Of the top four seeds, Andy Murray clearly had the toughest first round.  Djokovic played a guy ranked just outside the top 100.  Federer and Nadal played qualifiers.  Murray played one of the “new four”, that is, one of Harrison, Raonic, Dimitrov, and Tomic.  In particular, Andy Murray was to play Ryan Harrison.

Harrison joined Andy Roddick during the off-season to work out and practice with him.  Harrison has struggled a little with movement especially being pushed to his backhand.  Harrison has a big serve and a big forehand, but he can be inconsistent and can let his emotions affect him.

Right out of the gates, Harrison seemed like a new man. He was playing long rallies with Murray and winning them.  Harrison’s backhand had improved enough to hit hard down-the-line shots for winners.  Harrison started off hot and broke Andy Murray twice.  Murray got one break back but was unable to take the second break, so Harrison won the first set 64.

But one thing that Murray was doing was moving Harrison around and testing his fitness.  Harrison has worked on his fitness, but sometimes fitness shows up in funny ways.  Harrison clearly hit the ball better in the first set, but by the second set, he was missing more.  Once Murray got a break, he seemed to relax and play solid tennis.  Murray’s strategy is often to play patient ball and not to play ultra aggressive.  More or less, this is what he did.  Murray seems to have added some tiny wrinkles to his game, mostly being able to hit shots off the bounce.  Now, this may be more a lazy shot.  Murray seemed to struggle with niggling injuries, be it his knee or ankle or left side of his body.

Once Murray was in the match, Harrison just couldn’t get back the steadiness and power that lead him to a first set win, and it just became a matter of time before Murray won.

Murray looked like he might have to face Xavier Malisse, but Malisse withdrew against Roger-Vasselin, so the Frenchman is Murray’s next opponent.  If Murray gets to the third round, he’ll face either Llodra or Bogomolov both of whom he’d be favored against.

Final score: 46 63 64 62

Novak Djokovic, who played earlier, had a much easier match.  Djokovic got broken early on against Paolo Lorenzi, but then it was cruise control after that with Lorenzi making way too many errors.  Final score: 62 60 60.

Ferrer, Monfils, Chela, Nishikori, Sweeting, Bogomolov, Raonic, and Petzschner won in straight sets.

Ernests Gulbis continues to show he’s incapable of fulfilling his tremendous talent and fizzled once again, this time to Michael Llodra in four sets.

In a small upset, Andrey Golubev beat Mikhail Youzhny in five sets.  Gasquet needed four sets to beat the Italian, Andreas Seppi.

Andy Roddick is currently playing Dutchman, Robin Haase.  Haase has played Roddick tough a few times.