With Roger Federer’s recent ascendancy to number 1, there was one thing, for sure. Djokovic and Federer wouldn’t be in the same half of the draw. That only leaves where Andy Murray falls in the draw. Neither option is good, and it looks like, unlike Wimbledon, Murray has to go through both Federer and Djokovic if he is to win a gold medal.
Let’s do a section by section analysis. In Section 1, Federer is the top seed. He opens with with a guy that gave him trouble at Wimbledon a few years ago. Alejandro Falla, who had a decent Wimbledon, will be Federer’s opening round opponent. Falla takes the ball early, so he cuts off time. Federer is unlikely to lose to Falla because he knows what Falla is capable of, but it’s still a tough opener.
In the second round, he’ll face one of two players he beat en route to the finals. Julian Benneteau, who got in because Monfils had to drop out of Wimbledon, plays Mikhail Youzhny. Federer beat Benneteau in 5 sets in the third round and Youzhny in the quarterfinals. If he gets past there, the third round looks reasonable, with Verdasco the top seed in that section.
Janko Tipsarevic is the other top seed in Federer’s section, but he opens up with a tough opponent in David Nalbandian. The good news is Tipsarevic has been playing well. The bad news is that it’s been on clay. Nalbandian did play Tipsarevic in the opening round at Wimbledon which Tipsarevic won in close sets, so that’s one advantage to the Serb. Isner and Karlovic are also in Tipsarevic’s section, so big servers all around.
In the second section, David Ferrer is the top seed. He opens up with Canada’s number 2 player, Vasek Pospisil. Pospisil is still quite a way from being a Milos Raonic, but he did recently win a Challenger event which boosted his ranking to 85. Alas, he played mostly players with three digits in their ranking, and is unlikely to bother the red-hot David Ferrer.
Ferrer might meet Kohlschreiber in the second round. Kohlschreiber beat Nadal in a grasscourt tuneup, but has been playing clay events in the meanwhile, mostly since they are in Germany and Austria. Indeed, Kohlschreiber is now playing giant killer, Lukas Rosol, in Austria as this article is being written. To be fair, Ferrer also played (and won) in Bastad, a clay event but that was a week after Wimbledon, not days before the start of the Olympics.
A few intriguing matchups. Stepanek and Davydenko meet in the first round. They are similar in age, and right now, somewhat similar in rankings, though Davydenko keeps dropping. He’s currently 48 in the world. Bernard Tomic opens up with Kei Nishikori. Tomic started the year playing hot, but has since cooled down. He claims this was due to not practicing hard and enjoying his laurels. Nishikori did reasonably well in Atlanta but was blitzed by countryman Go Soeda in the quarterfinals.
In the opposite half of Section 2 is Gilles Simon and Juan Martin del Potro. Donald Young is in this section as the lowest ranked American in the draw. Grigor Dimitrov, who has been playing well on clay lately, is also in this section.
In the bottom half, in Section 3, Tomas Berdych and Andy Murray are top seeds. Berdych, as you may recall, got blitzed by Ernests Gulbis who was playing some hot tennis. He’ll face Steve Darcis of Belgium, perhaps a player more to his liking. If he wins, he plays the winner of Giraldo and Ryan Harrison. Almagro opens up with a relatively tough Viktor Troicki in the opening round. Alex Bogomolov, who had been representing the US, but now represents Russia, will be in this section.
Murray opens up with a tough player in Stan Wawrinka. Wawrinka pushed Murray to 5 sets in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2009. The two have been hitting partners, so they are familiar with each other’s games. Wawrinka lost in the opening round at Wimbledon to former top tenner, Jurgen Melzer, in five sets.
If he gets past the Swiss, he’d play the winner of Jarkko Nieminen and Somdev Devvarman in a match Murray would be favored to win. Gasquet and Baghdatis are two other players in this section, though only one could, at best, meet Murray in the third round.
Finally, in Section 4, Novak Djokovic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are the top seeds. Tsonga starts with Thomaz Bellucci who recently won a clay event over Tipsarevic. Should he win that, he might play the big serving Canadian, Milos Raonic, who lost in 5 sets to Sam Querrey at Wimbledon. Lopez, Monaco, and Goffin are in this section too.
Novak Djokovic opens with Fabio Fognini whose more of a clay courter than a grass courter. Should he win there, he is likely to face Andy Roddick, who has been having reasonable form winning Atlanta. Lleyton Hewitt plays Sergiy Stakhovsky and Marin Cilic plays Jurgen Melzer in the opener.
The draw seems a bit tricky because each country sends its top four players (at most), and the draw is half the size of a Slam. There are a few lower ranked players from small countries, but not many. There are also no wildcards (or not exactly–Hewitt and Stakhovsky, for example, are being given special exemptions to play) and no qualifiers playing.
Federer has to, once again, like his draw. There are some complications, but Berdych and Tsonga, players that have given him problems, are on the opposite half of the draw. Juan Martin del Potro has yet to make that leap back to the top. David Ferrer is a player Federer can overpower. The trickier part of the draw is in the bottom half where Murray might have to play Berdych who gave him problems back in Paris, and Djokovic might have to play Tsonga, who has had success against the Serb.
