Now that the first Masters 1000 event is concluded, I thought I’d spend a little time to talk about how the top players are faring.  This changes from month to month.  Shortly after Wimbledon, everyone thought Federer was done and Nadal would steamroll.  Just as the US Open started, the opinion was Nadal was ready for a loss while Federer looked like the man to beat.

Rafael Nadal It’s not that Nadal is playing all that bad, but his new-found desire to attack more and his opponents’ knowledge that they need to attack means Nadal is more vulnerable on hard courts than he is on other surfaces.  Nadal makes a few more errors on the hard courts and the wear and tear is greater on his body.  However, this is the second year that Nadal has managed to play without apparent injury after the US Open.  This is mostly due to better scheduling and injuries suffered earlier in the year.

Nadal’s current hard court form is good, but not great.  He lost to Garciz-Lopez in Bangkok.  He won Tokyo, but really, should have lost to Troicki in the semifinals.  He lost to Melzer in Shanghai, and partly blamed fatigue.  Indeed, Nadal was the earliest of the top pros to play the Asian swing.  He arrived in Bangkok to play an ATP 250 event.  Federer made his first appearance in Shanghai while Djokovic and Murray were both in Beijing last week.

Nadal was in somewhat similar form last year–playing good enough to go deep, but not good enough to win matches.  He seems to be in somewhat better form now, but rest will do him some good.

Novak Djokovic Djokovic generally plays well two times of the year: right before the French Open and right after the US Open.  Djokovic’s form has been pretty good so far.  He won Beijing over David Ferrer.  He reached the semis of Shanghai.  One thing you don’t hear much of: his health.  Perhaps the weather in Asia is cooler.  Whatever the reason, Djokovic seems to be playing more solid.  He still double-faults a bit too frequently, but he seems to have upped his aggression.  One issue is how mentally sharp Djokovic is.  He lost to Roger Federer once again.  Federer seems to be getting his mental edge over Djokovic once again.  Djokovic hit the ball harder against Federer in the semifinals, but he also made more errors than he normally does.

Roger Federer Roger is playing pretty good, but when his standard used to be solid excellence, it’s hard to see Roger’s skills decline like this.  In 2008 and 2009, Roger was shanking a lot of balls, leading to errors he used to not make.  For the most part, those shanks have disappeared, probably due to a lengthy rest taken after Wimbledon.  He’s moving pretty well.  His backhand is looking better.  The two things that are still hurting him?  Although his first serve percentage is up, it’s not a real weapon on the hard courts.  Sampras used to rely on two free points a game off big serves, sometimes more.  This meant Sampras didn’t have to work as hard to win games.

For a top player noted for his mental toughness, Roger’s percentage of aces (or even first percentage) on break points down must be among the lowest in recent memory while players like McEnroe, Sampras, and Lendl all hit plenty of aces down break point.  Indeed, none of the top players have a killer serve they can rely on for break points.  Nadal is starting to become a player that might get a few free points on serve at key moments.

One oddity with the Shanghai final is how much the Chinese love Federer.  Although Federer lost, the Chinese presenters spent more time talking to Roger, who has expressed an interest in learning Chinese (his accent isn’t half bad, probably the product of knowing 3 other languages).  Although Federer is playing better, so is Murray, and there’s still players like Davydenko and del Potro who have yet to regain full form (one wonders if Davydenko will ever regain that form).

Andy Murray Murray’s been criticized for a passive style of play.  He looks like he’s starting to listen.  He doesn’t slice as much as he used to, preferring now to hit power crosscourt backhands.  Against players like Federer, he goes for more winners off the ground, something he is, in general, reluctant to do.  My theory is Murray is trying to preserve his body.  If he hits hard all the time, he’s likely to open himself up to injuries, so he does it at selective times, e.g. against Federer and Nadal.

Murray’s first serve percentage still gives him trouble, but because it’s now more of a weapon, he wins the vast majority of points on first serve.  Murray may live with this.  It would be a different story if he were losing a lot of points on first serve.  Then, his tactic would make little sense.  Murray’s not nearly as natural a server as Roddick or Federer, so his percentages are usually among the lowest of top pros.  But he has worked on hitting it better, so that may do for now.

Murray has won two titles this year, but both are Masters 1000 titles, and so he’s starting to regain some of the form that went south in the first half of the year.  He’s also playing more straight-ahead tennis, something he used to not do.  Murray still sometimes has tournaments where things go off (say, Beijing last week).  I think he, like most players, is trying to manage this better.

