Let’s take a quick look at some of the more interesting matches from Day 1.

Andy Murray vs. Alex Bogomolov Jr. Last year, Murray had part 2 of a post-Australian Open loss funk.  He had lost to Novak Djokovic, then lost to two “American” “juniors” as in Alex Bogomolov Jr. in Miami and Donald Young, Jr. in Indian Wells.  Both went on to have great years and Bogomolov asked to play for Russia despite having been trained in the US during his teen years.  Since then, they’ve met twice more, and it hasn’t been close.  Worse still, Bogomolov is not playing that well this year.  So, this should be a nice match for Murray who has lost early in the two Masters 1000 tuneups (presumably to avoid tiring himself out).

Roger Federer vs. Donald Young.  Young was on track to break the dubious record of Vince Spadea who lost 21 matches in a row.  Young lost 17 in a row, finally won one, then lost again.  However, his losing streak should get back on track against the great Roger Federer.

Lukas Lacko vs. James Blake. Blake seemed to fall off the edge of the rankings.  Once a powerful shot-maker like Federer, but without Federer’s genius nor his propensity to stay healthy, Blake has had a mini-resurgence.  Not as good as Tommy Haas, mind you, but perhaps enough to engineer a win.

Mardy Fish. vs. Go Soeda. Kei Nishikori isn’t the only good Japanese player on tour.  If only China had a player of Soeda’s ability.  Soeda’s improved a lot and even has a victory over Andy Roddick (admittedly, Roddick was not playing well that time of year).  Fish’s form has fallen off ever since he had to deal with heart issues, but he’s been playing somewhat well as of late, so his power ought to be enough to gut out this victory.

Jack Sock vs. Florian Mayer. Don’t think Sock is ready to upset the quirky German.

Michael Russell vs. Gilles Simon.  Don’t think Russell is ready to upset the steady Frenchman.  On the other hand, haven’t seen much of Simon lately.

Kei Nishikori vs. Guido Andreozzi.  Should always be leary of an unknown player who is young.  Andreozzi isn’t that young at 21 years of age, but these days, there’s no huge superteens coming up, so he’s the closest thing.

Robin Haase vs. Feliciano Lopez.  Bit of a toss-up here.  Lopez has more experience, but neither have had an outstanding year.  Lopez had a nice Olympics, though, courtesy of Nadal dropping out.

Tim Smyczek vs. Bobby Reynolds. Two Americans battle it out.

Marcel Granollers vs. Denis Kudla. Kudla and Sock are the Americans just trailing behind Ryan Harrison.  Niehter has had a huge breakthrough though Sock did win the mixed doubles title with Oudin last year.  Granollers should have too much experience and skill to struggle with this.