With the men’s finals about 9 hours away, let’s take a look at how each man has been doing.  Let’s start with Roger Federer.  Federer reached the US Open finals again, and although he was just this close to winning the US Open (he had a 30-0 lead in the second set trying to serve it out and got broken), he did lose it to Juan Martin del Potro, a player who, a little over a year earlier, was almost unknown.

After that he played Davis Cup to keep them in qualifying, and then he rested between then and Paris, skipping the entire Asian swing of the post-US Open tournaments.  In Paris, Federer lost to Benneteau in his 2nd round match (he had a bye in the first).  Going into Basel, a tournament he’s won numerous times, he lost to Novak Djokovic in the finals.  Djokovic had been having a very successful post US Open hardcourt/indoor tournament run.  Even the US Open was pretty successful for Djokovic, making the semifinals for the second year in a row.

In the ATP World Tour Finals, Federer had key wins against Fernando Verdasco and Andy Murray (useful to note) but had losses to Juan Martin del Potro and Nikolay Davydenko.

After that, the pros were on break and Federer was probably in Dubai training, being a parent, and so forth.

Coming back, Federer played one tournament, which many of the top pros like to play, namely, Doha in Qatar.  He lost to Davydenko in the semifinals in straight sets, but word was, Davydenko was serving extremely well throughout that match.  Federer also played a 6-man exhibition in Abu Dhabi, losing to Robin Soderling in the semifinals.

Overall, since the US Open, Roger’s play was rather minimal.  He played four tournaments and Davis Cup.  He won none of the four tournaments.  Nevertheless, he claimed he was hitting well, pleased with his play.  Like many other champions, Federer generally doesn’t care how he does in the smaller tournaments.  Indeed, one wonders if Roger strategically loses matches in smaller events to avoid matchups.

Consider Roger now rarely bumps into Rafael Nadal.  He faced him at the Australian last year, but then didn’t see him in a Slam after that.  They met one more time, in the Madrid final, a match Roger won.  To be fair, Nadal took a fair bit of time off after his French Open loss and so the opportunities to meet Roger were few.  Furthermore, Roger took time off after the US Open, while Rafa played a lot of the post US Open tour starting in Asia.  Andy Murray also took time off after the US Open to heal his wrist.

Roger started off the tournament playing Igor Andreev.  The last time we heard of Igor, he was pushing Roger to 5 sets at the 2008 US Open.  Andreev had had a poor season after the US Open, and so he wasn’t expected to give Roger much of a challenge.  For whatever reason, he did give him a challenge, and Roger was lucky (he might argue otherwise) to get out of the match in four sets.

Roger had an easy match over Victor Hanescu, a guy who hits hard, but moves slowly.  Roger had more work with Albert Montanes, but it was still a straight set win, and Roger never lost serve.  In the fourth round, Roger decimated Lleyton Hewitt.  Hewitt had few answers.  This was the firsts “real” match that Roger was playing really well.

Roger then had his toughest match of the tournament.  He beat Nikolay Davydenko in four sets, but for a set and a half, he looked like he was being pulverized.  He was facing break points on nearly every serve, and wasn’t able to position himself to hit winning shots, and was making errors to boot.  As the sun set, the court was covered in shade, and Roger found his timing a bit more while Davydenko’s serve abandons him and he begins missing routine shots, a bit like he did against Verdasco.  Davydenko did recover some, but gave up his serve twice at the end of the fourth, and let Roger hold.

That match wasn’t Roger’s best, but it showed the value of keeping in the match and believing that Davydenko doesn’t hit at this level for a best of 5 match.

The following match against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was similar to the one against Hewitt.  Federer was playing very well.  Tsonga had played a tough five-setter against Almagro.  The five-setter against Djokovic might not have been as tough as it sounded, mostly because Djokovic looked out of sorts for two sets.  However, that 6-1 set that Djokovic put on Tsonga had to be worrisome for Tsonga.  Even had Tsonga been in good shape, it’s questionable whether he would have given Roger much more of a challenge than he did.

Let’s look at the post US Open run for Andy Murray.  At the US Open, Murray lost in straight sets to Marin Cilic.  He looked out of sorts and partly blamed an injured left wrist for his poor play.  Murray continued to play for Great Britain in the Davis Cup (just as Roger did for Switzerland), won both his matches, but was itching to get some rest.

Murray wouldn’t play again until Valencia, a tournament he won.  He would lose early to Radek Stepanek in Paris.  In the World Tour Finals, he beat del Potro and Fernando Verdasco, but lost to Roger Federer.  Because three players had 3-1 win-loss record and because each match had gone the full 3 sets, the tiebreak rule for the semifinals was to count the percentage of games won and lost.  del Potro had won one more game than Murray and lost the same number of games.

