Let’s rewind a few months back when Rafael Nadal was still the king of clay.  At the time, he had won the Australian Open in five sets over Roger Federer who had a meltdown in the fifth set.  Nadal was number 1 by a comfortable margin.

The clay season had gone pretty well.  Novak Djokovic, not Roger Federer, appeared to be the guy that would give Nadal his biggest threat, taking Nadal to the wire in the Madrid semifinals and having played Nadal three times very close.  Federer, for his part, engineered a straight set victory over Nadal which wasn’t nearly that convincing, especially given Nadal’s wearying escape from Djokovic’s superlative play.

Federer looked like his best years were behind him.  Surely, Federer couldn’t beat Nadal over five sets, although some ardent fans believed Federer at least had some hope of breaking through.  Nadal, by contrast, looked like he’d go into Paris and claim his sixth victory, to tie Borg, and in a sense, surpass him, because Nadal would win these 6 consecutively.

But all that changed when a tall rangy Swede named Robin Soderling took Nadal out.  Nadal had chances to win, but Soderling kept applying pressure.  Not bad for a guy that lost 6-1, 6-0 to Nadal only weeks earlier.

Team Nadal then proclaimed he had been suffering knee tendinitis for months.  Indeed, in his match against Djokovic in Madrid, Nadal seemed a bit testy.  The knee bands he wore were suddenly gone, as some wondered whether he thought the bands were making his knees worse, not better.  Nadal skipped the grass court tuneups, then played an exhibition with Hewitt and Wawrinka, both losses.  This convinced him that he needed rest.  Nadal skipped Wimbledon and headed back to Mallorca with his uncle.  Meanwhile, news slowly leaked that Nadal’s parents were splitting up.

Since then, Federer won the French, and the tears of despair at the Australian Open turned to tears of joy, as he held the trophy high, one that he wondered if he might never win despite his best efforts to become the second best clay court player in the world.  Federer would take the energy from that win and play a convincingly solid Wimbledon and claim a sixth title, another marathon match, this time over his nemesis, Andy Roddick, who had retooled his game and pushed Fed to the brink, but not over.

And again, Nadal was out.  He skipped the smaller hard court tournaments.  However, so did the others.  Federer, Murray, Djokovic.  They all took a second break (outside of the traditional December break).  Some chose to train (Murray), some to take care of family business (Federer), and some, who knows (Djokovic).

The fact of the matter was that Nadal did not forget how to play tennis.  If anything, Nadal would simply be rusty, and use the hard court tournaments to test his knees.  Nadal looked iffy in Montreal, but an iffy Nadal can beat most players.  del Potro played nervously against Nadal in the first set, but clawed out a first set victory, and this seemed to relax the tall Argentine who would be a handful for Nadal even under the best of circumstances.  del Potro proceeded to break Nadal three times in a decisive second set.

Nadal came to Cincinnati and still was not feeling his shots well.  Nadal faced the stout Italian, Andreas Seppi, who pushed Nadal to two tiebreaks.  Even a rusty Nadal still knows how to win.

Nadal played the Frenchman, Mathieu, last night.  If you can characterize the French, and it’s generally unfair to say they are all the same, it’s that they have a flashy style of play.  They generally know how to volley well.  They seem better suited to faster surfaces than the slow clay of Roland Garros.  Despite the plethora of French in the top 100, there’s no one as dominant as Nadal.

Richard Gasquet perhaps represents the typical Gaul as well as anyone.  Highly talented, perhaps the best backhand in the game, yet lacking the mental strength to come through in tough matches.  And then the deal with the woman at the party in Miami.  But I digress.

Some felt Mathieu had the physical game to play a rusty Nadal tight, but might fold because he wouldn’t be able to play at the level he’s capable.  And that was exactly what happened.  Mathieu started with an early break, but eventually Nadal broke back and then broke once again to capture the first set.  After that, the confidence that was missing in Nadal’s game was coming back.  Although he struggled to move to his forehand side, which has always been a problem for him, he hit beautiful passes covering his backhand.  Nadal said this was the best match he’d played since his return.

