolo Lorenzi, a qualifier, playing in his hometown was up against the  so-called king of clay.  Lorenzi fell a break in the middle of the first set.  He was able to break back and take it to a tiebreak where he, surprisingly, won it.

Somehow, improbably, he had taken a set from Rafa.  Let’s ask who took a set off of Rafa last year in the clay season.  It was Almagro and Gulbis, and that was it.  Rafa didn’t drop a set winning the French title.  And yet, here was, playing a guy that looked more like a scruffy programmer than a tennis player and this guy took a set off of Rafa!

Lorenzi is no young’un.  At 29, he’s older than Federer.  But perhaps it takes a veteran to know how to play Nadal.  This is what you need.  You need to have power.  You need to take your chances.  Lorenzi also attacked the net at opportune moments realizing Rafa tends to float his return deep.  It’s a tough shot if you must trade groundstrokes, but it’s a fairly easy volley.   Except, of course, Rafa will stop hitting it deep if you come into net a lot and be more aggressive with his return, which is why you have to pick and choose the times you come to net.

At 4-3, Lorenzi was hoping that maybe he could get a break and engineer the upset of a lifetime, certainly, the upset of the year (Murray’s wild losses not counting).  But, it was the last game he would win.  Rafa would get a break, serve out the second set, and rush to a 6-0 win.

And so, what seemed like a long-shot before the start of the tournament–Djokovic becoming number 1–which briefly seemed within the realm of possibiilty, was vanquished by the best clay courter ever.  And one Italian’s dream, to win the victory of a lifetime, similarly vanished.

Federer had a surprisingly easy win.  He felt his chances were better against Tsonga on clay than on faster surfaces, and he was right, with a 4 and 2 win.  Mayer beat Melzer who retired in the second set.  Almagro beat Querrey in straight sets.  Fish beat Ljubicic keeping one American alive in the draw.  Wawrinka needed 3 sets to beat Italian, Volandri.  However, Italian Starace beat Troicki.  He’ll face Murray in the next round.

Chela had a fairly easy win over Simon and Cilic beat Argentine Berlocq in straights.

The top 5 players in the world play tomorrow.  Soderling-Almagro may be the most interesting, though it will be interesting to see how Gasquet fares against Federer in the battle of the one-handed backhands.