Murray then went training in Miami, as he normally does.  He apparently took a quick trip to the UK to check if he was OK.  Last year, Murray was sick during the Australian Open and lost to Fernando Verdasco in the quarterfinals (in five sets).  He seemed keen to make sure that this incident wasn’t repeated.

Murray took a detour from his normal plans.  Typically, he goes to Doha and plays there.  Historically, Murray plays well in Doha, but he wanted to change up his preparation this year, get to Australia earlier.  He decided to play Hopman Cup with up-and-coming British sensation, Laura Robson.  This tournament is like a compressed Davis Cup with one man and one woman.  They play one singles each and mixed doubles afterwards.

With Robson’s rankings mired somewhere in the triple figures, it was up to Murray to win his singles, which he was doing handily, and then team with Robson to win the mixed doubles.  Robson didn’t win a singles match until the finals against Spain where she finally beat Martinez Sanchez, ranked about 20 in the world.  Surprisingly, Murray lost in straight sets to Robredo, which forced the mixed doubles to become relevant.

Robredo blanketed the net and Martinez-Sanchez’s doubles skills came into play.  The two beat Murray and Robson in two tight sets.

Murray played a “friendly” at an exhibition in Kooyong.  Kooyong hosts an exhibition where players that haven’t played warmups (and that included Novak Djokovic and some French players) could get a hit in prior to the Australian Open.  The “friendly” was added last minute and wasn’t part of the official exhibition.  Murray beat Sam Querrey in straight sets.  Querrey was just coming off a freak accident where he cut his arm while sitting on a glass table at a tournament in Bangkok.  He had lost early in a warmup tournament, so wanted some practice.

So between the US Open and the Australian Open, Murray won one tournament (Valencia) and didn’t reach the semis of the World Tour Finals, but did have a nice victory over del Potro.

As it turned out, Murray’s decision to skip Doha had interesting consequences.  Since he won the tournament, he lost all points failing to defend (the Hopman Cup is an exhibition).  The rankings are posted every Monday after the Sunday results are in.  Murray dropped 5 points behind Juan Martin del Potro.  As it turns out, del Potro was the defending champion at Auckland, which is held the week after Doha, and he also chose not to defend this title.  Thus, del Potro lost points for that.

This lead to the following awkward situation.  The draw was created and released the Friday before the first day of the tournament.  Even though everyone knew that del Potro had not defended the title, and therefore would only stay at number 4 for a single week, the seedings are based on the rankings the week before the tournament.  At that point, Murray was ranked fifth in the world.

Being ranked fourth, he was guaranteed not to meet either Roger or Rafa until the semifinals, and he was also guaranteed not to meet Novak until the finals.  But ranked fifth, he could meet anyone of the four in the quarterfinals.  Murray was probably content with his draw which put Roger in the other half.  Given Roger’s amazing consistency reaching the semifinals, it was best not to draw Roger in the quarters, and as it turns out, Murray didn’t seem too concerned drawing Nadal.

Andy Murray won his first few matches easily.  He beat tall Kevin Anderson easily.  Then, he faced two Frenchman, Marc Giquel and Florent Serra, and beat both in straight sets.  His first serious challenge was supposed to be John Isner, who had beaten Gael Monfils in the previous round.  Murray just happens to like playing tall men who serve big tennis racket swings.  Murray made Isner look slow and uncoordinated and won that in straight sets.

At that point, Murray was playing the “best” tennis of any of the top seeds, in that he had not dropped a set.  The really big test was playing Rafael Nadal.  Nadal’s team was already deflecting potential criticism for a loss to Andy.  They said he had been playing really well and was likely to win the tournament.  Although Nadal had been playing pretty solid in Doha (reaching the finals and losing to Davydenko), it was still unclear that Nadal was at his best.

If you watched any of the replays of last year’s final between Roger and Rafa, it looked clear that Rafa was moving and hitting much better in the 2009 final than he was in 2010.  Still, perhaps it was possible that an 80% Rafa could beat nearly anyone except the very top.  More than a few people predicted Rafa would beat Murray.  They based the prediction on Rafa’s head to head win over Murray (which he still lead) and on the passive nature of Murray’s style of play.  Most expected Murray to play the way he normally does against Rafa and for Rafa to take advantage.

Instead, Murray had a “Nadal” strategy.  Many players have a “Nadal strategy”.  Typically, they try to go for winners sooner rather than later.  They know that if they don’t and just trade normally rallies, then they will eventually hit a weak shot, and Nadal will begin to take over the point, maybe not right away with a winner, but with a barrage of body blows.  Only Davydenko and del Potro seem to play Nadal more or less straight-up, modifying their style minimally.

