The five weeks between London and the start of the year go by quick, don’t they?  They coincide with holidays and other sporting events.  Most players trained about 3 weeks.  The news was that Nadal, due to an injury, had to rest and didn’t get a full workout.  Of course, he’s still very good and so even without full practice, he could beat nearly everyone out there.  Nadal has already announced he’ll take a long break after the Australian Open to recover.  He feels he has to play now because of the Slam opportunity.

Top ranked player, Novak Djokovic, has decided to only play the Abu Dhabi exhibition.  He had three good matches there.  He beat Monfils in three sets, then demolished both Federer and Ferrer in straight sets.  He’s not scheduled to play any tournaments until the Australian Open.

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer also played Abu Dhabi.  Nadal lost to Ferrer in the semis.  Federer lost to Djokovic in the semis.  For the first time, they had semifinals losers playoff, which featured Nadal and Federer.  Nadal won in straight sets, which means Federer had zero wins at Abu Dhabi.

This week, there are three tournaments being played.  Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are playing Doha.  Doha generally has the strongest showing mostly because, I suspect, they pay the most guarantee money.  It’s strange because the matches are played at night because it’s cooler than the very hot daytime.  The drawback?  It’s much, much cooler.  Fans are often bundled up to stay warm.

Rafael Nadal struggled in his first round match.  While Nadal took the first set comfortably over Philipp Kohlschreiber, the German came back to take the second set in a tiebreak, then got up a break in the third set.  Alas, he was broken back immediately and broken a second time, and Nadal comfortably took the third set.

Federer, by contrast, had no problems taking on Nikolay Davydenko.  The two met in last year’s finals, but they met in the first round.  While Davydenko can be dangerous, his game is so far off from where it was in 2009 that he seems like a different player.  If you can keep the ball in play 6 shots, Davydenko invariably coughs up an error.  It’s difficult for him to get ahead.  Meanwhile, Federer was striking the ball unbelievably well.  The combination of his good ball striking and Davydenko’s poor play lead to a 62, 62 win.

One reason Federer seems so effortless is that he plays such short matches.  Federer doesn’t like getting into 20 shot rallies.  It’s tiring and it probably cuts the length of his career.  I think he must have thought the Djokovic-Nadal US Open final was crazy because after 5 games, the match was already 40 minutes old.  Federer has developed a high risk style so that he plays quick on court, and that results in less wear and tear.

Andy Murray is in Brisbane.  He struggled right away.  Apparently his back and knee were bothering him, and his opponent, Mikhail Kukushkin was firing right away.  Kukushkin got off to a two break lead.  Murray got both breaks back, but Kukushkin got another break and won the first set.  Although Kukushkin had more chances to break in the second set, Murray weather that storm and got a break and that was enough for the second set.  The third set saw Murray get two more breaks and win comfortably.

Chennai has the weakest field.  The top seed is Janko Tipsarevic.  3 of the top 8 seeds have already lost in the first round.  Today’s notable loss was Sam Querrey in straight sets.  Querrey was out a great deal of last year and is trying to get his rank back up.  It may be a long road up, and he’s likely to struggle a bit more than del Potro did on his return.