Well, It Wasn't a Complete Wash

More than a few matches were played today, despite the rain, with my pick for the whole shebang, Roger Federer, getting a nice workout in.

His opponent today, Sam Querrey, was going to be tricky enough to let Roger get a feel for the tournament off the bat with his big serve and forehand. And with his recent attitude adjustment about playing on clay, I'm sure Sam thought he'd be able to push R-Fed, but such was not the case, obviously. One down, six to go for Rog!

Other thoughts, musings, opinions, what have you about the tennis today:

• Blowing a Gasquet: Richard Gasquet, France's (fingers making quotation marks with MUCH sarcasm) best player dropped out with knee pain. I do hope it's nothing serious, like that case of the summer sniffles at the U.S. Open last year. That was rough! Just kidding, because it would really be nice to see him legitimately get in the mix of players doing big things. His game's great, it's just the mental part.

• Venus Rose: Venus Williams got off to one of her typical Slam slow starts but eventually won in three against a player I can't even think of pretending I know anything about, 35-year-old (that's older than me, and I'm old-34!) Tzipora Obziler. It's good that she tightened up the ratchets, but she's gotta be on top of her game this tournament since it's going to get way tougher.

• So long, "Willies": Now Guillermo Coria I would have expected to lose with his comeback trail kind of kicking off this year, but Guillermo Canas? To Wayne Odesnik, no less. But to Odesknik's credit, he did play well in World Team Cup last week. Nevertheless, it's a great feat.

Matches of the day for tomorrow:
I'll try this again since I apparently goofed with my match picks yesterday: I don't think Stanislas Wawrinka and my man Phil Kohllschreiber got on the court — or were even supposed to! Sorry for the goof; they make the list today!

• Rafael Nadal vs. Thomaz Belluci: Just for the sake of watching Rafa destroy an opponent.

• Aravene Rezai vs. Nadia Petrova: Remember a couple of years ago when Petrova had that career season? For whatever reason — injuries, lack of motivation — it's a thing of the past. I'm going with Rezai for the upset.

• Robin Soderling vs. Juan Monaco: Up until just this weekend, I thought all Swedes nowadays hated playing on clay (no Bjorn Borg wannabes in this bunch). That is until they won the World Team Cup, led by Robin Soderling. This could be an upset here, and if so, I think it could be beneficial to R-Fed down the road, who was drawn to play Monaco in the round of 16.

(Photos: Getty Images)