When the draw for the French Open came out, the first big question was: where would Rafael Nadal end up?  Nadal had a spectacular clay season which pushed his rank up to number 4, ahead of David Ferrer.  This created a great deal of relief among the other top seeds because they didn’t have to play Nadal until the semis.  Of course, Andy Murray dropped out with a back injury, so Nadal would have been seeded 4th even if he hadn’t leaped ahead of David Ferrer in the rankings.

With Murray, the tournament’s potential second seed out, the big beneficiary was the Swiss maestro, Roger Federer.  It would be hard enough for Federer to beat either Djokovic or Nadal, but to beat both was considered a near impossible feat.  Federer’s best bet was for Djokovic to beat Nadal in the semis and hope he had enough game to be Djokovic in the finals.

And, as it turns out, Nadal did end up in the Djokovic half.

The other huge beneficiary of Murray dropping out of the French was David Ferrer.  Ferrer’s record against the big 4, and especially the “big 3” (Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic) is dismal, to say the least.  Avoiding these 3 players would be ideal, and as the tournament’s number 4 seed, he could avoid meeting any of his adversaries until the semis, and more than that, if he could somehow make the final, he would avoid playing at least one of the three top players (since they would be in the other half).

Another quick check of the draw was the potential opponents Federer might meet in a route to the finals.  Three players have given Federer trouble: Berdych, Tsonga, and del Potro.  del Potro also dropped out of the tournament, so that was one worry down.  Berdych was in the other half of the draw.  The only big worry was Tsonga in the quarterfinals.

Berdych, as it turns out, had a horrid draw, such is the Slam life.  He drew former top tenner, Gael Monfils.  Monfils has been injured and his ranking had dropped precipitously.  In several tournaments, he lost in early rounds, but just when he needed to play well, he reached the finals of Nice, the week prior to the French Open.  Monfils was able to play solid steady tennis, absorbing the Berdych pace, and taking the match in 5 sets.

Had Berdych won, he would have faced Ernests Gulbis who seemed to have turned a corner over his patchy career.  Indeed, Gulbis had beaten Berdych in the opening round at Wimbledon.  However, Berdych’s potential challenge became Monfils’ real challenge.  Monfils was again able to play nice, steady tennis, and hit the shots he needed to, showing a maturity that’s sometimes been missing from his game, and beat Gulbis in four sets.

With those two victories, Monfils should have had a potentially nice route to the quarterfinals.  Instead, he became victim to another comeback kid: Tommy Robredo.  Although Monfils had a 2 set to none lead, Robredo kept clawing back, until he had an improbable win, and he backed it up with another 5 set win over Nico Almagro.

There were some surprises for Rafael Nadal.  He met hard hitting Daniel Brands in the opening round, and found himself a break, and then a set down.  The two played even in the second set, but Nadal seemed edgy, not comfortable without a break. After taking a convincing tiebreak in the second set, Nadal seemed to relax, and was able to break early in the third and the fourth set.

His troubles weren’t quite over as he followed up that performance with an erratic first set against Martin Klizan, a lefty from Slovakia.  Klizan was able to hit very hard as well, and combined with numerous errors from Rafa, he took the opening set.  However, Rafa would come back to win this in four sets.  Apparently Fognini gave him some problems as well, but the Italian was unable to claim a set.

Kei Nishikori is up next.  Although Nishikori’s best surface is hard courts, he had a nice result in Madrid, reaching the quarterfinals.  Nishikori has a style that’s somewhat comparable to Nikolay Davydenko, pushing his opponents side to side.  The question is whether such a tactic will bother Rafael Nadal.  Nishikori will need Rafa to be a bit inconsistent (and he has been–perhaps an injury?) and to be hitting well.  His fourth round French Open run is the best by a Japanese player in over 75 years.  Nishikori had no clue who that Japanese player was (a player named Nakano in 1938).

Wawrinka and Gasquet continue their head long collision to a fourth round match between two of the best one handed backhands in the game.  Gasquet has yet to drop a set while Wawrinka has been pushed to 4 sets twice.

American men fared moderately well, at least in terms of how many played in the first round.  In addition to John Isner and Sam Querrey, Ryan Harrison, Jack Sock, Alex Kuznetsov, Michael Russell, Rhyne Williams, Denis Kudla, Steve Johnson and James Blake all started in the opening round.   No one expected the players to go deep.  By the second round, it was only Querrey, Harrison, Isner, and Sock.  By the third round, only Querrey and Isner were left.  Both played 5 setters, both lost in 5 sets.  Isner lost to Haas in 5 sets having clawed his way back from 2 sets to none down, and saving a dozen match points, most on his own serve.  Querrey lost in 5 sets to Gilles Simon.

Tipsarevic continued to struggle with his game.  He needed 5 sets to beat Verdasco in the second round, but lost tamely to Mikhail Youzhny claiming he was far from his best form.  Raonic showed that clay is still not a good surface for him, losing to Kevin Anderson who then, in turn, lost to David Ferrer.

Currently, as of Sunday, there are four players that have yet to drop a set: Novak Djokovic, David Ferrer, Richard Gasquet, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Roger Federer had a moderate scare in his match against Simon.  A nasty tumble, one that you rarely see with Federer, caused Federer to shake out his wrist and lose a touch of confidence.  Arguably, if that fall doesn’t happen, Federer wins in straight sets.  Federer straightened his game out in the last two sets, playing assertive tennis.  This win was also his 900th, trailing only Vilas, Connors, and Lendl in total career matches won.

Finally, Novak Djokovic discovered, shortly after his win over Dimitrov, that his childhood coach, Jelena Gencic, had passed away.  Last year, Djokovic lost his grandfather and it seemed to affect his play.  Indeed, even his own father is not well.  The big question is how Djokovic recovers.  Gencic had, apparently, wished to see Djokovic with the French Open title.  The question is whether he can maintain his composure.  Up next is Philipp Kohlschreiber, a tough clay courter, who has had a very friendly draw (one walkover, and an easy win over Hanescu).