The “Nadal” strategy involved going for bigger first serves, trying to hit winners sooner, getting to net more often, and attacking Rafa’s serve, putting him on defense.  Murray took the first two sets playing spot-on tennis.  Murray played three solid, close games in the third set, to take a 3-0, one break lead.  Rafa had already sought medical attention early in the third set for a knee injury.  Later tests would show that this was a different injury and doctors were telling Nadal that he should be able to play in a month.

Meanwhile, Murray had something of a break playing Cilic instead of del Potro.  Actually, that might not have been such a big deal.  Murray has a 5-1 head-to-head against del Potro and del Potro was playing with a hurt wrist.  Even so, the kind of dangerous play del Potro is capable of is something most players want to avoid.  Not that Cilic wasn’t a handful for a while too.

Murray went back to playing his usual style (rather than his Rafa special) and Cilic was able to take advantage breaking Murray twice in the first set.  Murray adjusted his game and started playing a bit flatter.  This was already paying dividends early in the second set, with Murray hanging in the rallies better.

Commentators pointed to a 30-40 point on Cilic’s serve.  Cilic and Murray had been rallying back and forth on their backhands when Cilic decided to play a more aggressive backhand up the line.  The ball clipped the net and was dropping over like a drop shot.  Murray scrambled to run this shot down, and pushed it to Cilic’s backhand corner.  Cilic went for an angled crosscourt backhand pass, which Murray volleyed a bit short.  As Cilic came to net to get the ball and Murray recovered, Cilic decided to hit a lob over Murray.  Murray ran back and chased the shot down, hitting an over the shoulder forehand down the line that Cilic was unable to handle.  This break lead to his signature wide-mouth scream (“I never knew my mouth was so big”).

From then on, Murray would pretty much cruise to the win.  He’d have several more opportunities to break Cilic, but Cilic would make tough holds, leading to somewhat closer set scores in sets 2 and 3.  Murray’s tactic of moving Cilic around to tire him (having played three 5-setters against Delpo, Roddick and Tomic) was finally having its desired effect.

Right now, there’s a strong inclination to say Federer will beat Andy Murray.  This is based on a few factors.  First is his easy dismissal of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets.  That victory might not have been as amazing as it seemed.

Tsonga himself had just been through two five setters in the previous two rounds after never playing a five setter prior to that.  So this was a man that was probably not at his freshest.  Tsonga has had a history of injuries, so it’s possible his fitness was suspect.

One only has to look back at the Hewitt match.  Federer had beaten Hewitt handily in the fourth round.  Again, Federer looked sharp.  But that was his 15th consecutive victory over Hewitt.  Hewitt doesn’t have the kind of firepower on serve or the ground to bother Federer.  And even if he did, it’s the confidence of beating a guy time and again that wears away on both sides.  Hewitt keeps trying to win, but he knows that Roger would have to be off his game.  Meanwhile, Roger has a ton of confidence playing Hewitt and ends up playing much better than he might if he were feeling tighter.

After the Hewitt match, he had a tough time with Nikolay Davydenko.  If Davydenko had not so completely fell apart, Roger might have had his earliest exit yet.  The point is not so much that Davydenko lost, but that Roger didn’t translate an easy victory over Hewitt to a dominating performance over Davydenko.

One only has to look back to a year ago.  Roger decimated del Potro in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in 2009.  At the time, del Potro had never beaten Federer, hadn’t even taken a set off him.  He would prove tougher at the French Open in 2009, then the US Open.  The loss to Federer was Federer playing at his best, every strategic element working at its smoothest.

Roger then had a straight set win over Andy Roddick in the semifinals.  Much like Roger has a huge head-to-head advantage over Hewitt, he likewise has a huge head-to-head over Roddick.  Roddick, like Hewitt, has tried a bunch of things against Roger, many to no avail.  They make small band-aid strategy changes when an overhaul of their game is what’s needed.  Only a player like Davydenko has made the kind of serious improvements to his game which seems to amount to a better serve and a better head.

Of course, no one expected Roger to take Rafa out in straight sets, but there was plenty of reasons to think Roger might win in four sets.  In particular, Rafa had just played a monster five setter against Verdasco, a match lasting 5 hours.  Rafa was also playing the latter of the off-day matches, so his semi was on Friday while Roger’s light jaunt was on Thursday.  Rafa had never reached a hardcourt Slam final.  His best results up to then was a semifinal appearance in the US Open in 2008 and a semifinals in the 2008 Australian Open.  Meanwhile Roger was a four time US Open champ.

