The AO's first casualty

Even though rain in Chennai prevented any matches from being played to completion, the top seed still managed to find his way out of the tournament: Davydenko pulled out with an injury to his heel, which also takes him out of the Australian Open. It's inevitable that somebody is going to be unable to play at each of these big tournaments, but Davydenko is such a decent, steady, fit guy that I'm surprised it's him. Here's hoping for a swift recovery.

While it rained in India, there was some very interesting play in Australia and Qatar. In Brisbane, Gulbis couldn't follow up on his victory over Djokovic, and lost to Paul-Henri Mathieu. Does that mean that Djoko's loss had more to do with Novak being rusty or with Gulbis not being mature enough to perform up to the same level after securing the biggest win of his career? Probably a bit of both.

Kei Nishikori continues to impress, beating fifth seed Tomas Berdych. Ancic fell to Verdasco, who was always the favorite, but I bet Ancic's marathon of a match yesterday didn't help his chances. Speaking of marathons, Tsonga had to win the second and third sets in tiebreaks after getting bageled in the first by Nieminen to avenge a loss that the Finn dealt the Frenchman almost exactly a year ago.

Tsonga will be rewarded with a day's rest and then a match against his countryman Richard Gasquet, who will have had two days off after a much-easier match against Taylor Dent. The pair are 2-2, and while Tsonga has been playing better tennis of late, I bet that Gasquet would like to remind French fans that he's still around. That one could be good.

But as for tomorrow in Brisbane, the headline match has to be Ana Ivanovic against Amelie Mauresmo, who both had tough three-set victories today. Mauresmo will have to return to her 2006 form to win this one. The Frenchwoman has been on the verge of retiring for quite a while, but it would be great to see her have a late-career resurgence.

The other highlight is to see if Kei Nishikori can continue to roll, as he comes up against the guy who beat the guy who beat Djokovic, P.H. Mathieu. I'd love to see the Japanese teen continue to win, but I figure that at some point, he's going to run into somebody with enough experience to stop him, and Mathieu may be just the veteran to do that. Also, keep an eye on doubles team Chris Guccione and Carsten Ball, who are (I believe) the only local players left in this Aussie tournament. Don't expect them to last long against top-seeded Mirnyi and Ram.

In Doha, things continue much as one might expect, but interesting clashes are coming up fast. Today, all the seeds won and Youzhny had his expected slump after beating Andreev yesterday, falling to Victor Hanescu. None of the matches in Qatar were terribly thrilling, although Kohlschreiber had to lose a second set tie-break before beating Kristof Vliegen in three. Here's hoping he keeps it close enough with Roger Federer to lose a tie-break.

Tomorrow, Roddick and Murray should both come through easily against Hanescu and Stakhovsky, respectively. Roddick in particular needs to get as much momentum as he can before the season's first major in two weeks. The real exciting match tomorrow is Nadal against Gael Monfils. The Frenchman has never beat the Spaniard, but Monfils is getting better and better, so this is probably the best shot he's had yet. Really, that ought to be headlining match tomorrow, but they had to put it at mid-day, so Rafa could have a little time to recover before he went back to play doubles against Santoro (who he's already beaten once) and Youzhny. Unless Monfils really tires him out, he should win that one, too.

In addition to Nadal, Tsonga is also still in both the singles and doubles draws, as are Verdasco, Tipsarevic, and Schuettler, thought some of them haven't even played a doubles match, yet. I'm pressed with these guys that can play singles and doubles and do well at both. The game is much more physical than it was in the 80's, when guys like McEnroe would win both the singles and doubles grand slam titles at the same tournament, multiple times.

We also have Ivo against Ivo to look forward to, but unfortunately, Aleksandra Wozniack lost before she could play Caroline Wozniacki. To have Ivo-Ivo and Wozniack-Wozniacki on the same day would have been just too good.