Today was the day where the Nadal ping pong ball was going to land in the quarter of one of the top 4 seeds. As the number 5 seed, Nadal had an equal shot of playing Djokovic, Federer, Ferrer, or Murray, and wound up with third seed, Roger Federer.
Let’s see how everyone else did.
Section 1
Djokovic is top seed at Wimbledon, and opens up with a tough German in Florian Meyer. If he can past those Meyer, chances are good to get past the 2nd round where he would face either Bobby Reynolds or top 100 player Steve Johnson, both Americans.
In the same section, Tommy Haas is the other top seed. Chardy and Simon round out the seeds in this section of the draw. Simon-Lopez is perhaps the most intriguing of the opening round matches. Both are still alive in the semis of Eastbourne.
Section 2
Berdych is the top seed in this section, seeded 7th, but he also has Richard Gasquet seeded 9th. The other two seeds are Querrey and Anderson, seeded 21 and 27. Interesting opening rounds matches include Querrey against Tomic. Tomic just won two rounds at Eastbourne, but lost to Simon. That was the first time he’s won back to back matches since Australia. Berdych has a tough opener against Martin Klizan who may favor either the clay or hard courts better than grass. Gasquet takes on the tough clay courter Marcel Granollers who can also play on faster surfaces in his opening round.
Section 3
David Ferrer is the top seed in this section, as the 4th seed. Kohlschreiber is the other seed at 16th, then Raonic at 17th and Dolgopolov at 26 rounds out the 4 seeds in this section. Qualifier Denis Kudla will meet qualifier James Duckworth of Australia in the opening round. The winner of that will meet the winner of Kohlschreiber’s first round match. This section is fairly nice section for any player to make a run.
Section 4
Juan Martin del Potro is the number 8 seed with Kei Nishikori at number 12. The other two seeds are Andreas Seppi, who is currently in the semis at Eastbourne, seeded 23 and Dimitrov seeded 29th. This section has no clear favorites. del Potro has played sparingly recently. This could be up for anyone.
Section 5
Heading to the bottom half of the draw. Nadal is the top seed in this section seeded at 5 while Stan Wawrinka is the other top seed at 11. Benoit Paire, seeded 25, and John Isner, seeded 18, round out the other two seeds. For the first time in several years, Isner is nowhere near Nicolas Mahut in the draw (the two played each other in two consecutive opening round matches, and last year, the two could have met in the second round, but Isner lost in the first round). Lleyton Hewitt playing Stan Wawrinka is an interesting opener. Hewitt made a deep run last week at Queen’s Club and reached the semis losing to Cilic, the defending champ, in three sets.
Section 6
Roger Federer is the top seed in this section as the number 3 seed and is slotted to meet Rafa in the quarters which makes defending Wimbledon that much tougher. Almagro is the other top seed at 15 and Janowicz and Fognini (seeded 24 and 30) round out the seeds in Section 6. Fognini-Melzer could be an interesting opening round.
Section 7
6th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is the top seed in this section with 10th seed Marin Cilic the other top seed. 22nd seed Juan Monaco and 31st seed Julien Benneteau are the other two seeds. Tsonga-Goffin makes for an interesting opener, but it’s kinda bad luck for Goffin facing a top seed in the opening round for a second Slam in a row. Goffin is better on clay than grass, and Tsonga should be too much. Marin Cilic opens with a tough Baghdatis who has not been playing all that well lately. Gulbis could meet Tsonga in a second round match though Gulbis’s game is better suited to clay than grass. Still, he has a big serve, and he did upset Berdych last year.
Section 8
Andy Murray is the top seed in this section, seeded 2. He opens against Benjamin Becker who he played in the quarterfinals at Queen’s just a little over a week ago which he won in two close sets. 14th seed Tipsarevic is the other top seed. 20th seed Youzhny and 32nd seed Robredo are the other seeds in this section.
Tipsarevic opens up against countryman, Viktor Troicki, who has struggled this year, but then Tipsy has also not played that well. Nicolas Mahut is in this section of the draw. This appears to be a relatively nice draw for Murray until a potential quarterfinal meeting against Tsonga who he met in last year’s Wimbledon semifinal.
Clearly, with Federer, Murray, and Nadal in the bottom half of the draw, that side is tougher, but Djokovic may have the toughest section with Haas in his part of the draw. Ferrer in Section 3 and all of Section 4 seem like nice parts of the draw, open to anyone who can take advantage of it.
