Ever since Andy Murray moved up to number 2 in the world in Montreal, the possibility lingered that Nadal and Federer could now appear in the same half of the US Open draw.  Tournament organizers had to be hoping fervently that that wouldn’t happen.  Although Americans are Anglophiles, Andy Murray still lacks the name recognition of the Spaniard.

So it was with bated press the tennis public awaited the release of the full draw, which came out at noon on ESPN, Friday, August 27th.  This was the first time the draw had been announced on TV much in the spirit of announcing March Madness participants.  And it was with relief, to some, that Rafael Nadal ended up in Murray’s half, much as he did last year.

That left Novak Djokovic in Roger Federer’s half.

Let’s take a quick look at the draw.  Roger opens up with last year’s NCAA champ, Devin Britton.  Britton recently made the semis of Wimbledon boys event and has since turned pro.  This should be an easy opening round for Roger.

Roger’s eighth of the draw actually looks pretty smooth.  Hewitt and Robredo appear to be his biggest challenges.  Davydenko, who is playing to day against Querrey, is in a much tougher eighth.  In his eighth, there is Mathieu, Youzhny, Soderling, and Querrey.  For all of Querrey’s success, he ended up in a tough section of the draw.

In the next section, Djokovic opens up against Ljubicic.  This is the Serbian vs. Croatian and may have a rowdy crowd, though it would have been noisier in Australia.  Ljubicic had been playing decent clay court tennis leading up to the French, but there’s been barely a peep since then.  Djokovic, provided he gets past Croatia’s Mr. Clean, will face the winner of two qualifiers.

In his eighth, Djokovic has Kohlschreiber (beat him at the French), Seppi (Kohlschreiber’s opponent), Andreev, Mayer, and Stepanek.  It’s fairly tough, but not as tough as Davydenko’s section.

Djokovic could meet Roddick again in the quarterfinals.  Roddick is in Djokovic’s quarter.  Roddick has Isner, Haas, and Verdasco in his section.  Isner plays a tough one right off the bat against Hanescu.  Roddick’s section doesn’t look particularly daunting.

In Nadal’s quarter, his top seeded rival is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  Gonzalez and Berdych are in Tsonga’s eight of the draw.  Nadal opens his US Open with someone who had a bit of an unfortunate kiss.  Yes, Richard Gasquet.  Gasquet hasn’t played in quite a while, even longer than Nadal.  Despite the potential of being a very tough match, Gasquet would have had to be practicing in secret and added a new twist to his game a la Kim Clijsters to knock Nadal out.  Still, if he has done that, a very intriguing matchup.

In his eighth, Monfils, Almagro, and Ferrer are the seeded players.  It ought to be a comfortable go to the final 16 for Nadal.  We’ll see what shape Nadal is in to play best of 5.

Surprisingly, del Potro is in Murray’s quarter for the second year in a row.  del Potro opens with fellow countryman, Juan Monaco, who beat Andy Murray back in Rome.  Ferrero, Fish, Simon are in his section.  So is Safin and Guccione.  A potentially challenging section for del Potro, who skipped Cincinnati.

Murray opens up with Ernests Gulbis.  Gulbis has had a pretty mundane year.  There was promise he’d do better in 2008.  He’s been trying to work on fitness this year.  Gulbis gave a challenge to Roddick last year, but despite his potential, should pose few problems for Murray.  Lopez, Karlovic, Wawrinka, and Cilic are in his eighth.

Predictions anyone?