Who knows if these meetings will become a regular event?  Is Djokovic making a push to be in the top 2?  As the defending champ, Djokovic actually has to win in Dubai to keep his points while Federer skipped Dubai last year due to an illness and only stands to gain points.

Nonetheless, it says good things about the sport that both players are playing this well.  While Murray is potentially moping about not winning his first Slam, Federer, as usual, seems to have his mental outlook positive.  At the very least, he isn’t losing to players he generally doesn’t lose to.

Federer dominated Djokovic in non-Slam events last year, which was the vast majority of their meetings.  Can he do the same to Djokovic this year?  Djokovic is in a better mental place now than he was at the year-end championship.  I’m going to go on a limb and say Djokovic is ready to beat Federer again.  Federer, at the very least, knows that he went away from a game plan to play Djokovic at the Australian Open.  He must have been befuddled when he saw hard shot after hard shot coming back, forcing him to play many more balls than he expected.  When Federer tried to play steady, which he’s not used to doing, he lacked the edge, and played poorly.

Meanwhile, Almagro continues his hot streak, reaching his third final in a row in Acapulco, an ATP 500 event.  However, he will face his toughest opponent yet in David Ferrer, who started his 2010 with two finals in a row in this South American swing.  Ferrer used that success to have a great European clay season and end up in the top 8 in the world.

Almagro beat the only South American left in Thomaz Bellucci while Ferrer beat the tricky Dolgopolov who seems to strongly prefer clay.

del Potro continues to show excellent form beating tall Kevin Anderson in the quarterfinals at Delray Beach.  Goes to show that a guy with a big serve has a better chance of coming back from layoff than someone like Davydenko who is still struggling since his return last summer.  del Potro faces another challenge in Mardy Fish, the highest seed remaining, in the semifinals.

Meanwhile, Nishikori will hope to improve his fortunes on tour which were derailed some when he was injured a while ago.  He faces Serbian, Janko Tipsarevic, in the other semi.

The tour actually goes on break for a week (and a half), at least at the ATP 250 and above level (Challengers and Futures are always running somewhere).  Indian Wells is up next, the first Masters 1000 event of the year.