Monte Carlo Day 3

It's Wednesday in Monte Carlo, and that means that the rest of the second-round matches will be underway. Finally, we'll see how the top seeds are ready to adjust to the European clay-court swing. Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray are all in action tomorrow, and realistically, none of them should be tested in any of their matches. Murray may face the toughest test in German Phillipp Kohlschreiber, but if he can't handle the German on clay in the second round at Monte Carlo, then he can't expect to be a force on this surface for a while. That's the most interesting match among the top guys, to see what kind of form the Scot is in. Has he gotten over the loss to Federer at the Aussie Open? Roddick was basically out of action for the rest of the year, once he lost Wimbledon, so Murray may have to wait a bit to get his head back in the game, yet.

But that's not to say that the other top players should have no trouble at all. Djokovic, despite his relatively easy first match against Florent Serra, is struggling with his game, after a pair of lackluster performances at the last two Masters Series tournaments. He's been having trouble with his game, he's been mentally drained since his two wins against the US in Davis Cup, and he just fired his coach Todd Martin. He needs to get his serve back together, and he needs to cut out the unforced errors. We'll see if he's back on track.

For Nadal, the problem isn't mental. It will be interesting to see if he's back at his physical best. Clay is his surface, and he has a lot of points to defend for the next few months. How are his knees? How's his movement? Will he be as fast as he's been in the past? His first match should be a good test, as Thiemo De Bakker may not have a lot of experience at tour level, but he has four Challenger titles, all on clay. So he knows how to play on crushed brick. A handful of Challenger titles isn't enough to really unseat the king of clay, though, so I expect Nadal to come through. It will all depend on how cleanly he can make it through the match, to gauge how well he's playing, now that he's back at home and should be finding the ball in his wheelhouse, more often than not.

There are a couple other matches of interest taking place tomorrow, with four players who could make a run at this tournament. Ernests Gulbis is playing Stan "the Man" Wawrinka, who followed up his victory in last week's final against Victor Hanescu by beating him again in the first round here. Gulbis made his debut a couple years ago at the French Open, so both of these guys can play some dirtball. I'm anxious to see how this one turns out. Gulbis looked like he might be ready to reach the next level when he won his first title on U.S. hard courts, but he was mostly AWOL during the two Masters Series there. We'll see if he can do better here.

The other match to keep an eye on is Mikhail Youzhny against David Nalbandian. Nalbandian is still on the comeback trail, but he hasn't been gifted any particularly fortunate draws up to this point. This tournament might be his best chance to get back to a quarterfinal, if he can play close to the level of his former best. But he's up against another relative veteran, who's been playing some much better ball as of late. Youzhny is near his career high ranking, but these two have never met on clay, so this could be an interesting match to see if Nalbandian is a player who might still have some good tennis ahead of him, or if his surgery and layoff was just too much to recover from.