Roger Federer, of Switzerland, walks off the court after losing to Gilles Simon, of France, in the Rogers Cup on Wednesday night. Simon won 2-6, 7-5, 6-4. - AP

TORONTO (AP):

TOP-RANKED Roger Federer was knocked out of the Rogers Cup with a 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 loss to France's Gilles Simon in a second-round match on Wednesday night.

Federer, who won the tournament in 2004 and '06, was playing his first match since losing the Wimbledon final in five sets to Rafael Nadal.

Federer, a finalist here last year, became the first top seeded player to lose in his first match here since Lleyton Hewitt in 2002.

"The problem was my game today," Federer said.

Big surprise

It was the biggest surprise of a soggy day at the tournament that saw play disrupted for nearly six hours by thunder showers.

Second-seeded Nadal is the obvious favourite now, though he didn't appear stellar in his first match yesterday, struggling early on before ousting Ottawa-born qualifier Jesse Levine 6-4, 6-2.

In other notable upsets, Croatian Marin Cilic ousted 12th-seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo 6-3, 6-4; Sweden's Robin Soderling defeated number 13 Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-4; Argentina's Jose Acasuso beat 14th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez of Chile 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 and Russian Igor Andreev got past 16th-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

Of course, nothing compares with eliminating Federer.

"For sure, this is my best victory," Simon said. "I don't think that you win so many times against the number one in the world. It happens maybe in the career of a player maybe two, three times if you are lucky."

The match started off smoothly for Federer until Simon broke his serve to go up 4-2 in the second set. Federer returned the favour and held serve to 4-4 and then 5-5, but Simon held serve in the 11th game and broke Federer in the 12th to take the set.

Good baseliner

"As the match went on, I struggled a little bit to put the forehands away," Federer said. "He's a good baseliner. We saw that today. He moves well. He's deceiving because he's kind of thin and tall but moves really well for his height. He flicks a lot of balls with his backhand as well, so when you come in you can't see where he plays."

Not in the past four years has the Swiss star seemed so beatable, and he seems frustrated, too. He buried his head in his hands and bristled after one question in the news conference.

"You wouldn't have asked me that if I would have won, right?"

Suddenly, Federer's side of the draw is wide open.

Fourth-seeded Nikolay Davy-denko is the highest ranking player remaining there.

He defeated Germany's Tommy Haas 6-3, 7-6 (6) yesterday. Seventh-seeded James Blake was also a winner, beating Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman 1-6, 6-1, 6-2.