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Although Gael Monfils and Kei Nishikori produced the most exciting match in the early session of Wednesday's ATP Rogers Cup action, Roger Federer still received much of the attention for his easy victory in Montreal. One day after celebrating his 36th birthday, the second-seeded Federer defeated Canadian wild card Peter Polansky 6-2, 6-1 in his first match since winning Wimbledon on July 16.
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Federer was so dominant in the match that his post-match interviews dealt mostly with his birthday.
The Swiss superstar admitted he received five cakes and went to a Coldplay concert at The Bell Centre Tuesday night.
"The thing is that they are big cakes, and you have to eat them during the week," said Federer. "It's good I'm doing some sport this week."
Federer lost just three points on serve in the first set against Polansky, who is ranked 117th, and he was never seriously challenged.
Federer has a 32-2 match record for the year, and has won both of the Grand Slam events he entered -- the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
Later in the day, Monfils saved four match points while upsetting the fourth-seeded Nishikori 6-7 (4), 7-5, 7-6 (6) victory.
It was the first time the Frenchman had come from a set down against a top-10 opponent in seven years.
Monfils trailed 2-6 in the third-set tiebreaker, which gave the Japanese star a quadruple match point. But Monfils won six straight points to steal the match away.
"It's a good victory for many reasons," said Monfils. "It's a big revenge, because last year around this time I had the same thing actually against Kei. I was up 6-2 in the tie-break in the Olympics in the quarterfinals and I lost the tie-break. So I know exactly what he feels.
"I needed courage and a lot of luck. Matches like this depend on luck also. As I said, in the second set, he started off better than I did. It took time for me to get into it after the first set. I was able to play at a higher level at 5-2. The same thing happened in the third set. Now, for the last points, I needed to be brave and also have some luck -- a lot of luck."
Monfils will next face 12th-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain, who knocked off American Ryan Harrison 7-5, 6-2.
Also Wednesday, 18-year-old Canadian Denis Shapovalov upset Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 7-6 (4).
In one other upset, David Ferrer of Spain eliminated 15th-seeded Jack Sock of the United States 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-1.
In other matches, seventh-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria knocked off Mischa Zverev of Germany 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; 16th-seeded Nick Kyrgios of Australia defeated Paolo Lorenzi of Italy 6-2, 6-3; 11th-seeded Pablo Carreno-Busta of Spain eliminated Kevin Anderson of South Africa 6-3, 7-6 (6); and Robin Haase of the Netherlands defeated Ernesto Escobar of the United States 6-4, 6-1.
Top-seeded Rafael Nadal played his opening match of the tournament later Wednesday.
