On a day in which a trio of top seeds were eliminated from this week’s stop on the ATP Tour in Cincinnati, both Roger Federer and Andy Murray moved onto the third round and remain on track for a potential quarter-final matchup at this year’s Western and Southern Open. 

While the aforementioned duo managed to get the job done in their second round matches, No. 4 seed Tomas Berdych, No. 7 Grigor Dimitrov and No. 9 Ernests Gulbis were not so fortunate. The talented Bulgarian ran into a red-hot Jerzy Janowicz, who simply proved to be too much to handle on the afternoon, winning in three very entertaining sets 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 and the same held true for Czech No. 1, as Yen-Hsun Lu came back from being down a set to pull off the upset 3-6, 6-3 and 6-4. 

As far as Gulbis is concerned, things were not so cut and dry. The polarizing Latvian was his usual inconsistent self, putting up next to no fight in losing to American wild-card Steve Johnson 6-4, 6-4. Ever since his unexpected run to the semi-finals at the French Open, the No. 13 player in the world has gone 2-4 and has to get past the second in round in any event. 

While Murray had next to no trouble with Joao Sousa, winning in rather convincing fashion 6-3 and 6-3, Federer had a much tougher go of things. The No. 2 seed was pushed the distance by Vasek Pospisil, as the young Canadian gave the seventeen-time Grand Slam champ all he could handle over the opening two sets, before the Swiss Maestro took his game to another level in the third to close out the match 7-6, 5-7, 6-2. With the victory Mr. Federer becomes the first player to ever record 300 wins at the ATP Masters 1000 level after falling just short of achieivng the benchmark during last week's Rogers Cup Final against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. 

Spaniard David Ferrer was involved in what was arguably the match of the day, as he outlasted Philipp Kohlschreiber after three grueling sets, 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 7-6(4), whereas No. 5 seed Milos Raonic breezed through his second round match over Robby Ginepri, losing just one point on his first serve for the entire match, en route to a rather comfortable 6-2, 6-2 victory and will now face Johnson in round number three. 

Other second round winners included Julien Benneteau (6-2, 6-2 over James Ward), Marin Cilic (7-6(6), 7-6(5) over Fernando Verdasco), Fabio Fognini (6-1, 6-4 over Lleyton Hewitt), John Isner (6-3, 7-6(1) over Marinko Matosevic), Gael Monfils (6-4, 6-1 over Roberto Bautista Agut), Tommy Robredo (6-2, 6-4 over Sam Querrey) and Mikhail Youzhny (6-3, 6-4 over Andreas Seppi).