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Simon's past against Ferrer isn't pleasant, but he won the only hardcourt match they played

It seems both these players are still a certain enigma on this tournament. Tomic had hip problems, so Ferrer didn't play the second round, and Simon wasn't brilliant in his match (39 errors). He passed through, though, and will definitely be much more motivated to play against Ferrer

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Ferrer rarely showed good tennis when just coming to America, but he raised the bar in that segment in the last years. He played semifinals of this tournament in the last two years, and had very good performances on the Masters.

This is especially true this year, because he got finals and quarterfinals, and both times he was defeated by a black cat of his, Federer (he has 0-16 against him). This time, at least he managed to get a set both times, and what's great for the Spaniard is that he got to those matches by celebrating in the previous matches when he didn't play his best tennis.

That's the scenario we saw in the first round here, when he faced Dzumhur who played this tournament for the first time. His tennis got bad in the third set, and he unexpectedly lost one set, but stabilized himself in time. His current self-confidence helped, and the expected win became real.

The next round brought Tomic, and the match sounded like a much bigger challenge because the Australian got in a great form in the last months. It seemed that Tomic's hip problems from the beginning of the season were in the past, but we were proved wrong. The hip problem made Tomic forfeit without even showing up on court. His last match did show there could be problems because he asked for medical assistance while playing against Brown, and he even said after the match that he was lucky to have been able to celebrate in three sets.

So, Ferrer got to third round in a really easy way. His next opponent, the uncomfortable Gilles Simon didn't have a tough job coming here, either. The French had lots of injury problems this season, but is ready now, and he showed it with two simple wins.

First, he routinely dealt with Albot, who's still not mature enough for this level, and then he had a bigger challenge in Delbonis. That match was evened out for more than half of the time, and then Simon got better by the end of the third set. Simon did an 8-1 series at 5-5 in that match, and deserved to get his place in the round of 16.

We should mention that there wasn't much quality in that match, and the points often ended with players' errors. Simon had 39 (almost double the number than the winners), and Delbonis had the huge 57 errors. All in all, the player who celebrated was less bad, and it seems Simon is still a big enigma here. 

Surely the matches like the two previous ones aren't as inspiring, but he lives for matches like this one against Ferrer. He didn't have good experiences against the Spaniard so far, and got defeated in five out of six matches they played. He didn't win one set in those, but it's important to mention they were clay matches mostly, and the only match they played in the open hardcourt (Cincinnati 2011), Simon won.