Still, it’s hard to gauge whether Nadal is fully back. The quick answer is no, he’s not 100% yet.  Nadal knows this, and he’s not that concerned.  This isn’t the US Open.

Up next for Nadal is Tomas Berdych.  Berdych can also be an uneven player.  However, he does two things better than Mathieu.  He serves bigger and he has a bigger forehand.  Mathieu really had problems with his first serve and that prevented him from being able to handle Nadal’s returns.

A quick preview of today’s matches.  Federer will play Hewitt.  Hewitt showed that, although he’s no longer number 1, nor is he even in the top 10, he can still play tennis.  Although Querrey took a 6-2 set off of Hewitt, Hewitt bounced back and took the third set, 6-3.  Although Federer has an outstanding record against Hewitt beating him the last 12 times they’ve met, Federer hasn’t been playing particularly solid.  Ferrer, who recently retired against Nadal, pushed Federer to three sets.  Hewitt plays a game much like Ferrer.  Still, two things work in Roger’s favor.  The confidence of knowing he’s beaten Hewitt 12 times in a row, and the belief he has in himself that he can play better as the tournament goes along.  The one factor that goes against him: Federer is a much better best of 5 player and is vulnerable in a best of 3 match-up.

Last week, Federer had a meltdown against Tsonga.  One benefit of this?  He didn’t have to play Murray.  Does Federer play this kind of long-term strategy where he avoids seeing players too often?  We’ll see.

Of course, even if Federer wins, Murray has to do his part.  Although he’s ranked number 2, Murray was seeded 3, mainly because the tournament had to produce a draw by Sunday and Murray wasn’t officially 2 until Monday.  Murray will play Julien Benneteau.  Outside of Juan Martin del Potro, who is sitting out this week, perhaps to work on fitness, Murray is playing the best tennis this hard court season. Of course, this is based on one tournament win, but he continues to have easy wins, one over Almagro and one over Stepanek.  Benneteau should not be expected to give Murray a hard time today.  The two have only met once, at Wimbledon in 2006, which Murray won in 4 sets.

Gilles Simon has had a pretty awful 2009 for a guy ranked in the top 10.  The reason he’s stayed in the top 10 so long is because he won the majority of his matches after Wimbledon.  Simon, however, chose to skip Indianapolis, where he was defending champ and play in Hamburg instead (it was demoted to an ATP 500 event), a tournament on clay.  Simon lost early, again.  It was expected that he’d lose to Davydenko who had a great post-Wimbledon tournament run–on clay.  Even so, most expected Davydenko to win.  Simon, however, seems to realize he’s got a bunch of points to defend, and beat Davydenko in three sets, and had chances to win the first set.

Simon’s the real wildcard.  Djokovic has also had a mediocre year, by his standards.  Even so, he’s nearly won more matches than anyone else this year (Murray may have eked him out by a match or two).  The problem is winning tournaments and making a run at the majors.  On paper, Djokovic should be too much for Simon, but Simon is one of those really steady guys that could keep up with Djokovic.  Every match they’ve played has gone three sets, and Djokovic leads 2-1 in their head-to-head.  Were Simon on a bit of a hot streak, this could be very tough.  Right now, it’s hard to say because we don’t know if it’s good Simon playing or bad.  Perhaps his win over Davydenko means that Simon is back to playing the kind of tennis that got him to the top 10.

Djokovic, however, needs a good win.  Of all the players in the tournament, Djokovic probably needs the win most.  Murray is playing pretty solid and has no worries.  Nadal realizes he’s still coming back, so the win isn’t so critical for him.  Roger only worries about the Slams.  Djokovic looked like he was back in form during the clay season, and to be honest, had a decent grass season, but people expect a great deal more from him.  If you ask a knowledgeable tennis watcher, she might tell you that del Potro looks like he has more upside than Djokovic.  Even Roddick might be doing better (though the age difference is key).

As we head into the most exciting day of any tournament (the quarterfinals), we’ll see if the top 4 are playing top 4 tennis.  This looks to be heading to a grand weekend.