Murray first victor of 2009!

Murray emerges from the battle of the Andys the clear winner, not being bothered by his back even a little bit. I think Murray might just be the favorite, going into the Australian Open, which is unusual, since he lost in the first round last year and there are about a half-dozen grand slam champs in the field that have a reasonable shot.

Schuettler pulled out of the tournament in Chennai, sending local wildcard Devvarman to the final in less than thrilling fashion, but it's still exciting for his run to continue! He's now up against Cilic in the final, and I think that Marin has to come out on top on this one. In Brisbane, Verdasco is a set up on Stepanek even as I type. I expect Fernando to win it. It should be a nice start to the season for both of them.

Fernando is also in the doubles final, against Marc Gicquel and Tsonga. That should be an interesting match. In Chennai, Wawrinka and Jean-Claude Scherrer (who?) are up against American duo Eric Butorac and Rajeev Ram. I'm impressed to see Tsonga and Wawrinka stick to their doubles play even after they lost in singles. It paid off for Nadal - can it pay for them, too?

Looking ahead to next week, Djokovic asked for a wildcard into the tournament in Sydney, so he could get some more match play. A good idea, since it's probably not too terribly wise to start off the first Grand Slam of the year having played one match and lost it. He'll start against either P.H. Mathieu or Andreas Seppi. If he makes it to the semis, he could find Tsonga - they've got a fun rivalry going, so that would be fun.

The bottom half of the draw is relatively loaded, with Gasquet, Simon, Stepanek, Nalbandian, Fish, Hewitt, and defending champ Tursunov. It's tough to pick a likely semi from that group. But looking at some exciting first-round matches, you've got Gasquet-Tursunov and Fish against Tipsarevic. Nieminen against Feliciano Lopez could be fun, too.

In the Sydney quallies, there's only one round left to play, but one of my favorites is still up for a spot. Canadian Frank Dancevic just has to beat Alberto Martin. Go Frank! Kevin Anderson lost a tough three-setter to Denis Gremelmeyer, and Xavier Malisse has some good wins, too.

The other tournament taking place next week is in Auckland, and it features Juan Martin Del Potro as the number one seed. It isn't the most dynamic field, but there are some very interesting players that I hope to see do well. Kei Nishikori opens up against former number one Juan Carlos Ferrero. That's a tough first-round for the Japanese teen. Sam Querrey opens against a New Zealand wildcard ranked 463. Sam had better win that. Robby Ginepri also opens against a local wildcard ranked outside 400. Lucky draws for the Americans.

The other first-round matches I'm interested in are Viktor Troicki against Igor Kunitsyn and Ernests Gulbis against Marcel Granollers. If Gulbis can win that, he'll be rewarded with a match against Del Potro. Can he knock out the number one seed in two consecutive weeks?

As for the Auckland quallies, Gilles Muller, Bobby Reynolds, and John Isner are all one win from the main draw. I'd like to see them all in it. After Muller's fantastic run at the U.S. Open last year (I watched two of his wins in person), I want him to get a ranking where he can get some direct entrances into these tournaments.

Some players are resting up for the AO, which starts in a mere week's time. Others are getting some match play in. It's funny that the first major tournament of the year comes so quickly, once the season gets started. That's why, I think, the Australian Open has a tendency to produce more surprise winners than the other three grand slams. We'll see what happens this year.