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Roger Federer, newly re-instated as the No. 2 player in the world, is one of the top contenders for the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters which kicked off Monday morning in Cincinnati.

With the US Open now just two weeks away, a full flight of top ATP players fills out the draw, including No. 1 Rafael Nadal, the aforementioned Federer, No. 3 Novak Djokovic and No. 4 Andy Murray, who won the Rogers’ Cup crown on Sunday.



Also back on the courts is American Andy Roddick, who revealed over the weekend that a mild bout of mononucleosis knocked him out of the Rogers Cup. Without the ability to rack up points in Toronto, Roddick slipped two more spots in the rankings to No. 13, his lowest rank since July 8, 2002. Roddick won this tournament in 2003 and 2006, and would love to get back into playing form with the US Open right around the corner.

Federer defeated Djokovic in Cincinnati a year ago and also won the tournament in 2005 and 2007. Djokovic has reached the last two finals, also losing to Murray in 2008.

The action started off with a great matchup Monday morning as Marin Cilic defeating Marcos Baghdatis in straight sets, 6-4, 7-5. The 21-year-old Cilic improved to 35-14 on the year, bouncing back from his disappointing loss to Viktor Troicki in the first round of the Rogers Cup.
Ranked 20th entering this week’s play, Baghdatis will likely see another rankings slide. Just two weeks after reaching the finals at Washington D.C., he has lost two opening round matches in a row.

Later on Monday, American Taylor Dent will square off against Spain’s Feliciano Lopez, with the winner taking on Nadal in the second round. Dent, ranked 83rd, is 1-1 all-time against the 24th-ranked Lopez. Born five months apart, the pair is the same height and weight, but play with different hands. Dent has gone just 7-14 this season.

Other intriguing opening-round matches include American Sam Querrey against Germany’s Philipp Petzschner, 15th-seeded Ivan Ljubicic against red-hot David Nalbandian and Lleyton Hewitt against Yen-Hsun Lu.

Querrey has flirted with Top 20 this season, but is currently No. 21. Petzschner is looking to snap out of a five-week slump, having lost in his first match in four straight tournaments.

Nalbandian won Washington and scorched his way to the quarterfinals of Toronto before Murray cooled him off. Regardless he has moved from No. 117 to No. 37 in three weeks. Ljubicic holds a 5-2 all-time record against Nalbandian, but the pair hasn’t played one another since 2007.

Hewitt sat out Toronto with an injury, and is looking to re-find the magic that got him to the fourth round at Wimbledon six weeks ago and saw him win the title at Halle over Federer in early June. Lu missed a chance to take on Roddick for the second time this summer when the latter withdrew from Toronto with illness. The 27-year-old Chinese Tapei native jumped up four spots to a career-best No. 40 this week after qualifying at the Rogers Up and reaching the round of 16. The winner of the Lu-Hewitt match will take on fifth-seeded Robin Soderling.

If the $443,500 prize money for a title isn’t enough to motivate players, then the 1,000 points should, 600 for finalists and 360 for semifinalists definitely should. While Federer jumped past Djokovic for the No. 2 ranking, he leads the Djoker by just 130 points. The battle for the higher ranking, and thus the ability to avoid Nadal until the finals of the US Open is critical. That goes for the rest of the field as well. Roddick might be 13th this week, but he’s just 220 points away from No. 10, currently the home of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.