Once the US Open ended, Roger Federer found himself wondering how another US Open slipped from his fingers.  In 2009, his last best chance to win, he was serving out the second set when he approached the net on del Potro’s forehand (what was he thinking) getting passed twice.  Federer would lose that second set as del Potro held and won the second set in a tiebreak.  Although Federer would go on to win the third set, del Potro’s confidence was already growing.  Had he won that second set, no doubt Federer would have closed out in three sets, and be celebrating his sixth straight US Open.

In 2010, Federer had match points in the semifinal against Djokovic.  To be fair, it was on Djokovic’s serve, but Djokovic had to hit some great shots to get out of that.  And, that year, Nadal was hitting his serve pretty well and won the semifinals over Youzhny quickly.  It’s not certain how well Federer would have dealt with Nadal.  Even he was worried about the length of semifinal match, tanking the lopsided sets against Djokovic to save energy for a potential Sunday matchup.

This year, Federer was up a break in the fifth set, serving out the match, and was up 40-15.  On the first match point, Federer spun a first serve out wide.  Djokovic cracked a crosscourt forehand and then peacocked to the crowd.  Federer would later admit that this stunned him to take a gamble by just hitting as hard as he could, but the crack shot changed the momentum.  Federer decided not to give him that opportunity again by spinning a serve into the body.  Djokovic barely got out of the way to get the return into play.  Federer would swoop, attempting to hit an inside out winner, clip the net and watch the ball fall out.  He would go on to lose his serve not once, but twice.  Djokovic would go on to win the US Open and capture the third Slam.

Last year, Federer knew that his best chance to get back to number 1 was to have a strong season after the US Open.  Indeed, he was already have a pretty strong stretch of play just after Wimbledon.  He reached the finals of Toronto, losing to Andy Murray, then won Cincy the week after.  He would reach the semis of the US Open, reach the finals in Shanghai (losing again to Murray), win Stockholm, then Basel, then reach the semis of Paris where he lost to Monfils after having match points (a common theme in 2010).  He would then close out the year going undefeated in the ATP World Tour Finals.

Federer had to believe this would lead to a great 2011.  Little did he know that Djokovic was about to go on a streak of a lifetime.

Fast forward to just after the US Open.  Due to Olympic requirements, players who wanted to be part of the draw needed to participate in Davis Cup play.  Federer has often begged out of Davis Cup play because it’s played the week after most Slams when his body is in most need of rest.  However, with these rules, he flew out to Australia to play Davis Cup on grass.  Federer won both his matches (against Hewitt and Tomic), but Tomic had beaten Wawrinka and taken the double.  This match went the distance to a fifth set which had to be concluded on a Monday with Wawrinka winning the tie.

Federer knew playing on grass shortly after hard courts would be a bit tough on his body.  Apparently, one must get used to surface changes and move a bit differently to adjust and avoid injury.  Federer decided to skip Shanghai to give himself six weeks of rest, which was probably divided into about two and a half weeks of rest and three and a half weeks of training.

As he entered Basel, things looked particularly intriguing.  Djokovic was entered in the draw.  Much like Federer, he had taken off some six weeks to rest.  However, Djokovic’s situation was a bit more dire.  In the Davis Cup against Argentina, they had asked Djokovic to play against del Potro.  The Serbs were under dire straits.  The Serbs had lost the two singles against del Potro and Nalbandian.  Djokovic had all sorts of media duties and stayed in the US until Tuesday or so (Nadal left right away for Spain).  He reached around Wednesday, and was in no condition to play the first match.  He was probably hoping that they might get one win out of Nalbandian, but it didn’t happen.

Serbia managed to win the doubles.  However, that mean del Potro would secure the win and he was highly favored against Troicki.  A fully healthy Djokovic would have been favored over del Potro.  Djokovic’s record against del Potro was pretty good even when del Potro was at his best in 2009.  However, Djokovic was struggling.  After losing the first set in a tiebreak, del Potro was able to break early and get a 3-0 lead.  Djokovic eventually had to retire with back issues and with that loss, Argentina had the win.

