Federer crashes to Gilles Simon

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Roger Federer’s world No.1 ranking is under serious threat after he lost his opening match at the Rogers Cup Toronto Masters on Wednesday.

The top seed made a perfect start to his second round match by winning the first four games against Gilles Simon, but from there things went pear-shaped as the Frenchman came through 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Read the Tennishead Toronto Day 3 Blog

“The hard court season just started so it is not the end of the world but I wish I could have started better,” Federer said.

“I like this surface, I like this tournament, I have done well in the past here so it definitely hurts.

“I have to regroup and look forward. The bigger picture is the Olympic Games and the US Open and those are the places I really want to win so I have to make sure I am ready for that.”

Simon admitted Federer was not at his best in his first match since that Wimbledon final. Not that that took anything away from the joy of beating the world’s best player.

“Even if it was not a good match for him he’s is hard to defeat,” Simon said. “That’s just unbelievable for me to win against him.

“I’m so confident actually because I won the tournament last week [in Indianapolis], and I just wanted to not miss this match.

“I just wanted to fight and play a nice game and play a nice match. That’s what I did tonight, so I’m so proud of it.”

Where Federer struggled, second seed Rafa Nadal cruised as he brushed aside American qualifier Jesse Levine 6-4, 6-2.

There were few upsets among the top seeds – Nikolay Davydenko, David Ferrer, James Blake and Andy Murray all won – although five seeds crashed out on a rain-interrupted day three.

Young Croat Marin Cilic brushed aside 12th seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo, Robin Soderling outlasted 13th seed Fernando Verdasco and Jose Acasuso got past 14th seed Fernando Gonzalez.

Nicolas Kiefer put out 15th seed Mikhail Youzhny while Igor Andreev squeezed past 16th seed Tomas Berdych.

There were also wins for Russian Dmitry Tursunov, Frenchman Richard Gasquet and Swiss Stan Wawrinka, who ended the run of wild card Marat Safin.