Australian Open Draw Analysis

The draw is out; let the predictions begin!

There are so many ways to look at a tennis tournament's drawsheet, but what I like to do first is see what the quarterfinals would look like if the top eight seeds hold up, which has never happened in a grand slam, but is still a good way to get a sense of the where the top players are in the tournament. In-depth analysis will follow.

Top quarter:

Federer (1) vs. Davydenko (6) - There was a time when this would have been a dream for Roger Federer, as the Swiss had owned the Russian in 12 meetings. However, Davydenko has beaten Federer twice in a row in the last few months, and while he's yet to do it at a grand slam, I don't think Fed wanted to see this man waiting for him.

Second quarter:

Djokovic (3) vs. Soderling (8) - A pretty good draw for the Djoker, particularly since Soderling just retired from his match at the Kooyong exhibition with an injury. This would be better if Soderling hadn't just notched his first win against Novak at the year-end championships in London, but with a 5-1 record, he has to be fairly happy with this opponent.

Third quarter:

Roddick (7) vs. Del Potro (4) - Not ideal for Andy, because he has lost to Del Potro on all three times that they've met. However, DelPo has also been struggling with injury and pulled out of a match at Kooyong, so that may work in Roddick's favor. They both fell to Roger Federer last year (Del Po in the quarters, Roddick in the semis) and I'm sure Roddick is particularly happy to be in the other half of the draw, this year.

Fourth quarter:

Murray (5) vs. Nadal (2) - The defending champion ends up with Murray as his quarterfinal opponent, since the Scot let his ranking slip out of the top four last week. Murray is 2-7 against Nadal, but both of those wins did come on hard courts, one at the U.S. Open in 2008. The Spaniard will have to work hard and reverse several months of less-than-stellar form to defend his title.

Of course, to get this point, the top eight have to get through 120 other players first. As I said, the top eight seeds have never all made it to the quarterfinal at a grand slam in the open era, so the odds of at least one of the aforementioned players losing before this stage is almost a hundred percent. But who's going to topple early?

Federer has a favorable draw, as is usually the case with the top-seeded player. His opening round match should actually be the toughest of his first three, no matter who he faces. Fed plays Igor Andreev, who took the Swiss to five sets at the US Open's round of 16 in 2008. Once Roger gets past him, his next two rounds will almost inevitably feature clay court specialists. The fourth round for Federer could be interesting, as he'll likely face either Lleyton Hewitt, Marcos Baghdatis, or Giles Simon. Two of them are former finalists here, and all three want to get back to the top ten.

Davydenko arguably has an even easier road than Federer, as the Russian opens against a qualifier, then players either another qualifier or Carlos Moya, who is also an Aussie Open runner-up, but that was 12 years ago. Davydenko's section has more qualifiers than other eighth of the drew (five) and two of the other three seeds are clay-corut specialists, Juan Monaco and Juan Carlos Ferrero, who isn't quite as far past his prime as Moya, but a deep run from him is not especially likely. Davydenko's likely fourth-round would be against last year's semifinalist Fernando Verdasco, and that could be a tough match. But Verdasco as only one once against Davydenko in seven tries. It's unlikely that Aussie wildcard Carsten Ball opens against Verdasco, because that's a tough ask, but he's got an outside chance of pulling the upset. The other potential spoiler in Davydenko's section is Ernests Gulbis, if he decides to play as well as he's capable.

Djokovic's eighth of the draw is quite favorable. The first seed he might meet is erratic young Frenchman Jeremy Chardy, who hasn't made it past the second round at any grand slam event not held on his home soil. He might meet Mikhail Youzhny or Tommy Robredo next, and while both are excellent players who have at least one win over Djoker, I think that Novak can handle both. The dangerous floaters in this section of the draw are unseeded former slam semifinalists Richard Gasquet and Robby Ginepri.

The last section in the top half of the draw has the least amount of distance between the top two seeds. Particularly if Soderling turns up injured, this may turn out to be Tsonga's section, instead. I know Djokovic would rather face the Swede than Tsonga, since JW has owned Novak in four out of five matches since they first met in the final here two years ago. In any case, Soderling would have to get by tough Spanish lefty Nicolas Almagro to face Tsonga, but Tsonga would have to beat either Taylor Dent, Taylor Haas, Janko Tipsarevic, or young American phenom Ryan Harrison. As a matter of fact, the Tipsarevic-Harrison matchup is the second-most interesting match I can identify out of the 64 in the first round of the draw.

Okay, half way there!

Moving on to the bottom half of the draw, Andy Roddick has been given a minefield of tricky players to work his way through. He opens against the very young Dutch player Thiemo De Bakker. De Bakker has not yet won a grand slam match, so it's unlucky for him that his second is against last year's semifinalist. After that, things only get trickier. His second-round opponent is likely going to be Tomaz Bellucci, who is also gaining confidence, even though he has yet to post that big win that will put him on the map. He could face former finalist Rainer Schuettler next, or fellow American Sam Querrey. Sam doesn't seem to have to gotten over his injury quite yet, but he can get his kick-started here. And even once Roddick gets through that group, he'll have to face either Tomas Berdych, Fernando Gonzalez, or Evgeny Korolev. By no means an easy task.

Roddick is aiming to play the winner of the sixth section of the draw, which features Del Potro and Cilic as the top two seeds. While a clash between them is likely (during last year's AO, I predicted they would play plenty of times) it all depends on whether Del Potro is healthy. If not, there's a possible opening, and the player who would be most desperate to take it is James Blake. Cilic's little bit of the draw is very interesting, as he opens against Fabrice Santoro is what is basically a consolation match, just so Fabrice can play in a grand slam event in four different decades - 80's, 90's, 00's, and 10's. He is seeded to meet Stan "the Man" Wawrinka, who he just faced down in two tiebreaks in the Chennai final a week ago. The other player in this section of the draw is Aussie wildcard Bernard Tomic, who opens against a qualifier, which is as much as he could have hoped for.

Since Murray dropped out of the top four, he may surprised to find himself in Nadal's quarter, rather than his own. But even so, he has to be happy with his draw. His section is conspicuously missing the heavy hitters who blew him off the court at all four majors last year. His first real test will be against either Jurgen Melzer or Jarkko Nieminen, but neither player should trouble him too much. But the player he'll face in the fourth round will be interesting. There's a likely second-round matchup between Daniel Koellerer and Gael Monfils, the two best showmen on the ATP tour. After that, Monfils could face Ferrer, which would be a fascinating contrast of styles. It's going to be tough for either to beat Murray, though.

Finally, to the last section of the draw, we find the most exciting first-round match of the tournament in Nadal's eighth, but it isn't anywhere near him. No, the best first-round matchup is between Radek Stepanek and Ivo Karlovic. You may recall, last year Karlovic lost to Stepanek in a Davis Cup rubber 16-14 in the fifth after playing four tiebreak sets! There is absolutely no way this match can live up to that, but it has potential to be excellent, nonetheless. Nadal actually has a tough draw, himself. He opens against a 30-year old Australian playing the tennis of his life, Peter Luczak. His third round match could be against one of two tough opponents, Phillip Kohlschreiber (who ousted Roddick at that stage in 2008) or John Isner (who just reached his second career tour final). And even after that, he'll have to get through either Stepanek, Karlovic, Mardy Fish, or Ivan Ljubicic.

I'll have more analysis in the coming days, particularly once the qualifiers are placed. Along with my picks, of course!