The only uncertainty in Roger’s game was how well he had recovered from his mono from 2008.  Although he recovered in the early months of 2008, his lack of full training threw off his playing for most of the year.  He still continued to reach finals of Slams, but was losing to all sorts of people in the smaller tournaments.

Roger ended up in a dogfight in the final, lost the first set, then took the second, lost the third, took the fourth, lost the fifth playing two poor games after having played such an incredible fourth set to stay in the match.

A more valid claim for Roger’s chances in the final is his recent play combined with his recent head-to-head with Murray combined with Murray’s lack of Slam wins.  At least with Rafa, you knew Rafa had beaten Roger plenty of times at the French, and had a breakthrough win at Wimbledon.  Rafa had made Slam finals and had won Slams and had beaten Roger in the process.  That Rafa summoned the energy and game to beat Roger in 2009 was incredible, but he certainly had the game to beat Roger.

Technically, Murray also has the game to beat Roger.  At one point, Murray had a 6-2 lead over Federer.  Admittedly, some of those wins occurred in 2008 when Roger was still struggling, but Murray also had wins in Doha.  Where Murray didn’t have wins over Roger was in Slams.

Roger has two wins in their last head-to-head.  Roger beat Andy Murray in the semifinals of Cincinnati in straight sets (the second set went to a tiebreak).  He then beat him in three sets in the ATP World Tour Finals in the round robin.

This combined with Murray’s loss of a set to Cilic, his generally passive style, and Roger’s excellent semifinal play, and oh yes, his 15 Slams to Andy’s 0 Slams is why many outside Britain seem to think Roger will win.

Can a case be made for Andy Murray to win?  So, yes, it’s possible for Andy Murray to win.  Almost all of the matches between Andy and Roger have been close.  Of the ten times they’ve met, there have been only 4 straight set wins.  The first time the two met was in Bangkok 2005.  Murray lost 6-3, 7-5, a respectable loss given his unknown status.  They met in Cincinnati in 2006 which Murray won in straight sets, 7-5 6-4.

Murray would play Roger 4 times in 2008.  Roger would only win once, but in the one time that mattered, at the US Open, in straight sets.  They met 4 times in 2009 with each winning 2 matches.  In Cincinnati, Federer beat Murray in straight sets.  The other 6 matches have gone three sets.

History shows it’s hard for one player to dominate the other, though if domination occurs, it’s usually on Roger’s side.

What else is in Murray’s favor?  Murray has played very good tennis in the Australian Open.  He is moving as well as he ever has.  The main concern is his back which he claims can get tweaked because of the sticky courts.  He maintains that he just needs to stretch it to make sure it stays OK.

Murray is also a very smart player.  He does his homework and has extensive notes on the players he plays, and this would surely include Roger Federer.  Murray has so much variety in his game, it’s difficult to guess how he’ll try to play Federer.  Historically, Murray has preferred to let Roger make mistakes.  He tried to do that at the US Open, but Federer seemed sharp in the first set.  Murray began to alter his strategy in the second set and started going for bigger shots, but Roger was able to take the second set too.  By then, Roger was on a roll, and Murray lacked the mental resolve to derail the Federer express.

Roger is probably right that Murray will want to start off strong and take the first set if he can.  His prediction was Murray would play more like he did against Cilic.  Aggressive, but not too aggressive.  It’s not clear whether Murray has built a “Federer strategy” nor what such a strategy would look like.  Murray certainly has a few examples he can look at.  He can see how del Potro or Davydenko has done to beat Roger, but their styles are so significantly different that it’s hard to believe Andy can use their styles at all.

Del Potro, for example, has a huge huge forehand.  Murray’s forehand is not huge.  It’s effective, but not the same way.  Del Potro also has a huge first serve.  Murray’s first serve speed has improved, but his first serve percentage is key.  Murray’s first serve percentage is sometimes a bit low and he’ll want that to be high enough to keep Roger from attacking his second serve.

Davydenko has learned to hit shots on the rise.  Davydenko is the modern Agassi minus all the flash of Agassi’s personality and clothing and minus the 7 Slams that Andre has won.  Davydenko is generally waiting for a ball he can hit hard up-the-line or start creating angle to draw players off the court.  Although Murray is learning to play a few of his shots close to the baseline, he’s not going to suddenly play up close and personal.  He’s much more at ease playing further back.

Murray will want to take advantage of three strengths: return of serve, his backhand, and his court coverage.  He’ll also rely on his serve to keep Federer at bay.

Can Murray win?  Yes, he has enough weapons that if he plays well, he has enough shots to bother Federer.  Will Andy win?  Tough to say.  It’s much more likely that Federer would win easily than Murray would win easily, and it’s unlikely the win will be easy for either player.