It was payback time for the defending champions, Swiss Roger Federer, as he would play 2009 US Open winner Juan Martin del Potro in their second round match. Del Potro has been out of contention for quite a while because of a series of injuries. Perhaps the most troubling is his hip injury that not only kept him from defending his title at the 2010 US Open, but also has been giving him some troubles recently. We have to acknowledge, just as Federer himself did, that this 6-3, 7-5 win over the Argentine player came when del Potro wasn’t at his best physical condition. He has been out of the professional circuit for over a year now, and despite some good moments in the second set, it’s quite evident that he is far from reaching his full potential. Roger Federer entered the match with a 6-2 lead their head to head meetings, but like we said, del Potro had won their two most recent encounters. And it’s not just that they are the more recent wins, it’s also a matter of where and when this wins came. The first of the two came in the 2009 US Open final, when the Swiss was two points away from victory, and the later one came at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, just to prove it wasn’t just sheer luck what got del Potro through. It was an easy win for the Swiss Maestro. Federer needed just a break of serve in each set to clinch the one-hour, 32-minute victory. The Federer Express won 83 per cent of his service points and found himself struggling only once in the second set. But it would last long as Federer successfully saved a break point in the sixth game. Juan Martin del Potro really doesn’t have much experience in this tournament. Federer on the other hand has won this ATP World Tour Masters 1000 on four distinct occasions. If he collects his fifth, he will surpass Matt Willander for the most wins at this tournament. Del Potro had only been here in the 2007 edition and even back then he left early on when losing to Moya in the third round. Del Potro has his eyes set on bigger prices. He is soon going to be traveling to the Meadowlands, to get ready for his return to the US Open. â€I will try to train hard to be 100 per cent for the Open,†he said. â€I love this tournament. I want to be there. I want to just play the US Open this year, and then I will have time to take a rest, to think about this season, and to fix all my physical problems.†Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will both see action later on today. Eight-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic became the first man to advance to the third round. Berdych defeated Argentina's Juan Monaco 7-6 (2), 6-0. Ninth-seeded Nicolas Almagro, 10th-seeded Gilles Simon of France and No. 15 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a Wimbledon semifinalist, also made it into the next round
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