Tennis 2010 Week 1 - Looking at the Draws

In my last post, I forgot to look at the two women's tournaments that kick the first week of the season off, as well. This was a mistake for a number of reasons, the most exciting of which is that the women's tournament in Brisbane features the return of former number one and seven-time grand slam winner Justine Henin. She opens her comeback with a tough match, facing second seed and twentieth-ranked Nadia Petrova in the first round. I'm sure the Belgian would have preferred somebody a little lower in the rankings, since she may well be rusty after nearly two years off.

However, if she can get past Petrova (Justine does lead their head-to-head 11-2), then she should find herself with relatively smoother sailing. If she makes it all the way to the final, she has a chance of facing Kim Clijsters, who is the top seed for the event! If they play in the final, I expect they'll play a few more times over the course of the year. The other first-round match to keep an eye on is Ana Ivanovic against Jelena Dokic. I'd expect the winner of that match to make the semis.

The other women's tournament of week 1, in Auckland, does not feature as much star power, but it still has some fascinating storylines to watch. My favorite is the continued resurgence of Japanese player Kimiko Date Krumm, whose return from retirement is really much more impressive than Henin's. She opens against Chakvetadze. The other interesting storyline here features the top two Italian players, Schiavone and Pennetta (the number one seed), who are hoping they can build on their Fed Cup win last year by starting 2010 off strong.

Moving on to the men's tourneys, the field in Chennai is arguably the weakest. When world #79 Rajeev Ram is your eighth seed, you know that you don't have the toughest draw in the world. Top seed Soderling shouldn't have too much trouble marching through, despite the presence of some tough players. Former world number 1 Carlos Moya was given a wildcard to the event, and he faces Tipsarevic in the first round. Number eight seed Ram faces the Dutch young player Thiemo De Bakker, who is playing his tenth tour-level match. Last year's finalist and local hope Somdev Devvarman opens with the semifinal that he would have played last year, if Rainer Schuettler hadn't withdrawn with an injury. And defending champion Marin Cilic is the number two seed. All signs point to a Cilic-Soderling final, but of course, anything can happen.

By the way, Soderling ended up losing to Nadal in the final of the Abu Dhabi exhibition event, in two tough sets. That's impressive, since the Swede won their last match comfortably at the year-end championships. Nadal may have been able to use the time off (brief though it was) to get back to fighting fit form. Meanwhile, Federer had to play a consolation match for third place against Ferrer, which he easily won. Guess that invalidates my theory about Federer not giving it his all against Soderling so he could get ready for Doha, doesn't it?

The draw at Doha has three real contenders and a handful of dangerous, slightly crazy, but very entertaining mid-level players. Federer, Nadal, and Davydenko are the one, two, and three seeds. Gulbis, Karlovic, and Koellerer are all scattered throughout the draw, along with 38-year old Younes El Aynaoui, who was given a wildcard. He was playing on the Champions tour last year! He opens against a qualifier, which is about as much as he could hope for. It seems unreasonable to bet against a Federer-Nadal final here, though. Particularly since defending champ Andy Murray opted not to return and instead played in the Hopman Cup.

In Brisbane, on the men's side, Roddick seems to be the number one seed mostlikely to lose before the final. The health of his knee is still a question mark, and there are a ton of lurkers in the draw. Big-serving Aussie lefty Carsten Ball could be Roddick's second round opponent, and he could be followed by Jarkko Nieminen or Richard Gasquet, who are playing one of the most enticing opening round matches.

Other opening rounds to watch are Sam Querrey-James Blake, Marcos Baghdatis-Mardy Fish, and Gael Monfils-Taylor Dent. As if that weren't enough, the draw also features defending champ Radek Stepanek, the other great Aussie hope Bernard Tomic, Thomaz Bellucci from Brazil and Jeremy Chardy from France. This tournament could unfold any number of ways, and it's much harder to get a sense of who will come out on top than at the other two tournaments this week.