Djokovic would spend four weeks recovering from back problems which left him about a week and a half to get ready for Basel.  Although his back seemed fine, his shoulder was bothering him.  This seemed like the same injury that affected him in Cincinnati and bothered him in the fourth set of the finals of the US Open.  Djokovic had chances to beat Nishikori in the semifinals, but once Nishikori won the second set, Djokovic realized he had nothing left.  Rather than retire once again, he completed the match without winning another game.

Meanwhile, the other intriguing player was Andy Murray.  Unlike previous years, where Murray had played Valencia, Murray’s plan was to play Paris.  He had just won three straight tournaments and had not entered the Basel draw.  But he must have felt he was hitting well and wanted to get some match play in for Paris.  Alas, a freak injury (to Mr. Murray’s buttock) caused Murray to withdraw on Wednesday.  Marco Chiudinelli filled in, but lost.  Murray headed off to Paris.

This meant Federer reached the final without having to play either of his two big rivals.  Federer was playing very good tennis in Basel and dominated Nishikori to win the finals at Basel, his fifth time.

Federer entered Paris much like he entered Basel.  Djokovic decided to play Paris despite the injury that caused him to lose in the Basel semifinals.  Perhaps the 1.6 million dollar bonus convinced him to play.  Djokovic managed to win two matches, one over Dodig and one over fellow countryman, Viktor Troicki.  But faced with the prospects of playing 3 matches in 3 days and with his shoulder bothering him again, Djokovic withdrew from his quarterfinal match against Tsonga.

Andy Murray, meanwhile, showed his strange injury at Basel was mostly past him and that he was prepared to take on Federer in the semis.  He has easy match wins over Jeremy Chardy and Andy Roddick.  Oddly enough, Murray had a losing record to Tomas Berdych, although two of the matches were played over four years ago when Murray was still working his way up to the top, and his most recent loss was on clay to Berdych in the 2010 French Open.

Murray would find Berdych much tougher to beat than Roddick.  Berdych’s average pace off the ground was significantly faster than Murray.  And, for my money’s worth, Berdych’s forehand is among the best when he’s hitting well.  He has the versatility to hit it inside in, inside out, and sharp crosscourt, all with significant, yet effortless power.  Time and again, Berdych tried to pressure the Murray second serve forcing Murray into the defensive right away.  Murray used his proficiency at defense plus plenty of Berdych errors to keep even.  However, he struggled to get first strike tennis against Berdych.  In the end, Berdych’s commitment to aggressive play pushed him to the victory.

With Murray’s loss and Djokovic’s withdrawal, Federer again found his two biggest opponents out of the tournament.  Except, unlike Basel, the remaining players are those that have historically given Federer trouble.

Up next for Federer is Tomas Berdych.  Last year, Berdych beat Federer in Miami after Federer had a match point.  He then went on as hot a streak as anyone has had in sometime reaching the French Open semis, losing a tough five setter to Soderling in the semis, then reaching the finals of Wimbledon losing rather tamely to Nadal.  Berdych would struggle the rest of the year.  This year, he played more consistently, making the quarterfinals routinely but struggled to reach finals.  Back in Cincy, he struggled with shoulder problems, somewhat like Djokovic’s problems.  This bothered him at the US Open where he lost to Tipsarevic, a player that has historically given him problems.

But Berdych appears to have turned things around.  With a win at Beijing, his first title in over two years, Berdych looked good, but he lost early in Shanghai to Lopez and in the opening round at Basel to Nishikori.  Berdych turned it around in Paris.  He won over Verdasco in his opening round, but the big win for him was over Tipsarevic.  Tipsarevic had beaten Berdych four times in a row, and had an edge, despite Berdych’s huge game.  Tipsarevic even had a 5-1 lead in the first set before Berdych clawed his way back with 6 straight games, and then took the second set to beat the Serb for the very first time.  This excitement lead him to another great match against Murray, one that was very close, but where Berdych was clearly the aggressor.

