Mid-week summary for Cincinnati

It is getting difficult to be a Roddick fan, these days. After his great run to the semis in Rome was brought to a close by a tweaked shoulder, he hasn't won two matches in a row. Yes, he made the semis in Queens, but that was thanks to a retirement and a walkover. Now he pulls out against Kohlschreiber with injury/illness. I obviously don't hold it against him; there's nothing to be done in those situations. It just shows how amazing it was for Federer to go so long without significant injuries or illnesses affecting his play.

Speaking of the almighty Federus, he wasn't looking too mighty when he was down a set and 6-5, with American Robbie Ginepri serving for the match. He came very close to losing three matches in a row for perhaps the first time in a decade. Good for Robbie for playing so well for as long as he did, but he basically retired after that second-set tiebreak, and didn't even play in that third set.

Retirements and withdrawals have been the most interest parts of the tourney, so far. Ancic, Wawrinka, Kiefer, and Roddick all withdrew before their matches, while Llodra retired down 1-0 in the third set against Gasquet. It's only the third week of the hard court season. The players can't really be that worn down already, can they?

When tennis has been played, there have been some good matches. Stepanek lost to Andreev in three tiebreaks yesterday, for his first win over the wiley Czech. Sam Querrey got a big win over Paul-henri Mathieu, firing 20 aces in three sets. That's the Sam I like to see! Haas beat Youzhny, Moya beat Tipsarevic, and Tursunov beat Safin. All three were good matches, but it was disappointing to see Safin so undone by foot-fault calls. It is interesting to see how similar Marat and Dmitri's games are. They were both just hitting through the other guy as much as possible.

Looking ahead, how will Federer fare against Karlovic when he nearly flubbed it against Ginepri? There are some great matches set to play today, including (but not limited to): Blake v. Simon (Blake needs to win, but there's no guarantee that he will), Querrey v. Murray (Andy should return better than Sam can serve), Haas v. Monfils (this could go either way, but I lean towards the erratic Monfils), Gasquet v. Tursunov, and Davydenko v. Moya. That one in particular should be a baseline rally grind-fest that will end after midnight.

Djokovic, Nadal, and Ferrer should all win pretty handily. Hopefully, the focus today will be on the tennis being played, rather than the tennis not being played.