I guess I should have looked to see if the draw has already been posted for Miami, and so it has.  Miami is the second Masters 1000 event.  After this, he tour heads to Europe and the start of the clay court season which will lead to the French Open.

Again, amazingly, Rafael Nadal finds himself in the opposite half of the draw from Roger Federer.

In Roger Federer’s 1/8th of the draw, the main threat is Tomas Berdych.  Gilles Simon, Andreas Seppi, and Albert Montanes are in his section of the draw.  Simon would have been a threat 2 years ago, but he had a subpar 2009 and 2010 hasn’t been much better.

In Cilic’s 1/8 of the draw, there are tougher opponents including Baghdatis, Melzer and Verdasco.  Cilic had a poor Indian Wells.  We’ll see if that was merely a fluke or whether he regain the mastery that put him in the top 10.

Andy Murray’s 1/8th is also challenging.  Mardy Fish and Feliciano Lopez are in his 1/16th and Wawrinka, Almagro, and Youzhny are in the adjacent 1/16th.  The good news for Murray is only one of those 3 have a chance to meet him.

Soderling’s 1/8th of the draw (same quarter as Murray, so they could meet again) includes Gonzalez, Monaco, and Tipsarevic.  Gonzo went to Chile last week for relief efforts and skipped Indian Wells.  Let’s see how he fares.

Tsonga’s 1/8th includes Isner, Kohlschreiber and Ferrero.  Those 3 have played well this year, so it will be interesting to see who gets out of this section.

In the adjacent 1/8th is Rafa.   Ferrero, Karlovic, Troicki, and Nalbandian are in this section.  Rafa should get through.

In Roddick’s 1/8th are Benneteau, Robredo, and Ljubicic.  This should seem familiar to Roddick who played Robredo and Ljubicic in Indian Wells.  He can only meet one of the two, however, since they are in the 1/16th draw adjacent to Roddick.

Djokovic is in the same 1/8th as Monfils, Querrey, and Bellucci.  Gasquet is a potential second rounder for Djokovic.

Querrey and Isner tend to play well in the US.  Can they play well in the bigger events?

Ernests Gulbis, who requested a wildcard to Miami, back when he won Delray, has apparently not been given a wildcard and is also not in the qualies, so he’ll wait until the clay events to play again.