It’s probably been since 2006 French Open that the top four seeds in a men’s Slam have met in the semifinals.  Back then, it was Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian, and Ivan Ljubicic.  You might point to this year’s Australian Open, but Andy Murray’s rank had slipped enough and Robin Soderling had performed well enough that it was Soderling that was the number 4 seed, not Andy Murray.

Let’s take a quick preview.

Rafael Nadal vs. Andy Murray

Rafael Nadal started the tournament a bit shaky with a five set win over John Isner.  The big serving American won two tiebreaks but was unable to prevent Rafa from breaking his serves in sets 4 and 5.  Rafa didn’t play that great to beat Pablo Andujar and nearly dropped a set which, given Rafa’s dominance at Paris, was a surprise.  In the third round, he had a relatively easy time with Antonio Veic.  He handled Ljubicic in the fourth round, and finally played pretty well in the wind to handle Robin Soderling.

Much like Wimbledon, Nadal started the tournament slowly, but still won the matches, and has gotten better as he’s played more.  Like Wimbledon, Soderling was expected to pose a challenge.  Like Wimbledon, Soderling did not pose the kind of challenge we thought he might.

Andy Murray started Roland Garros with the easiest draw of the four top seeds.  He started with a qualifier, Eric Prodon, who was pesky enough to drop shot him.  This match, despite being straight sets, was a bit longer than expected.  He then played Simone Bolleli, who despite being a lucky loser, also proved a bit tougher than expected, even though Murray won in straight sets.  Murray should have lost to Berrer after he twisted his ankle, but Berrer was nice and didn’t drop shot Murray nor try to move him around too much.  Murray, for his part, relentlessly attacked, and kept points short.

Viktor Troicki promised that he would not be as nice as Berrer.  Murray seemed a bit shaky moving around in the first set, but immediately went down 5-0.  He recovered to 5-4, but Troicki took the first set, 6-4.  He also took the second set by the same score.  However, Murray’s movement seemed better while Troicki seemed to handle the dimming evening conditions worse than Murray.

Murray took sets 3 and 4 as the sun was setting.  The match was called after Murray took set 4 and was rescheduled the next day.  Murray got down a break in a game where a ballboy was confused thinking Troicki’s first smash had already won the point (which begs the question, why was he running on the court?).  Murray retrieved the shot, the ball kid ran on, then ran off.  Troicki was stunned, but ultimately broke on some Murray errors.  Troicki held to 5-2, Murray held to 5-3.  Despite being up 30-0, Murray played several good points in a row and broke, then held, broke, and held to win 5 games in a row and take the fifth set, 7-5 and make his first semifinal ever.

Against Troicki, Murray was slicing and dicing and using drop shots.  He did the same against veteran Juan Ignacio Chela even though powerful hitting got him past a few opponents.  Murray claimed he had not played well the entire French Open, and yet here he was in the French semis.  It helped that he didn’t play a big hitter.  The closest match that qualified was Viktor Troicki.

The odds-on favorite to win this has to be Rafael Nadal.  Andy Murray has beaten Nadal in Slams before, most notably the 2010 Australian Open and the 2008 US Open semifinals.  However, Murray has also lost to Rafa, twice at Wimbledon.  Rafa has won the French Open 5 times and is defending champ.

The two did play each other at Monte Carlo.  Murray did take a set off Nadal, but Nadal righted the ship while Murray’s game fell apart.  There are two other things working against Murray.  First, he’s still not 100% in terms of his ankle.  I don’t think this will be a huge problem provided he doesn’t aggravate it any further.  He played without too much distress against Chela.  The other issue is just Murray’s quality of play.  In the last two matches, he’s reverted to a dinkum style of tennis which marked Murray’s older style of play.

However, Murray has not played Nadal using this style, mostly because Nadal seems immune to such tactics.  He can take those slices and hit big shots while other players often slice the ball back.  Murray has also not had a dominant performance yet.  He hasn’t beaten a player soundly.  He was up double break on Chela but Chela earned both breaks back.  Murray fortunately broke again.  Murray also has issues with consistency of serve.

I can see Murray maybe taking a set off Nadal, but I don’t think Nadal has to be playing his best for him to win.  Murray has posed problems for Nadal, so he has ideas how to play him.  In particular, the match in London at the year-end championship, Murray pushed Nadal to the limit.  He had Nadal playing defensive tennis.  Nadal woke up long enough to play a few aggressive shots and win that match.

It would be cool to see Murray pull the upset, but arguably, that upset might be bigger than Soderling beating Nadal.  At least, back then, Nadal wasn’t so familiar with Soderling’s game.  Sure, they had played recently (a few weeks earlier where Nadal beat him down easily), but nowhere near as familiar as Nadal is with Murray’s game.

Novak Djokovic vs. Roger Federer

Novak Djokovic has had another pretty good draw.  His toughest opponent by far was Juan Martin del Potro in the third round.  One could argue that the late match, played as the sun as beginning to set, caused Novak to have problems seeing.  That and del Potro’s power had Djokovic more nervous than usual.  The precision of his game was off kilter, and he was missing shots barely wide.  Meanwhile, del Potro looked pretty solid, especially letting Djokovic make more errors.

Once that match was resumed, del Potro looked like he might get an early break at 15-40.  That seemed to wake Djokovic up as he saved this game then started to dominate the rest of the match.

Djokovic then had a solid match against Richard Gasquet, and then didn’t have to play Fabio Fognini.  If there were questions about his fitness, Djokovic hasn’t had to answer them because of this.

Federer started off his French Open with Feliciano Lopez, the guy that nearly beat him in Madrid.  Federer had an easier time handling him this time.  He then played unheralded Teixeira in the second round.  Although Teixeira played Federer close for half a set, once Federer saw what he needed to do, he dominated the rest of the match.  Teixeira worked hard to win the few games he did, something the Swiss maestro applauded.

Federer played three more solid opponents, albeit opponents he’s had a pretty good record against in Janko Tipsarevic, fellow Swiss player Stan Wawrinka, and acrobatic Gael Monfils.  He has yet to drop a set.  Federer’s actually in pretty good form.  He hasn’t wasted a lot of energy.  He’s beaten some tough opponents.

And yet, Djokovic has beaten Federer three times since the start of the year.  Federer needs his serve to be humming to have a chance, and he needs to make those big risky shots he attempts all the time.  If Djokovic plays at the level he’s capable of, it will be too much for Federer.  Djokovic gets back a lot of balls, even shots that appear to be hard struck by Federer.  This does seem like Federer’s best chance to beat Djokovic, but I don’t know what weapons he has.  Federer has often struggled on return of serve.  He needs a hot streak where he’s returning well.  He may hope for windy conditions that would favor him.

Djokovic is likely to win this in four sets.

So I go with the favorites which isn’t to say an upset isn’t possible since Murray and Federer are clearly capable players.  I’m not even sure who is more likely to cause the upset.  I’d have to lean to Federer given Rafa’s record against Murray and given that Federer did beat Djokovic 4 of 5 times last year.  Federer has beaten Djokovic historically and Murray hasn’t done the same with Rafa.

Hopefully, with the top 4 seeds in the semis, there will be some good tennis played!