Rogers Cup Quarterfinals

We're through to the quarterfinals in Canada, and - for the most part - things have been going as expected. The top four seeds are all alive and well, though the same can't be said for the other seeds in the draw. Other than the big four, only one of the remaining 12 seeds made it to this stage. Remember that last year, this was the tournament were all eight of the top seeds made it to this stage. At this point, the top four are still in action, but Juan Martin Del Potro is out of action, injured, Nikolay Davydenko lost earlier today to Jeremy Chardy - the Russian clearly still not back to form after his wrist injury earlier this year - and Andy Roddick and J.W. Tsonga both declined to play the tournament, due to injury/exhaustion. The message to take from this is that the top four are in that place for many reasons, but one of the main ones is their consistency and their ability to stay healthy.

The only other seed to make it to the quarterfinals here is Tomas Berdych, who is now ranked inside the top 8. He's going to face Roger Federer, while he's riding a two-match win streak against the world number 3. (It's still weird to see that) But before Berdych beat Federer at Wimbledon and in Miami, he was riding an eight-match losing streak. It will be interesting to see how this match goes, because Berdych has been quiet since losing in the Wimbledon final - but so has Federer. I'm sure that Roger is eager to avenge his last two losses and show that he's back to his top form. This has the potential to be tomorrow's best match, for sure.

The other match in the running before that is between defending champion Andy Murray and the comeback kid David Nalbandian, who has ousted Ferrer and Soderling already this week. He's riding an 11-match winning streak, and it will be interesting to see how Murray handles him. The Scot has yet to win a title this year, and only reached two finals. His top-four ranking is in jeopardy, if he loses too many points this week. And Nalbandian is the sort of player who can beat Murray - crisp hitting enough to blunt Murray's returning. This match might be able to best Federer-Berdych, depending on whether Nalbandian's run can continue.

The other two matches are less exciting - Nadal gets Phillip Kohlschreiber, who he's 6-0 against. The German gutted out a tough win against Yen-Hsun Lu, but just because he managed to serve up a bagel against the best player from Chinese Taipei, that doesn't mean he can do much against the best player in the world. Novak Djokovic may have a slightly tougher time with Jeremy Chardy, who has been playing very well this week, no question. But he got a hobbled Davydenko after he just barely eked past Fernando Verdasco, and got a tired Marcos Bagdhatis in the first round. I expect Nadal and Djokovic to get through to the semis - it would be a huge upset any other way, but Murray and Federer are more of a toss-up.

Some good tennis on offer tomorrow, but the lack of U.S. players in the second big swing of the U.S. hardcourt circuit is a bit of a downer. Only two of them were even in the draw - and they played each other in the first round. Querrey beat Russell, but then fell to Kevin Anderson in the next round. We had no Blake, Fish, Isner, Roddick, Ginepri... nothing. At least in Cincinnati, I can bet that somebody like Ryan Harrison will get a wildcard. Hopefully the American men will have a better showing next week, so that we can stop wringing our hands about the state of American tennis.