Making picks for a Grand Slam event is hard. Few of us have the time or desire to sit, looking at all the factors that go into picking a player to make it far into the tournament.

There are several ways to make the pick. For the winner, you look at the top seeds, or the recent winners. With Nadal out of the tournament, the easy favorite is Federer.

There’s a lot going for picking Federer. He’s remarkably consistent. Making the last 20 semfinals of Grand Slam events is evidence of that. Federer has made the last 6 Wimbledon finals, winning 5 of 6 and narrowly losing the 6th. He just came off his first French win.

So who else might do well? Historically, you’d pick someone with a big serve and a big game. In the past, that would be someone like Pete Sampras or Goran Ivanisevic. Once upon a time, Wimbledon would favor serve and volleyers, so players like Tim Henman historically did well.

These days, there are two ways to go. Find someone that has historically played well at Wimbledon. This might include players like Mario Ancic or Marcos Baghdatis. Neither are in the tournament, although one expert picked Ancic before realizing he wasn’t even participating.

Another approach is to pick recent winners on grass. There are 4 grass court tournaments played prior to Wimbledon, two in the first week after the French Open (Halle and Queen’s), and two smaller ones the week after (AEGON International and Ordina). If you use recent winners, then Murray, Djokovic, Haas, Blake, Tursunov, Dancevic, Becker (Benjamin), and Sluiter might be considered (except Sluiter has let his ranking slip somewhere in the 800s, and won’t actually play Wimbledon).

Then, there are the hot players from the French Open. This would include Haas (who took Federer to five sets, and then won Halle), del Potro, who also took Federer to five sets, but elected not to play any of the grass events. The question mark with del Potro is the low bouncing grass. With his height (6’6″), the low bounce might bother him. But he has improved tremendously since just before the US Open including his tremendous performance at the French Open, which was a bit of a surprise since he looked more formidable on hard courts. One has to imagine del Potro might also do well on grass, especially with his improved serve game.

Robin Soderling, the surprise French Open finalist, had a pretty decent result at Wimbledon, pushing Nadal to five sets in 2007, which included a 7-5 fifth set. Soderling’s flat style should be well suited to Wimbledon. Can he come through this year again? Soderling, like del Potro, elected not to play any grass court events.

There’s Andy Roddick, a player that has historically performed well at Wimbledon. He’s basicaly been Goran Ivanisevic to Federer’s Pete Sampras. Able to reach the finals, but not able to break through and make an impression.

Some like the flashy Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He was the surprise finalist in 2008 when he lost to Novak Djokovic. Tsonga played at Halle, but lost to Haas in straight sets.

Oh yes, there’s also Novak Djokovic. His recent performances in Grand Slam events were not nearly as spectacular as they were in 2007. Let’s look at his performances. In the French, he lost rather tamely to Philipp Kohlschreiber in the third round. In the Australian, he retired against Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals. In the US Open, his best recent, result, he lost to Roger Federer in the semifinals. In last year’s Wimbledon, he lost in the second round against Marat Safin. Prior to that, he had a good French Open, getting to the semifinals, and winning the 2008 Australian Open against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He recently lost his #3 ranking to Andy Murray who is now on the verge of #2.

That leads to two other picks for Wimbledon. Marat Safin had a great Wimbledon in 2008, making it to the semifinals. His big results started in the second round where he surprisingly upset third seeded Novak Djokovic. People thought this would lead to a minor resurgence in his career, but that has failed to pan out. Still, players have traditionally played well at the same tournament. Although historically, Safin has never performed well at Wimbledon, his memories of winning last year might push him through a few rounds.

Andy Murray has now become the highest seed in the half of the draw that was Nadal’s. Murray gave his British fans hope by winning Queen’s, which was a bit depleted because Djokovic chose to play in Halle while Nadal didn’t play at all. Murray beat Blake in straight sets in the final. Other than Rafael Nadal, Murray is the only other player that has played Roger Federer several times and has a winning record, 6-2.

Consider some of the quarterfinalists from last year: Rainer Scheuttler, Arnaud Clement, Marat Safin, Mario Ancic, and Feliciano Lopez. How many would you pick to make it back to the quarterfinals? How many would you have predicted made it to last year’s quarterfinals? This goes to show you that picking quarterfinalist is tough, and most people go conservative making picks. Who wants to pick someone like Dmitry Tursunov? Or Tommy Haas? OK, some might pick Haas based on the combined feat of pushing Roger Federer and winning Halle. But Tursunov?

What this says is there’s likely to be a few surprises. Players you didn’t expect to be in the quarterfinals that are there. Ask yourself if you picked Tommy Robredo as the last Spaniard standing at Roland Garros. Probably not.

We make picks, and perhaps for the finals, we can do a pretty good job, but good luck trying to guess who will make the quarters.