Rome Second Round

Tomorrow, we'll wrap up the second round of the Rome Masters. We've had a handful of upsets already, so the landscape of the tournament may look a little bit different than what people had expected.

Juan Carlos Ferrero was the first surprise casualty, as he was duffed up by Colombian qualifier Santiago Giraldo. The Spaniard might have been tired from all the tennis he was playing, but I didn't see the match, so I can't really explain how he looked in his loss. Here's hoping he recovers in time for the French. He made the final there twice, winning in 2003. He had the semifinals the two years before that. However, since then, he hasn't made it past the third round. Maybe because he played too much during the rest of the clay season?

The other seed to fall on Monday was American Sam Querrey, but his loss wasn't really an upset. Really, the upset was when his compatriot John Isner beat Horacio Zeballos, who is a good player on clay. Querrey served for the match in the third set against Frenchman Julien Benneteau, but he ended up being broken and losing in a tie-break. He redeemed himself a bit as he and Isner squeaked out a win against Tsonga and Wawrinka in doubles, but he can play better on clay, and he'll need to if he wants to break into the top 20.

Today, there were a few more upsets. Mikhail Youzhny fell apart at the end of his match against Lleyton Hewitt, giving the Australian number one his second victory over a player in the top 100 this year. A good win for Hewitt. Juan Monaco also fell to Victor Hanescu, which is a bit of a surprise, but both of those players are good clay courters, so anyone could have come out on top.

The last upset of the day was also the most shocking. Ernests Gulbis upset world number one Roger Federer, 7-5 in the fifth set, after Federer won the first 6-2. It wasn't like Gulbis came out playing poorly. Fed was just playing vintage tennis for the first eight games. But after that, he went off the boil, and Ernests won the second 6-1. He had 7 match points in the third, and on the first six, he made unforced errors. Two of them were double faults. On the seventh, mercifully, Federer sunk a bankhand return into the net.

First of all, this is a huge win for Gulbis. While Federer played poorly today, lots of players can't beat Federer even when he's playing that bad. Gulbis nearly came up short. The nerves got to him at the end of the match. He was surprisingly candid in his post-match interviews, in that he was basically "shitting his pants." That's as far as a lot of players get, but Gulbis is so talented, he managed to collapse over the finish line. Personally, I'm hoping that it's a mark of things to come. There's no reason that Gulbis shouldn't be top twenty, maybe even top ten, with as much talent as he has. He's had trouble following up big wins before, but he's got a day to rest before he faces either Volandri or Benneteau, either of whom should be more easily dispatched than Federer, even at his forehand-shanking worst.

As for Federer, some people are sounding the alarm bells after three consecutive tournaments with surprising losses: Baghdatis, Berdych, and now Gulbis, the least accomplished of the three. I would be worried, if not for the fact that Federer managed to find the level of play he needed at the Australian Open. He's 6-4 in matches outside of grand slams, and 7-0 in them. I've been wondering whether Federer can still manage to care about all of the little tournaments. He's won so many of them, it was tough for me to see how he could keep playing his best, week after week. And so far this year, it seems like he can't. We'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks - I expect Federer can win Estoril again, but the big test will be whether he can play like AO-Federer at the French Open again.

The rest of the action that took place today was relatively boring and doesn't merit a lot of mention. Djokovic cruised, Murray finally got a win, Ferrer won, as did Almagro and Bellucci, who will face Isner in the next round. Since most of the top players played today, the remainder of the action tomorrow gives us less opportunity for fireworks, in all likelihood.

Soderling, Nadal, and Verdasco are all in action. It will be interesting to see how all three of them do, since they all have to be in the conversation at the French Open. Marin Cilic, JW Tsonga, and Tomas Berdych also all play their first matches tomorrow, as well. Berdych faces Wawrinka, which could be a cracker of a match. The other potentially exciting matches include Ljubicic against Almagro and Belluci against Isner, the last American in the singles draw. We'll see if he can keep the flag flying for one more round.