Click here for more on Canas' win against Federer two weeks later in Miami. Click here to find out where Canas has suddenly reappeared from.

By Kamakshi Tandon

It had to happen. Some day, some time, Roger Federer would lose again.

But no one, not even the man who defeated him, knew it would be during the world No. 1’s opening match at Indian Wells. “I dream... I don’t expect,” said Guillermo Canas, who pulled off a stunning 7-5, 6-2 win on Sunday.

It was Federer’s first loss since Cincinnati last August and his first opening-match loss since Cincinnati in 2004.

The loss snapped Federer’s 41-match winning streak and ensured that the 46-match streak established by another Guillermo – four-time Grand Slam champ Guillermo Vilas – would continue to stand as the longest in men’s tennis.

It wasn’t the only one notable record Federer missed out on with his early loss. By winning the event, he would have tied the record for consecutive tournaments won with his eighth straight title.

Federer, who called the trainer twice during the match, said he was not hampered by any serious injury, though he conceded that he had a “little bit” of trouble with blisters. “I just had to take the tape off,” said Federer. “I hate taking time-outs.

”It was just a lot of interruptions, you know. When you’re up, it’s no problem, but when you’re down it really messes with your rhythm.”

After having two set points at 5-4 in the first set, Federer was immediately broken and would spend the rest of the match playing from behind. Unlike many other occasions in the past two years, he did not raise his level in the second set after losing the first. "I really felt I missed a lot of big opportunities today to come back, to put the pressure on," said Federer, who  finished the match with 39 unforced errors, compared to eight for Canas. "I had set point, should have made that forehand, and maybe things would have been different."

The Argentine's counterpunching remained at a high level throughout the match and Federer’s forehand, in particular, produced errors at crucial moments. The Argentine broke in the third and seventh games of the second set and didn’t flinch when serving out the match. Though Canas lost in the final round of qualifying, he got into the main draw as a lucky loser when Xavier Malisse pulled out with injury. He made the most of his opportunity today.

“He played a perfect match in the end,” said Federer. “He served well. He didn’t give me any unforced errors, and I was just playing too poorly in the end to come back.”

For Canas, it was his 45th win in 51 matches since last September, when he began his comeback from a doping suspension (more details). Ranked No. 60 coming into the event, his goal is to end the year in the Top 20, which would be a significant achievement for a 29-year-old returning the circuit after such a long break.

But he has experience on his side – Canas has twice before returned from outside the top 200 to the top 15 after wrist and hand injuries. He says his fellow pros laid bets at the beginning of the year on whether he would be among the top 32 seeds at the French Open – an increasingly likely prospect.

“It’s great, because the last five months for me was fun,” said Canas. “It’s my first Masters Series after I start again, and to win [against] the No. 1 in the world, and to play like this is great for me.”

Federer’s loss overshadowed some other notable upsets on the men’s side. Lleyton Hewitt, coming off a tournament win in Las Vegas last week, hurt his back and lost 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-2 to Janko Tipsarevic in the very next match on the stadium. Marat Safin went down almost unnoticed to Nicholas Mahut 3-6, 6-4, 6-0.

Though Hewitt said walking on after such a huge upset didn’t play on his mind, Tipsarevic was very aware of what had just happened.

“The fact that Federer lost just gave me a boost to think that nothing is impossible,” said Tipsarevic. “When we were in the locker room and I was getting ready to warm up, Canas was leading all the time but everybody was saying, ‘Well, you know Federer, he’s probably gonna win’, ‘don’t start warming up yet,’ and stuff like that.

”But when it was 4-2 and I saw in Canas’ eyes that he doesn’t have fear from Federer, which most of the players do when it comes to important points... I started warming up.”

Hewitt began his match in a nearly empty stadium thanks to the stunned exodus that took place after Federer’s defeat. But soon after, Stadium 2 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden was packed when Federer came on to play doubles with fellow Swiss Yves Allegro against Tommy Robredo and David Ferrer. Federer and Allegro won 6-4, 7-6(2).

It was oddly poignant to see the reigning king of men’s tennis confined to playing doubles on an outside court after being felled in singles. But his status with the crowd was clearly undiminished. “It was really nice to get a standing ovation walking on [for] doubles,” said Federer. “Especially to shake it off after I lost in singles.”

The stands were also full in Stadium 3 as Rafael Nadal and Feliciano Lopez played the hottest new team in men’s doubles, Jamie Murray and Eric Butorac. The Spaniards lost 7-6(6), 7-5, but Nadal has every reason to be more optimistic about his chances in the singles after today. Not only is Federer no longer a possible roadblock in the final, but Mikhail Youzhny and Tomas Berdych – both with consecutive wins over Nadal in recent matches – are also no longer in Nadal’s section of the draw. Seventh seed Tommy Robredo is also out of the bottom quarter. Other players like Andy Roddick will also be sensing their chances.

With Hewitt and Federer both in the same section at the top half of the draw, their exits open the door for Canas or another dark horse to make a run deep into this Masters Series event.

But there are some mixed feelings about Canas’ return. The Argentine had his original two-year suspension cut to 15 months when he appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which ruled that he had not knowingly tried to cheat. Canas tested positive for a masking agent, the diuretic HCT, at Acapulco in 2005.

Federer, who has previously expressed some general dissatisfaction with reductions in doping bans, might have wondered if his collection of streaks was brought to an end by a player who should not even be playing. “They always fight for it anyway, everybody that was tested positive. That’s, for me, just not understandable. Everybody who gets caught always says, ‘I didn’t do anything,” said Federer. “For him, what happened, you know, he must feel a bit awkward but he’s dealing well with it.”

Tipsarevic said the upset might create some whispers about Canas in the locker room, but that the anti-doping process should be left to run its course. Like Federer, Tipsarevic prefaced his comments by saying he wasn’t familiar with the ins and outs of the anti-doping process and the nature of various substances being tested for. "I'm a, a friend of Canas and he's a really nice guy. The thing is that he took doping. That's his own thing, and, of course, now a lot of people are going to question this, is he really still doped? Did he take something to clean himself after the match?” said Tipsarevic. “The bottom line is, he played a great match, he beat a world No. 1. Let’s just leave [it to the] people who need to do the testing and the controlling to think about that and not put in question the win over Roger.”

Canas said a number of his colleagues, particularly Spanish-speaking ones, are happy to see him back. “Many players support me,” he said. “Really, I prove I don’t [do] nothing wrong.”

As for Federer, he’ll be looking to this loss as merely a blip in his dominance of the men’s game, where he’s won 185 matches and lost eight since 2005. But given the amount of discussion at the beginning of this week about fellow pros not believing they could beat Federer, the effect on them may turn out to be more important than the effect on him. Will it lead them to see him differently?

Maybe, but for the moment, they’re respectfully averting their eyes. “They [don’t] look at me when I walk in now too much,” said Federer, when asked about the reaction in the locker room.