The first two Masters 1000 of the season are Indian Wells and Miami.  Typically, players like Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have fared better at these Masters 1000 than Slam stalwarts, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, although Nadal was last year’s defending champ.  We’re going to preview Miami by reviewing the top players and where they stand heading into Miami.

First, a rankings update.   Although Rafael Nadal made it further into the tournament (he reached the semifinals) than Andy Murray (lost in the quarterfinals), he was defending champ, so he had to defend quite a few more points than Murray.  Thus, Nadal lost more points than Murray lost.  The net effect was that Murray gained on Nadal, and enough so that Murray is, once again, number 3 in the world, and Nadal is once again, number 4 in the world.

The intriguing side effect is, alas, once again, Murray and Nadal can’t be on the same half of the draw in Miami.  The same was true in Indian Wells.  In Miami, Murray was in Federer’s half of the draw, while Nadal was in Djokovic’s half.  So far, everytime Nadal has had a chance to be in the same half of the draw as Federer, it hasn’t happened.  In particular, it didn’t happen in the US Open, and it didn’t happen in Indian Wells.  Let’s see if it happens in Miami.

The two beneficiaries in rankings from Indian Wells were Ivan Ljubicic, whose rankings jumped up to 13, and Tomas Berdych, who is now ranked 20th.  Isner and Querrey both slipped some, though they are still ranked in the top 30.

First prediction is generally an easy one.  While the top 5 players are often very consistent reaching the latter rounds of most tournaments that they play, it’s tougher for players outside the top 10 to have the same consistency.  For players used to losing after 1-2 rounds, it’s a challenge to play matches to win a tournament, then come back the next week and post similar results.

Indeed, if you look at the end of the Ljubicic-Roddick final, you’ll notice that Ljubicic had a very strong desire to end the match in straight sets.  At 6-2 up, he tried for an ace on a 2nd serve.  At 6-3, he challenged Roddick’s second serve, hoping for a double fault.  At 6-5, he went for a big serve on his own serve.  Ljubicic had already had a long week and expended a lot of energy.   It wouldn’t be surprising, for a variety of reasons, if Ljubicic lost early.  Even a little fatigue can make him vulnerable to players that aren’t in the top 10.  And he’s already had a tournament to remember.

Looking back, the tournament was good for players you didn’t expect.  Andy Roddick did quite a bit better than expected and reached the finals of a Masters 1000 for the first time in years.  Roddick has been vulnerable to up and comers, but by and large, he has the kind of steadiness that works well against all but the best strikers in the game.  Robin Soderling also did better than expected reaching his first Masters 1000 semi.  If he can steady his game out, he can be a fixture in the top 10 for years to come.  He has a huge serve and he’s big off the ground.

OK, let’s review the top 8 players heading into Miami.

At the top is Roger Federer.  Lately, Federer has been mainly playing up to the Slams.  In a best of 3 format, he’s more vulnerable to a loss.  His game also fluctuates rather wildly.  For Indian Wells, maybe it wasn’t so much of a surprise.  He had been ill for two weeks and so perhaps a bit of poor play was expected.  In Slams, Federer usually makes it past a few rough patches.  As Federer himself points out, he didn’t play so badly against Baghdatis.  He just gave him too many chances.  He had three match points, so he clearly was on the verge of winning the match, and even if the match was patchy, Federer has gotten past that before.  Even so, he’ll want to clean up his game more.

Compare his performance to last year.  Last year, Federer lost in the semifinals of Indian Wells and the semifinals of Miami.  He was disgusted with himself.  He had smashed a racquet in the process, and said he was sick of hard courts and couldn’t wait to get back to the clay.  Everyone thought he was nuts.  His best results have been on faster surfaces and his worst on clay.  People thought he was on a bit of a slide.  Little were we to know of the events to unfold!

Even though he’s performed worse this year, I wonder if Federer feels worse this year than last.  I think losing to his two main rivals, Murray and Djokovic, bothered him more.  He’s used to playing his best tennis late in tournaments, and being shaky earlier on.  Somehow I think losing to Baghdatis didn’t affect him as much as losing to Murray last year.  Still, he’ll want to make a strong showing at Miami to show that Indian Wells was a minor blip in the scheme of things.  He’s the big question mark in my book.

Then, there’s Novak Djokovic.  Djokovic is really starting to become a puzzle.  From a guy who used to be a shoo-in to reach the latter rounds of a Slam, Djokovic is such a mystery.  He’ll play fantastic one week and gut out tough victories, and then he’ll play crappy the next.  Djokovic admitted he was playing too many tournaments last year, and it hurt his efforts.  Djokovic had two very good patches of play last year, and he was even pretty solid a year ago.  He played Nadal tough in the clay court Masters 1000 events last year, and he played well from the US Open on to the end of the year, though he fared not well in the ATP World Tour Finals.

Because of that, Djokovic’s ranking is still a solid number 2.  Realize that Djokovic has actually won tournaments since the Wimbledon, and Nadal, who is now 4 in the world, has not.  Right now, Djokovic is kinda in a good patch, but that five setter he played against Isner in Davis Cup plus his recent defense in Dubai seemed to have left him tired.  He struggled against Kohlshreiber and then Ljubicic played big to beat him.   So Djokovic is also a question mark, but more so mentally than Federer, who I think is still trying to get back into playing shape.

