Rome is the last big tournament where many of the names expecting to contend for honors at Roland Garros will play.  Let’s just say that 2012 is significantly different from 2011.  2011 was the year of Novak, and the question then was “Can Novak win on clay?”, and the answer was yes, but.  He beat Nadal for the first time on clay and did it back-to-back.  The Rome win, in particular, was unexpected.  While Madrid is played in altitude and is considered relatively quick for clay (although more so this year than last), Rome is considered a traditional slow-ish surface, closer to Paris.

Djokovic was pushed to the brink with Andy Murray threatening to derail the win streak.  Murray had a break to win the match only to make a few too many errors and let Djokovic claw his way back in.  You could even sense that Djokovic was resigned to his loss.  But once he got that break, he seemed to say “Well, if he’s not going to win, then I want to win”.

Federer would ultimately derail the Djokovic train, at least for a short while, as he beat the Serb in four sets in the semifinals of the French Open.

Heading into the French Open, Djokovic was clearly dominant, with Nadal playing second fiddle, Murray having his best season on clay (after another dismal early American swing at Indian Wells and Miami) and Federer playing reasonably solid, but appearing to deal with another player that had passed him by.

This year, the scene is much less clear.  Nadal had, once again, been on a huge title drought.  Prior to Monte Carlo 2012, Nadal had not won a title since the French Open in 2011, or almost a full year since he had won a title.  Much of that was due to Djokovic, but also due to the rather sparing schedule Nadal has played this year.  In particular, Nadal has only played 7 tournaments this year.  He has played all Masters 1000 events, the only Slam so far, and Doha and Barcelona.  Normally, Nadal plays one additional tournament right around Rotterdam (in February), but due to the Olympic schedule, he’s cut back more than usual.

This period of time is usually Nadal’s heaviest as he plays 5 clay events: Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, and Paris.  Last year he was winner, winner, runner-up, runner-up, and winner.  An outstanding run.  This year, he’s been winner, winner, third round.  He lost, for the first time, to Fernando Verdasco, and much like Djokovic, threatened not to play Madrid if it was played on blue clay.  However, of the top 4, Nadal seems to peak the best, so at this point, I’m not worried.  We’ll see how he plays at Rome.

Last year, Federer did not have a great clay season.  However, that seems more typical of Federer these days.  Some years he’ll play Monte Carlo (which is optional for the top 30 player–the only optional Masters 1000 title) and some years not.  Last year he played, but lost to Melzer.  He reached the semis of Madrid (his best clay event since they switched from Hamburg to Madrid) and lost in the third round of Rome to Richard Gasquet.  Despite a ho-hum clay season, Federer peaked at the French, upset Djokovic, and reached the finals, only to lose to Nadal again.

This year, Federer is played as well as he has at the start of the year in quite some time.  He played Rotterdam for the first time in a long time and beat Juan Martin del Potro.  He beat Andy Murray in the finals of Dubai even though Murray was talking about making a step up the ranks.  He then won Indian Wells before playing a rather lackluster match to lose to Andy Roddick in Miami, perhaps in an effort to keep himself healthy.  This year, Federer skipped Monte Carlo.  Madrid was his first tournament back and he won the tournament when both Djokovic and Nadal lost early.  Federer has paced himself well, but did end up with some luck given his two main rivals lost before he had a chance to play them.

Even so, Federer is playing pretty good tennis.  At Madrid, Federer experimented with serving and volleying on clay which he used to great effect.  He didn’t use it much against Berdych, but it wasn’t that bad either.  His backhand seems to be better than usual.  His serve is solid.  Still, his aggressiveness leads to inconsistencies in patches, though he’s managed to weather the storm.  In terms of play, you have to say Federer is in the best shape.  Even so, this may just be Nadal and Djokovic saving themselves up for Paris.

Last year, Djokovic had a great run.  He skipped Monte Carlo, opted to play Belgrade, which he won, then won Madrid and Rome and lost in the semis of the French.  Djokovic clearly improved his level in 2011, but in general, Djokovic is a very solid clay court player, up in the top 3 of clay courters.  His performance on clay separates him from Murray and allows Djokovic to keep ahead of his Scottish rival.

This year, Djokovic is not playing nearly as well.  He’s had far more losses now than last year.  Part of that may be due to lack of focus.  Part of it is likely due to worries about his health.  Djokovic’s slide occurred right after he won the US Open.  He slipped a notch either due to fatigue or injury and never quite recovered.  He did manage to muster enough to win the Australian Open and win two marathon five setters.  The match against Nadal, in particular, he had to fight off a break to win the fifth, and that was after Nadal started to up his level of aggression to take the third and fourth sets.  Still, Djokovic has had a series of losses this year including Isner, Murray, and Nadal.  The Monte Carlo loss, in particular, broke a 7-win streak Djokovic had over Nadal.  To be fair, Djokovic’s grandfather, who he was close with, had passed away.  The team decided to play on, but Djokovic withdrew from his home tournament, then lost early to Tipsarevic in Madrid.

The fourth-ranked player has been pretty quiet so far.  Andy Murray again lost early in Indian Wells, but this time rebounded in Miami to reach the finals where he lost to Djokovic.  He lost to Berdych in Monte Carlo, which isn’t all that bad given how well Berdych is playing on clay this year.  Murray decided to play Barcelona this year, but was pummeled by Raonic, not so much in score (it was close), but in power.  He skipped Madrid due to an injury, but is ready to play Rome.  Murray has played solid on clay, but not nearly as well as he did last year.  Again, with this being an Olympic year, the decision to try to win (esp. on his weakest surface) might be impacted.   Although Murray started off well with Lendl, much like Roddick when he switched coaches, there appears to be a period of good success.  Lendl will really earn his paycheck if he can do well with Murray in this part of the year especially since Murray doesn’t seem like he’s taken that many steps forward to his goals (at least, compared to Federer).

And that leaves us the dark horses.  These would include David Ferrer, Juan Martin del Potro, and Tomas Berdych.  All three have played solid tennis.  Berdych appears to be the most in-form, but his game can be so up-and-down.  When he’s on, he can strike the ball with ruthless efficiency, but pundits would probably say del Potro is the steadier of the two big hitters.  del Potro has yet to move his game to its fearsome level back when he won the US Open.  He appears to be playing quite a bit more passively than he used to.  I don’t know if that is really happening (I think it is) or whether everyone else has adjusted to his game.

Outside those three, there are players like Raonic or Isner who possess a big enough game to hit players off the court.  It’s too bad Verdasco is so up and down because when he plays well, he looks awesome, but those happen in very infrequent spurts.  You also have other steady players like Simon and Tipsarevic.  Tsonga hasn’t had that solid of a season and Monfils has been rather invisible.  Having said that, one often sees on clay surprise players that makes it deep.  In years past, it has been Soderling (twice) and Melzer.  Soderling has now been out about as long as del Potro has been.  He last played a match in Bastad on clay shortly after Wimbledon, and promised to play shortly after the Australian Open, but hasn’t played yet, otherwise, we might be talking about Soderling.

This year feels a bit like 2010 which was a ho-hum year for the top 4 except for Nadal except this go-around, Federer seems in better form than usual, Nadal is kinda-almost there, Djokovic needs to recover in time for the French, and Murray is a big unknown right now.