Federer, who announced earlier this week that he and girlfriend Mirka Vavrinec are expecting their first child this summer, is the No. 2 seed in the 96-player field. Nadal, who will play his second-round match Sunday afternoon, is No. 1. Those two could meet for the 20th time in the March 22 final.
A more immediate concern for Federer, however, is working his way through a bracket that is set up for possible semifinal round meeting between him and No. 4 seed Andy Murray of Great Britain, who wasn’t at his best but still beat Albert Montanes of Spain, 7-5, 6-3, in their second round match.
American James Blake, the No. 13 seed, beat Jarkko Nieminen of Finland, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3., and 17th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez of Chile got past Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the night’s final match.
In other late matches, No. 8 seed Gilles Simon of France struggled to a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 win over Lu Yen-Hsun of Taiwan, but the women’s field lost No. 2 seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, who was upset by 17-year-old Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia, 6-4, 6-4.
The loss continued an early season slump by Jankovic, who finished last year No. 1, but changed her training routine during the offseason and said she lost mobility in the process.
“My best weapon was my legs,” Jankovic said. “I always moved well and I had the anticipation and I was always on the ball. Now I just cannot do that. I’m one step too slow or one step too much into the shot, and then all the strokes break down and I don’t have the timing and my accuracy is not there. Overall, everything is wrong. I need a lot of work.”
Federer, who was playing for the first time since withdrawing from a tournament in Dubai and the first round of Davis Cup due to back problems, said he felt OK.
“I was happy,” he said. “A bit rusty maybe, coming back from not having played. But it was OK. I’m happy I’ve won. That’s always most important.”
Murray said essentially the same thing after his win while complaining of being tired due to a heavy early season schedule.
“I saw that I wasn’t going to play my best tennis and it would be dumb to think like that,” Murray said. “I thought I moved great, the best I had moved in quite a while. I wasn’t hitting the ball particularly well, but I moved well.”
On the women’s side, No. 3 seed Elena Dementieva also complained of being tired. But unlike Murray, she didn’t move well and lost, 7-6 (2), 2-6, 6-1, to 24-year-old Czech qualifier Petra Cetkovska, 7-6 (2), 2-6, 6-1, in another second-round match.
Defending champion and No. 5 seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia began her quest for a second straight title with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus and men’s No. 11 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France beat Teimuraz Gabashvili of Russia, 7-5, 6-3.
No. 7 seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland beat Samantha Stosur of Australia, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, to join younger sister Urszula Radwanka in the third round. Urszula Radwanka, ranked No. 107 to her sister’s No. 10, had advanced by overcoming a sprained ankle on the second match point to upset No. 6 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, in a match that ended shortly after midnight on Saturday.
Dementieva, who was playing in her seventh event of the young season, said she will take a couple of much-needed days off and then get ready for the next tournament, at Miami.
“I just feel like I probably shouldn’t (have) come here because ... I just needed to take some time off and get ready and recover. I just needed a much longer break to get ready to play at my best,” she said. “It was a very short period of time (off) after Dubai. When it was time to start practice again I was just too tired. That probably was the worst match for a long time for me.”
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It was the best match ever for Cetkovska, a pro since 2000 with a career-best ranking of No. 49 in June, 2008. She had a win over then-No. 11 Marion Bartoli last year, but said “I didn’t expect” to beat Dementieva.
“The key I think is that I was still playing and still trying to believe that I can do it and to play every point and we’ll see what will happen,” said Cetkovska, who lives in Paris.
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