On the other side of the draw, there’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  Although Federer leads the head-to-head 5-3 (and he leads Berdych, 9-4) Tsonga beat Federer twice this year, most notably at Wimbledon, and then at Montreal.  Federer did get the victory that mattered most to him in their US Open quarterfinal encounter.

So Federer might have to go through Berdych and Tsonga to win Paris.  The one man who wants to upset this is John Isner who has a 1-0 record over Tsonga.  Isner barely beat Wawrinka in the first round, before having a comfortable win over Kunitsyn and a lackluster Lopez before playing one very good game against Ferrer to break in the third set.

How is Federer playing?  I’d say pretty good.   He was probably hitting better in Basel than in Paris, but his route to winning Paris is a bit simpler without two of his big rivals.  It’s far from over, of course, because Berdych is a tough guy to play.  Federer will want to get out to a fast start and hope that Berdych doesn’t come back.

Can he win London?  It’s hard to say how Nadal is doing. We can look back at how Nadal played last year to see if it’s instructive.

Last year, like this year, Nadal struggled in the Asian swing.  He lost in Bangkok to Garcia-Lopez, and nearly lost to Viktor Troicki in the Tokyo semifinals.  Troicki had a break and had match points, but couldn’t do the Mallorcan in.  Nadal won the finals of Tokyo fairly handily over Monfils.  Nadal lost early to Melzer in Shanghai last year and then didn’t play until London where he played quite well, going undefeated until he lost to Federer in the finals.

This year, Nadal didn’t play Bangkok.  He played Tokyo where he reached the finals and lost a 3-setter to Murray.  In Shanghai, Nadal lost to Florian Mayer.  Nadal said that he felt pretty good in Shanghai, much better than last year, and yet, he was heading home with a loss.  Like last year, Nadal chose to skip Paris (he gets one exemption for being a tour veteran–Roddick for example, typically skips the tournament after Monte Carlo–this year it was Madrid) to prepare.

The wildcard is Novak Djokovic.  It’s unclear how his shoulder is doing.  His shoulder might have bothered him at the US Open but he wasn’t playing back to back days, so he could get treatment in between days.  When he’s playing well, he can still contend against any of the top 3.  Djokovic says he’s still pretty rusty.  Unlike last year, he doesn’t have to worry about Davis Cup and can focus on London.  However, a less than great Djokovic is someone Federer can handle.

Although it’s unlikely to happen, Federer will enter the World Tour Finals seeded fourth which means he could be paired with Nadal.  That hasn’t ever happened.  Federer’s dream would be a group including Djokovic, Fish, and Ferrer.  With Fish and Djokovic injured, Federer would be favored and he’s always played well against Ferrer.  His nightmare would be a pairing with Nadal, Tsonga, Berdych.  One positive of being seeded 4 is that he can’t be paired with Murray who is seeded 3.

Federer still has a small shot at getting to number 3.  He trails Andy Murray by 1500 points or so after winning Basel (Murray, alas, picked up no points).  If Federer wins Basel, he will trail by about 800 points (Federer would earn 1000 points, but Murray gets about 200 points).  If Murray wins two round robin matches, he’ll earn 400 points and that would increase his lead to 1200 points.  This would force Federer to have to win the ATP World Tour Finals to finish number 3.  If Murray only wins one match, then Federer might cobble enough points just reaching the finals if he goes undefeated in round robin play (He would get 600 for round robin and 400 for reaching the finals, for 1000 points and close the gap).  If Murray reaches the final, there’s no way Federer can catch up.  Once Murray earns 700 points or more, Federer finishes as number 4.

And Federer is playing well enough to potentially defend his title especially with Djokovic not being 100%.  His main worry, I think, will be Nadal.

In any case, regardless of whether Fed ends number 3 or 4, both he and Murray will be ranked very closely.  Federer could even move back to 3 by the Australian Open since he usually plays Doha while Murray has been playing Hopman Cup, as of late, which is an exo.  It doesn’t really matter since 3 and 4 are basically the same rank when it comes to seeding.