The French Open released the draws earlier today.  Let’s begin by seeing who is missing.  Clearly, Juan Martin del Potro and Nikolay Davydenko are missing.  del Potro reached the semis last year and pushed Roger Federer to five sets.  Davydenko reached the quarters and lost to eventual finalist, Robin Soderling.

Lower down, Radek Stepanek is not playing the French (he hasn’t played for a while, so is presumably injured).  Ivo Karlovic is also not playing though he did play in a recent tournament.  Gilles Simon is also not playing.  These three would have been seeded had they played.  Garcia-Lopez, ranked 38th, was the last player to get a seed.

In recent months, Youzhny, Ferrer, Isner, Querrey, Gulbis, and Almagro have jumped up the rankings to get higher seeds than they would have at the beginning of the year.

Each “section” will refer to 1/8th of the draw.  The winner of a section would have reached the quarterfinal.

Let’s look at Roger’s section.  Roger Federer is the top seed and opens up against Peter Luczak.  This seems like an easy opening round.  In the next round, he faces the winner of Tipsarevic and Falla.  Again, a reasonable second round.  In the third round, he gets one of Olivier Rochus, Feliciano Lopez, and two qualifiers.  Again, a cozy matchup.  Olivier Rochus must be tired, by the way, of playing Richard Gasquet.  They have played four times since Miami.

In the fourth round, Roger’s top contenders are: Stanislas Wawrinka, Gael Monfils, and Andreas Beck.  Monfils hasn’t played well lately, and Roger recently crushed Wawrinka.  The fourth round should be the first round Roger has to play someone that might be tough.

Robin Soderling must be wondering when he’ll ever be out of Roger Federer’s section of the draw at a Slam.  The one time he wasn’t in it, he reached the French finals.  Robin is in the same quarter.

Soderling opens his match against Recouderc.  He would then take on the winner of Lapentti and Taylor Dent.  Montanes would be a potential third round opponent.  Montanes should have a clear path to the third round.

Cilic is in the adjacent half-section to Soderling.  That section is a bit rough with Gulbis the main threat in that section.  They would be seeded to meet in the third round.  Gulbis opens up with Benneteau and then possibly Mayer.  Neither are clay court slouches, so Gulbis could have hoped for a better opening rounds, but as long as he keeps his head together, he should get to the third around against Cilic.

In the next section, Andy Murray has drawn perhaps the most dangerous of the unseeded floaters in Richard Gasquet.  Recall it was Gasquet that had pushed Murray to five sets at Wimbledon in 2008 when Murray reached the quarters.  Gasquet hasn’t been the same player since he was acquitted of cocaine charges from the ATP.  Even so, he’s solidly won a few matches.  Murray will need to be very sharp to get out of this opening round.

He would then face the winner of Chela and Sweeting.  Murray recently played Chela in Madrid and Sweeting is a wildcard.  Apparently, the Slams seem to make deals with another to allow a player from a country to get a single wildcard.

Murray’s potential third round match is also tough with Baghdatis, Mathieu, and Granollers as possibilities.  Baghdatis would appear to be the toughest of the bunch.

In Murray’s adjacent half-section, Isner and Berdych are the seeded players with Chiudinelli having had some recent wins.

In the fourth section and last in the top half of the draw, Tsonga is the top seed.  He opens against Brands of Germany.  He would face the winner of Kubot and Ouanna (French wildcard).  de Bakker, Schuttler, and Garcia-Lopez are potential third round opponents for Tsonga.

In the adjacent half-section to Tsonga are Youzhny, Petzschner, Lacko, Troicki, and Robredo.  Only one of these would be potential opponents to Tsonga in the fourth round.  Youzhny is the high seed in that half-section.

In the next section (and bottom half of the draw), Andy Roddick is the high seed.  He faces Nieminen who used to be ranked higher.  Should Roddick win, he gets the winner of Schwank and Kavcic.  The likely third round opponent is Juan Monaco.

In the next half-section to Roddick, David Ferrer is the top seed.  He should make it comfortably to the fourth round.  The players of “concern” to Ferrer are Melzer and Greul.

In the next section, Djokovic is the top seed.  He faces hard hitting Korolev in his first round match.  His potential second round match is the winner of Giraldo and Nishikori.  This marks the first time Nishikori has played in quite sometime.  Giraldo would be the likely winner.  Victor Hanescu would be the likely 3rd round opponent for Djokovic.

Ferrero is the top seed in the adjacent half-section.  This section also has Sam Querrey.  Querrey opens with the guy he lost to in 2009 Indianapolis, Robby Ginepri.  Querrey should get past Ginepri.  Gicquel is in Ferrero’s part of the draw and Starace in Querrey’s quarter-section.

In the next section, Verdasco is the top seed.  He opens against Russian Kunitsyn.  His second round opponent would be the winner of Michael Russell and Florent Serra.   One of Seppi, Beck, and Kohlschreiber would be his third round opponent.

In the adjacent half-section, Fernando Gonzalez is the top seed.  He’s played minimally during the clay season but opens against a qualifier.  He would face the winner of Dolgopolov Jr and Arnaud Clement.  Dolgopolov plays a weird style but has big shots.  Clement is a veteran who is crafty.  If Almagro can keep his mind in the game, he might be the one to reach the fourth round from this half-section.  He should at least reach the 3rd with little problems.

Finally, the last section in the bottom half.  Nadal is the top seed.  He opens up against a French wildcard, Mina.  He would likely face Zeballos in the second round.  The third round has a good group of players: Istomin, Becker, Hewitt, or Chardy, but no one likely to scare Nadal.

In the adjacent half-section, Ljubicic is the top seed.  Michael Llodra and Thomas Bellucci face each other in the first round.

Overall, Federer has a pretty clean road to the quarterfinals as does Nadal.  Murray probably has the toughest with Gasquet in round 1 and potentially Baghdatis in round 3.  Roddick’s section isn’t easy.  He’s already not played on clay this year, and might play Schwank in the second round, Monaco in the third round, or Ferrer in the fourth.  At least Murray can be happy that Ferrer is in the opposite half of the draw.