Federer bounced in Toronto's second round by Simon
TORONTO -- Top-ranked Roger Federer was knocked out of the Rogers Cup with a 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 loss to France's Gilles Simon in a second-round match Wednesday night.
Federer, who won the tournament in 2004 and '06, was playing his first match since losing the Wimbeldon final in five sets to Spain's Rafael Nadal.
"That's just unbelievable for me to win against him," said Simon, who is ranked 22nd in the world.
Federer, who became the first top seed to lose in his first match here since Lleyton Hewitt in 2002, finished second here last year to Serbia's Novak Djokovic.
"The problem was my game today," Federer said.
It was the biggest surprise of a soggy day at the tournament that saw play disrupted for nearly six hours by thundershowers.
Second-seeded Rafael Nadal looks like the favorite now, though he didn't look stellar in his first match, struggling early on before ousting Ottawa-born qualifier Jesse Levine 6-4, 6-2.
There were several other notable upsets on the day. Croatian Marin Cilic ousted 12th-seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo 6-3, 6-4; Sweden's Robin Soderling defeated 13th seed Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-4; Argentina's Jose Acasuso beat 14th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez of Chile 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; and Russian Igor Andreev got past 16th-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
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| Simon: 'For sure, this is my best victory.' (Getty Images) |
"For sure, this is my best victory," Simon said. "I don't think that you win so many times against the No. 1 in the world. It happens maybe in the career of a player maybe two, three times if you are lucky."
The match started off smoothly for Federer until Simon broke his serve to go up 4-2 in the second set. Federer returned the favor and held serve to draw to 4-4 and then 5-5, but Simon held serve in the 11th game and broke Federer in the 12th to take the set.
"As the match went on I struggled a little bit to put the forehands away," Federer said. "He's a good baseliner. We saw that today. He moves well. He's deceiving because he's kind of thin and tall but moves really well for his height, you know. He flicks a lot of balls with his backhand as well, so when you come in you can't see where he plays."
Suddenly, Federer's side of the bracket looks wide open.