Robin Soderling Although Robin Soderling was flittering with a number 4 ranking, it feels like his style is too limited to go much higher than about 4 in the world.  Soderling is a bruiser with a big serve.  He doesn’t have many touch shots.  He’s not that good a volleyer.  He’s not particularly creative off the ground.  He’s medium in speed.  But he hits the ball as hard as anyone in the sport outside of del Potro and that power wins him a lot of matches.  He’s almost always good to the quarterfinals because he can outhit everyone but the top 4.  Federer made Soderling look slow by moving him around.  The other top 3 players can do the same.  They have just enough power and speed to make Soderling look a bit sluggish.

Juan Martin del Potro del Potro took so much time off that one wonders how long it will take him to get back into form.  Most everyone expects del Potro to return back to playing good tennis, but this is uncharted territory.  So far, he’s playing good enough to win games, so obviously his game hasn’t totally disappeared, but can he get back to the top 10.  The women have done this.  Can del Potro?  This will be the big question in 2011.

Nikolay Davydenko Davydenko has also pretty much written off this year.  He came back after a few months off due to a broken wrist after playing some of the best tennis of his life.  And since then, he’s played inconsistent tennis without a good result.  For my money, Davydenko played the best match of the year against Nadal in the Doha final.  Sure, he got blanked the first set 6-0, but he got his game in order in the second set, fought off match points, then fought off a break and a potential second break in the third set to break back and break again and beat Nadal.  And Nadal was hitting the ball well!  Had to be one of Nadal’s more demoralizing losses.

Tomas Berdych Berdych must have stumbled on the best 2-3 months of his life and it coincided with the French Open and Wimbledon.  And then?  He faded, badly.  Not as bad as Cilic who has not played well either.  One of the smoothest strikers in the game, Berdych’s weakness appears to be his head.  Clearly, the man has talent, but if he had Soderling’s competitive spirit (something you used to never say about Soderling), he’d be threatening for Slams.

Andy Roddick It must be frustrating to be Andy Roddick.  In Spain, Nadal is king of the heap and he has a gaudy record against Spaniards.  Only recently has Nadal started losing to fellow Spaniards (Lopez in Queen’s, Garcia-Lopez in Bangkok), but those seem more like one-time flukes than a trend.  Roddick, on the other hand, seems to get beaten by all the aspiring Americans: Querrey, Isner, and Fish.  It’s amazing how Roddick has stayed in the top 10 for so long (he’s 11 now) given a game that lacks a danger element outside his serve.  He plays steady ball and wins matches against players outside the top 10.  But he seems unable to hit winners like the best players do, and this ultimately prevents him from doing much better than he’s doing.

Roddick has now been with Stefanki a while and he seems to have plateaued.  This happens a lot to Roddick.  He gets a new coach.  He gets excited.  He gets a few good results.  Then, it goes downhill.  Without his huge serve, Roddick might be a top 50 player.  He’s certainly more capable off the ground than Isner, but Isner can hit bigger shots.  Indeed, Isner and Querrey have been learning to pull the trigger to take advantage of their big serves.  Roddick has been reluctant to do so.

Roddick has also suffered from injuries.  Last year, he was injured in Shanghai, and he appears injured again, though perhaps to a lesser degree.  He complained about injury at Wimbledon in his loss to Yen-Tsun Lu.  One wonders how his body will hold up and how many years he’ll want to play.

There’s still a few more weeks left in 2010.  It’s been a great year for Nadal, but not a particularly good year for anyone in the top echelon, and I don’t think it’s just because Nadal has been playing great.  Murray, Djokovic, and Federer each had less successful years than 2009.

There was no huge talent breakthrough in 2010 either.  You had some veterans that had moments of playing well including Ivan Ljubicic, Jurgen Melzer, and Mardy Fish.  John Isner and Sam Querrey moved to the top 20.  Ernests Gulbis moved up as well, but showed signs of regression.  David Ferrer had one of his best years ever but he didn’t really make a blip at the Slams.  Marcos Baghdatis also played well this year (as did Berdych).  Even Ferrero started off the year well before fading.

In the previous years, there were huge breakthroughs.  In 2007,  it was Novak Djokovic.  In 2008, it was Andy Murray and Juan Martin del Potro (Murray, to be fair, was about 11 in the world by this point) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to a lesser extent.  In 2009, it was Robin Soderling.  2010 hasn’t produced that player that looks like a top 10 threat.  The closest is a resurgent Melzer, but even so, he’s not exactly an up-and-comer.  What Melzer, Fish, and to a lesser extent, Soderling have shown is that older players are showing flashes of brilliance in their mid to late 20s.  Hopefully, that will trend will continue.