by Pete Bodo

Howdy, everyone. This is a good day to celebrate. First of all, Kimiko Date Krumm marked her 40th birthday today with a win over Daniela Hantuchova in Tokyo, a day after beating former No. 1 Maria Shaparova. And Juan Martin Del Potro returned to the ATP tour—although his day ended rather less festively, with a loss to a player who stands a full foot shorter than the 6-6 Delpo, Oliver Rochus.

Delpo, the No. 5 seed in the PTT Thailand Open, played his first official match since he lost to Marin Cilic in the fourth round of the Australian Open way back in January. But it seems like his right wrist is back in perfect working order. Given that he rained down 16 aces in a 6-7, 4-6 loss, I’d add, “Amen!”

It’s good to have the big lug back, isn’t it?

A few housekeeping notes: To those of you who saw and pointed out that I misidentified Novak Djokovic as the man Roger Federer said he hoped would win the U.S. Open (Federer meant Rafael Nadal), I can only say, “Sorry.” I knew Federer was talking about Nadal, I was in the room when he made his remarks, I reviewed the transcript, my brain said he was talking about Nadal. . . and my fingers typed “Djokovic.”

Some of you will undoubtedly see some kind of Freudian slip there, but the reality is that this kind of thing happens quite often—at least it does to me, and others like me, who have to produce a lot of work, day-in, day-out, often on a deadline, self-imposed or otherwise. Sometimes it’s tough to write as clean as I’d like, and you’ve all noticed typos and misspellings in posts now and then. Those of you who have struggled to write something—anything—and know the feeling of looking at your words so long and hard that you can’t see some things that will be obvious to a fresh reader’s eyes, will know what I mean.

And let me clarify something. I don’t blame The Mighty Fed for being a bit of a sourpuss after his loss to Djokovic. Almost all the great players, and plenty of so-so ones, claim they rarely watch tennis. (They also say they never read what’s written about them. But heaven forbid you write something critical, and particularly something inaccurate or unfair; they must absorb those words telepathically because they certainly know what you wrote and often let you know about it…) I just found it refreshing when Nadal, under different and certainly more pleasant circumstances, talked about how eager he was to get back to the hotel, put his feet up, and watch the night session on Arthur Ashe stadium. Independent of anything else, it underscored for me the “regular guy” aspect of Nadal’s character. And that’s something very difficult to hold onto when you’re anything but.

Also, as Mariej noted in the Comments on yesterday’s post, I had the year that Federer completed his career Grand Slam wrong—it was in 2007, not, as I originally wrote, in 2008.

Okay, so I’m screwing around with you…Federer won at Roland Garros in 2009. Now get out of the Comments box and put away the exclamation point and the expletives. It was 2009. I knew it then, I knew it yesterday, I know it now. Clerical error, but at least it didn’t cost me dozens of millions of dollars, the way it did the New Jersey school system when they made a similar boo-boo on their application for a federal grant.

BTW, the bane of my ife is trying to figure out how old this or that player is, working with just the published date of birth. Twenty-five, 30 years I’ve been doing this, and I still spend 10 minutes scratching my head, wondering, “So if he was born on June 11, 1985, does that make him 25?” I wear out my fingers counting on them, over and over, trying to make sure I got it right.

All of which is to offer a hearty “thanks” to the ATP tour for listing the actual age (as opposed to date of birth) of each player in his profile. I shudder to think how many minutes of my life this has saved. Anyway, I’m working up a Ryan Harrison profile for the mothership, TENNIS and Smash magazine, so that will be it for today.

– Pete

Victoria Azarenka has won her first match since collapsing at the U.S. Open, defeating Lucie Safarova 6-1, 6-3 in Tokyo.

NONTHABURI, Thailand (AP)—Juan Martin del Potro’s highly-anticipated return to the tour ended in a 7-6 (7), 6-4 defeat by Belgium’s Olivier Rochus at the Thailand Open on Tuesday.

The 2009 US Open champion was playing his first match since a January loss to Marin Cilic in the fourth round of the Australian Open. He has since been sidelined with a wrist injury that required surgery.

“I played a good match,” Del Potro said. “I had my chances in the first-set tiebreak and he played some great points. I’m just happy to be back on the circuit and I hope I get better and better. He played very well today.”

Rochus took 1 hour, 44 minutes to knock out the former world No. 4.

Top-seeded Rafael Nadal will play his first match since winning the US Open and completing a career Grand Slam when he faces Belgian qualifier Ruben Bemelmans on Thursday.

Bemelmans won the first ATP match of his career on Tuesday when he beat fellow qualifier Federikson Nielsen of Denmark.

“Winning my first ATP match is a great thing, and to get to play against Rafael Nadal in the second round is just an extra,” said Bemelmans. “I will just go on court, enjoy the match and see what happens.

“It’s not going to be easy against him, he’s the No.1 player and already a legend, and he’s only 24. I’ll give everything I have on court and let’s see what it will bring.”

Rochus, who stands 1.68 meters (5-foot-6) tall to Del Potro’s 1.98 (6-foot-6), was solid from the baseline and relied on strong counterattacking against an erratic opponent.

Del Potro faced set point at 6-5, 30-40, but he escaped by blasting three successive aces to force the tiebreak. The Argentine then fought back from 0-3 down to earn a set point of his own following a backhand winner, but Rochus replied with his own sharp backhand to level at 6-6 before a powerful forehand wrapped up the first set in 55 minutes.

Del Potro surged into a 2-0 lead in the second set but unforced errors cost him the next three games to fall down a break at 2-3. At 3-5, Del Potro took risks with big shots to save two match points, but his resistance did not last long and Rochus sealed victory in the next game when the Argentine’s backhand sailed wide.

In other first round play, eighth- seeded Michael Berrer of Germany also suffered a first round exit, when Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain stunned him 6-4, 7-6(4) in 1 hour, 33 minutes.

Germany’s Rainer Schuettler beat Ricardo Mello of Brazil 6-4, 6-2, Dudi Sela of Israel defeated Konstantin Kravchuck of Russia 6-3, 6-4, and Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan battled to a 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-4 victory over Ryler DeHeart of the U.S.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)—Marcos Baghdatis routed Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-1 Tuesday in his first match after a month’s layoff to reach the second round of the Malaysian Open.

Baghdatis, who was upset in the first round of the U.S. Open, will meet Santiago Giraldo.

Two qualifiers—Russia’s Igor Andreev and Canada’s Milos Raonic—also advanced. Andreev beat Go Soeda 6-1, 6-4, while Raonic defeated Igor Kunitsyn 7-6 (8-6), 6-3.

Defending champion Nikolay Davydenko will face Andreev on Wednesday.