Toronto/Montreal (formerly the Canadian Open–the site alternates each year) used to be one of Andy Murray’s favorite tournaments.  Murray won the title in 2009 and 2010.  However, in both years, Murray lost early in the US Open.  In 2009, he lost to the up-and-coming Marin Cilic who is only starting to regain the form he had back in 2009, and in 2010, he lost to Stan Wawrinka.  Both losses were devastating because Murray has always had a special place in his heart for winning the US Open, a title he won as a junior.  In 2011, he changed his strategy for playing the two warm-up hard court tournaments.  In 2011, he was “upset” by Kevin Anderson early in Toronto.   Murray’s thinking was that he was tired heading into the US Open, and this left him less than ready to make a serious charge.

Murray followed that up with a win at Cincinnati over Novak Djokovic who ended up retiring in the second set.

Most non-Olympic years, the very top pros don’t play any of the early hardcourt events in the US Open series.  After playing Madrid, Rome, the French Open, and Wimbledon, most players are looking for recovery time and then time to train.  Most elite players take about a month off and make Canada their first event back.

However, this year, the Olympics meant players were having to play in a week they’d normally have off.  Thus, many of the top players have skipped Toronto, including, most notably, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, though, to be fair, Nadal did not play the Olympics due to an injury, an injury that is keeping him out of Toronto as well.

Despite the quick turnaround, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, and Juan Martin del Potro, all of whom made the medal rounds, have made the trip to Toronto.  I had expected early losses by all of them, although less for Djokovic who might need something to boost his ego.  In any case, as defending champ, he has points to defend unless he wants the gap between him and Federer to grow wider.  The point differential is small enough that Djokovic could still enter the US Open as the number 1 seed, though that seed is, frankly, more honorary than real.  Think of the top two seeds as co-seeds.

Andy Murray’s second round match was against Italian, Flavio Cipolla.  Murray, like all the top seeds, had a bye in the first round.  This turned out to be something of a rout with a score of 61 63.

Djokovic also had a relatively straight-forward win over Bernard Tomic, 62 63.  Tomic started the year off strong in Australia, but since then, he’s lost early, and not really had any deep runs.  Tomic has blamed a lack of focus, partly due to the early success, and he’s still trying to get a game that works out.  Although he’s frequently compared to Murray, Murray has a few strengths that are particularly important, most notably, that Murray is much quicker and returns much better than Tomic.  Murray also hits harder and isn’t nearly as prone to finesse, and that’s become increasingly true under his work with Lendl.  There were rumors that Djokovic was working through personal issues in his life, but Djokovic refused to elaborate, claiming that his personal life is his personal life.

Juan Martin del Potro, who still remains Argentina’s only medalist this year at the Olympics, did not fare nearly as well losing to seasoned veteran, Radek Stepanek.  Whether this was a deliberate loss, or a hangover from winning something that clearly meant a lot to him.

A few other Olympians also lost, icluding Kei Nishikori, Gilles Simon, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Marcos Baghdatis (though he lost to Cilic who was also in the Olympics).  Tomas Berdych finally got a win, though a tough one, over Julien Benneteau.  His summer has not been particularly good, and far from what he had hoped for.  Philipp Kohlschreiber, who played on the Saturday of the first day of Olympic tennis at an event in Kitzbuhel, then withdrew from the Olympics, had a solid 62 62 win over Fognini.

Today, Djokovic will play Sam Querrey and Andy Murray will play home-country favorite, Milos Raonic.

Meanwhile, Roger Federer celebrated his 31st birthday.