It’s just about halfway through the French Open.  The men have completed the third round matches.  The fourth round begins on Sunday.

Let’s see how all the seeds are doing.

Rafael Nadal

Rafa started off the tournament in a new situation: a five setter at Paris.  He played nervous in the two tiebreaks he lost, but then was able to pick at Isner’s serve and see it better.  He was able to use his superior ground game to get him out of that match.  His second match against Pablo Andujar was similarly tight.  Andujar should have won the third set, but got a bit nervous as Rafa began to assert himself.  Rafa escaped without having to drop a set.  He beat Veic handily, but Veic is a qualifier who just beat Davydenko in five sets.

Rafa has looked shaky before.   Last year, at Wimbledon, he played two consecutive five-setters.  However, by the time he played Soderling, he was back on track and proceeded to win Wimbledon.  Still, Ljubicic has said that people have noticed Rafa looks tight.  Ljubicic has beaten Rafa before, back in 2010 Indian Wells.  However, Rafa was in a long drought that went from Madrid in 2009 to Miami in 2010.  After that, he had the best year of his life, winning the French, Wimbledon, and the US Open.

Still, we won’t know.  If he handles Ljubicic, he might be fine, but a potential quarterfinal match with Soderling, who is also not at his best, but seems to be doing well in Paris again, might be the real indication of how Rafa is playing.

Novak Djokovic

Djokovic looked pretty solid through his first two rounds.  He didn’t drop a set, but Hanescu did retire while ahead on serve in the third set.  Against del Potro, Djokovic looked nervous, missing shots that he had been making, but he managed to get his form back in a second day against del Potro.  He’s still looking pretty solid, but that slight bit of fear was interesting.  Still holding form.

Roger Federer

Federer had a close match with Feliciano Lopez in the first round, though nowhere near as close he did in Madrid.  Since then, he’s had comfortable wins against a relative unknown in Teixeira and against Tipsarevic.  Still, none of these players are at the quality that should bother Federer.  Even so, Federer generally gains confidence regardless who he plays as long as he wins.  Federer faces his first big challenge against fellow Swiss, Stan Wawrinka, but he’s pretty confident against Wawrinka, and besides, Wawrinka just came off a five setter.  So far, Federer has been flying under the radar. Should he beat Wawrinka easily, it may make things interesting in the second week.

Andy Murray

Murray started off with the easiest draw of the top 4 players.  The seeds he had to worry about were Raonic, Melzer, Dolgopolov or Troicki.  Raonic lost in the first round.  Melzer also lost early.  He faced a qualifier in the first round and then a lucky loser in the second.  He struggled some against both, despite not dropping a set.  Then, he had the misfortune of twisting his right ankle.  He got lucky that Berrer felt bad for Murray and decided not to run him around or hit drop shots (which caused Murray to twist his ankle in the first place).  Murray has to hope his injury is not serious.  This is his best draw in some time and he’s had his best summer on clay.  Should he get past Troicki, he has a very good shot at reaching the semis with the next section having eliminated all seeds.

Robin Soderling

Soderling did not have a great clay season leading up to the French, but arguably, he didn’t have such great clay seasons the last two French Opens and he did perfectly fine.

Soderling’s draw has been as friendly as Murray’s.  He started with lucky loser, Ryan Harrison, who was informed the night before that he was in the main draw.  He then beat another qualifier Albert Ramos.  Then, he faced yet another qualifier in Leonardo Mayer of Argentina.  Soderling will play his first seed in Gilles Simon.  This becomes his first tough player.  Soderling leads the head to head 4-2.  It’s basically power vs. steadiness and quickness.

David Ferrer

Because everyone has been paying attention to Djokovic and Nadal, few are paying attention to players like Soderling or Ferrer.  Ferrer, should anyone forget, reached the semis of the Australian Open.  He’s been pretty dominant in three rounds, having had an easy win over veteran, Jarkko Nieminen, then handling Julien Benneteau and Sergiy Stakhovsky with ease.  Next to Novak Djokovic, this may be the toughest draw of any top player.

Gael Monfils

Monfils had a pretty easy draw too.  He opened up against qualifier Bjorn Phau.  Phau took a set off of Monfils.  Then, he played wildcard Rufin, and was also taken to four sets.  Then, he played qualifier, Steve Darcis, and beat him in straight sets.  He faces his toughest challenge against David Ferrer.  Ferrer would normally be favored except that Monfils has beaten Ferrer in 2 of 3 meetings.  Admittedly, Monfils would be better on hard courts than on clay.  Monfils is such a mystery.  You just don’t know what he’ll do.  He should have no pressure against Ferrer while Ferrer is expected to go relatively deep.

Other Seeds

The top seeds that fell early were Tomas Berdych who was already playing shaky tennis after Wimbledon and continued to lose to players he shouldn’t.  It may show 2010 was a fluke for Berdych who had 2-3 good months, but otherwise has reverted back.  Jurgen Melzer lost early too.  He made a splash at the French last year beating Djokovic and getting to the semis.  He reached the top ten by the end of the year.

The losses that were surprising was an early exit by Nicolas Almagro who had a pretty good clay season and Florian Mayer who similarly did well.  Both lost earlier than expected.  But this seems to happen each year.  A few players play well leading to the French only to fizzle at the French.