If Aljaz gets past James he may fancy his chances. He beat Bautista twice last year on hard courts and if he can do that here he will take over the second seeds path in the draw which would be very nice indeed.
On the face of it a rotten draw for Evo, but Gasquet hardly pulled up trees in Cincy.
There is also a little historical precedent, because the last time a Frenchman came into Winston-Salem as number one seed he was skittled out in R2 after a bye. And that was Gilles Simon only last year!
Liam was 2-2 *40-15 in the first set but failed to see that game out and after that it was one way traffic.
I don't know where he plans to play next but he isn't scheduled for anything over the next couple of weeks. He doesn't have much to defend for the rest of the year so he could still salvage something from the year and press back towards the top 200 but on present form that looks pretty unlikely.