The loss to Federer in the Australian Open seems to have hit Andy harder than expected.  Rather than head back to the UK and work out his problems, he decided he had played too much, and took off a week and a half without playing much tennis at all.  He withdrew from Marseille, but decided, somewhat half-heartedly, to play Dubai.  Much like Federer, Murray generally doesn’t lose easily.  Murray had pushed Tipsarevic to a third set and although he was broken early on, he did eventually break back, only to be broken again.

Murray’s loss to Soderling was not a huge surprise.  Soderling has just the kind of game that can bother Murray.  He hits hard and has a good serve.  These have been formulas for Murray’s losses.  By and large, we know what kind of player can beat him.  I think people have lost hope that a more aggressive Murray will emerge.  Murray’s game doesn’t seem well suited to big-time aggression.  He’s not as good a counter-puncher as Roddick and Roddick has worked to make his average groundstroke relatively powerful, more so than Murray.  Roddick also doesn’t go for winners as much as Murray, but at least he serves a lot higher first serve percentages, so wins many more free points.  Murray is the better returner, and that’s his one huge strength.

Still, Murray would like to improve on his performance, and he has a ton of points to defend.  He and Nadal may again flip-flop in rankings because Murray probably needs to reach the finals at the very least.  In particular, Nadal lost in the quarters last year to del Potro while Murray won Miami.  Murray would like to turn around his performance, but I wonder if he’s mentally ready, and in particular, is his game ready?  Murray looked awfully sharp heading into the Australian Open despite a loss in the Hopman Cup.  He look decidedly less sharp in Miami, despite making it to the quarters.  Still, he may only be a fraction from reaching form.

To be honest, I felt Rafa was playing the best tennis in Indian Wells.  He just looks really good.  And yet, he lost to Ivan Ljubicic.  I kinda wonder if this isn’t the rest of the field learning how to play Rafa.  To play Rafa well, it helps to have a big serve, which Ljubicic has, so that you can at least hold your own serve with some regularity.  It helps to have poise so you don’t panic when Rafa is on the attack, and Luby seemed awfully chill this week.  It helps to attack Rafa, too.

I’m thinking Rafa is learning which shots he wants to chase down, and which ones he’s willing to give up on.  Once upon a time, Rafa chased down everything, but the amount of wear and tear is amazing when you do that.  Ljubicic used his big forehand to hit hard crosscourt shots and held his game together just enough to engineer a break in the second.  Although Rafa continued to play well in the third, in the tiebreak, his accurate, and more importantly aggressive shots, became a bit more passive.  He hit it with as much spin as ever, but he seemed afraid to hit the big shots, while Ljubicic went for his shots, got an early lead, and never relinquished it.

Even though Rafa looks pretty good, and I think he’s good for a semifinal run, he has been somewhat mentally vulnerable ever since he came back to play Montreal and Cincinnati.  He’s playing good enough to win tournaments, but always seems to run into players that play confident and hit the shots they need to.  I think Rafa just needs a win somewhere, anywhere, and maybe that will trigger him to start winning again.  Of the top 4, I feel Rafa is playing the best tennis right now, based on Indian Wells.  The other three have regressed some since the Australian Open and need to make a statement in Miami about the state of their games.

Nikolay Davydenko and Juan Martin del Potro will both be out of Miami.  Davydenko was slated to be out 3 months which makes him iffy for the French.  This is too bad because he was hurt last year at the same time and his rankings slipped out of the top 10.  He fought hard the rest of the year to get his ranking back up, and it looks like he’ll have to do it again this year too.  del Potro is a complete mystery.  No one knows how he’s faring.  With these two out, the top 4 will have a better chance of pushing forward in the tournament.

Robin Soderling is number 7.  Soderling has become a pretty good player.  But is ready to move up?  del Potro showed an amazing capacity to play well at the Slams.  His game was already pretty big, but he showed that he was capable of playing even better at the Slams.  With Soderling, he kept running into Roger Federer.  French Open loss?  To Federer.  Wimbledon loss?  To Federer.  US Open loss?  To Federer.  One wonders how he would have done if he was on the opposite half of Federer in the Slams.  It’s no shame to lose to Federer, of course, but because Soderling kept running into him, you never know how he might have performed otherwise.

Soderling has the kind of game that gives lots of players trouble, including Nadal, Davydenko, Tsonga, and so forth.  Roddick did well to beat Soderling, though some of that was due to Soderling playing bad games.  Credit Roddick for having a steady enough game.  The one loss that was most peculiar was losing early in the Australian.  Soderling still occasionally has a few baffling losses, but it does seem to happen to players outside the top 3 or 4 more frequently.

Andy Roddick has slipped to eighth, but he’s playing pretty solid tennis.  Roddick seems to play reasonably well day in and day out.  He has struggled against other Americans, most notably Querrey and Isner.  Roddick’s return of serve is not the best and so he often relies on tiebreaks to get him out of jams.  Still, you feel he’s good for at least a quarterfinal appearance in Miami.  Out of the top players, I feel Roddick is playing pretty good, perhaps next to Rafa in terms of the quality of his play relative to what he can produce.

Of course, Indian Wells was a huge surprise with Ljubicic winning it all.  I feel that so many players have so much to prove in Miami, including Federer, Murray, and Djokovic, that Miami is likely to hold closer to form.  I don’t expect another surprise winner like Ljubicic.  On form, I’d pick Nadal as the favorite heading into Miami, and then it’s a matter of who can get their game back into shape after that.  It’s possible a player like Soderling or even Roddick, given a favorable draw, could still shake things up to reach the semifinals.  Roddick generally would like to avoid either an early Federer or Nadal matchup, but otherwise is probably happy to meet any of the other top seeds.  He’d probably like to avoid Querrey too.