For the first time in nearly a decade, Roger Federer is not a player whom everyone is anticipating to win a major. He is flying under the radar somewhat. But ignoring Federer would be a mistake. Some majors, even back in his era of dominance, saw Roger struggle early. The Swiss maestro has handled his first two opponents this tournament with dominant ease. While that might mean that he has not had an opponent who can make a decent stand against him, it also shows that Federer did not letting his early exit from Wimbledon get to him. He is back to business, cruising through the early rounds as we all expected before this July.

Rafael Nadal has been utterly dominant so far this tournament, but he has yet to face an opponent with the skill set or style of play that can trouble him. That will change in the third round, though, when he faces Ivan Dodig.  This player has defeated him on a very similar surface before at the 2011 Rogers Cup.

Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic struggled a bit early in the second round before cruising to victory. He does not look at his best, though, so perhaps he can play his way into the tournament. 

Wimbledon champion and defending US Open champion Andy Murray also failed to find his best form in the first set of his match and dropped the third set before closing out Leonardo Mayer in four.  Two former US Open champions, Juan Martin Del Potro and Lleyton Hewitt, were set to square off under the lights later on Friday night.

Who Looked Good:

Milos Raonic:  Raonic was not facing the toughest of competition in Pablo Andujar. Andujar is a good player, to be sure, but he lacks weapons that can hurt the big Canadian, preferring clay courts. Raonic won in three easy sets but impressed me most by breaking Andujar six times. When Raonic, not an excellent returner, starts averaging two breaks per set, he becomes much more dangerous.

John Isner:  The top-ranked American man has been incredibly impressive this tournament. Isner’s movement and ball-striking are crisp, and he is winning points from the baseline like he never has before. It remains to be seen whether he keeps this up, but if he can he will be a danger to anyone in this field.

Rajeev Ram: Ram blew a two-set lead and lost in five sets. Why is that impressive? Well, it means that Rajeev Ram took two sets off a solid singles player in Marcel Granollers. That is definitely something that Ram never could have done earlier in his career. Ram has barely been a Challenger level player for a long time, but he is suddenly showing the ability to compete with players on much bigger stages. We will see whether it lasts, but it could be that this serve-and-volleyer will be winning ATP-level matches consistently now.

Who Looked Bad:

Tomas Berdych:  He won in straight sets over a talented young player; what can look bad about that? To anyone who watched the match, two things were clear. Kudla was playing well, while Berdych was not. Berdych allowed Kudla to stay around in rallies too long and gave the young American opportunities that he really should not have had. He got away with doing it this match but would not if he were facing a better or more experienced player. Berdych blew a 5-1 lead in the first set before winning it in a tiebreaker. He moves on to play another day, but he will have to do better if he wants to equal last year’s semifinal appearance.

Alexandr Dolgopolov:  This is less about how he looked in this particular loss than about the state of his career in general. What has happened to Dolgopolov? He was once an incredible talent with a tremendous upside who was flying up the rankings. Now he is the same talent but just rarely seems to win matches. Dolgopolov has a blood disorder, granted, but he managed to compete very well when it was affecting him before. He needs to figure out what has gone wrong and fix it fast.

Sam Querrey:  Some of the same statements apply to Querrey as to Dolgopolov. What has happened to this once-promising American? Sam has struggled to play a good full match all year. Mannarino is talented, so this four-set, three-tiebreak loss by itself was not a disaster. But Querrey will fall out of the top 30 after this tournament. If he does poorly in the final two months of the season, he may be looking at not being seeded in Melbourne. Unfortunately for him and for American tennis, that would seem fitting.

Match of the Round:

I could, and probably should, give this slot to Gael Monfils vs. John Isner. But that match has been talked about enough. I want to look at another match here. Tim Smyczek and Alex Bogomolov Jr. spent hours on court duking it out over five sets. It was a match that really could have gone either way at any time. Both played solid tennis and were at their best level for much of the match.

Bogomolov is the more consistent of the two by a small margin and showed it in the first three sets. Bogomolov was barely outplaying Smyczek, but viewers  could see that he had relative control of the match. It was only a strong second-set tiebreak by Smyczek that had him still in the match anyway.

Smyczek picked his level up, though, and both were playing strong points throughout the fourth set. Smyczek got the deciding break and then broke again to start the fifth set. That was not the end of things, though, as Bogomolov broke back.

Then, the tense encounter turned towards a bizarre finish. When Bogomolov was serving at 4-4 30-15, he called for a medical timeout. Nothing seemed to be wrong, but he received heavy strapping on his thigh. He played strongly even after that, though, but did not win another point. While this end might feel a little anticlimactic, it seemed that even the injured Bogomolov could have still come back at any point. Smyczek had an emotional reaction to his best career showing at a major, not to mention a big win in the sort of dramatic match that he usually loses.  He celebrated as though he had won the tournament. And, to him, maybe he had. With Marcel Granollers up next, this rising American can put his main-draw wild card to great use.