The Australian Open is finally upon us, and we are back from our long hiatus. What a better way to get a new start by getting started with our predictions for Australian Open 2010. This year is going to be very unpredictable as Federer has been shaky for the past few months, and Nadal has been ailing. Roddick has been stuttering, and Murray just can’t pull the trigger when it matters. Djokovic hasn’t been himself since 2008 either. Del Potro and Davydenko are the players to beat but one is struggling with wrist injury and the other has never done too well to reach the final of a slam. With that in mind, here are our predictions for the first grand-slam of the year:

1st Quarter: Federer. What can you expect. And he will be pushed hard by Davydenko. But he has had Davydenko’s number in long matches, and this time it won’t be different.

2nd Quarter: Djokovic. Has the easiest draw. It’d be a surprise if he doesn’t meet Federer in the semis.

3rd Quarter: Del Potro. Roddick is going to be tough. But if Del Potro shows up and his injury is not too much, he’ll reach the semis.

4th Quarter: Murray. Nadal has played great since his comeback, and he is a great competitor. But it’s Murray’s time, and this time no one will spoil Murray’s chances.

Final: Murray vs. Djokovic. I like Federer and Nadal, but their time at the top all by themselves is over. This year is going to be a great chance for Murray to win his first slam, and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t. He has Del Potro’s number and has the game to frustrate Djokovic. If he can beat Nadal, that will give him a lot of confidence. Don’t be surprised if he wins in straight sets against Djokovic.

Talk about mouth-watering clashes. The 2009 edition of BNP Paribas Open has truly given us some amazing match-ups. But they don’t getting any better than the two semis that we have at hand.

Roger Federer will face a recent demon of his as he tries to beat Murray for the third time in 8 meetings. Federer has lost 3 straight times to Murray and has only beaten the Scot twice in the past 7 meetings. The odds may be against Murray as he is still trying to bounce back from his illness, but he is inside Roger’s head, and you can bet it will be a close match. I would still pick Murray over Roger in 3 tight sets.

Nadal has just improved dramatically this year and is with a real chance to complete the grand slam. He is going to face a leaner, meaner Roddick, but he should easily dispatch A-Rod for yet another shot at winning the Indian Wells. Roddick will as always give his best, and that’s what makes this match so intriguing.

Predictions:

Murray bts. Federer 7-5, 5-7, 6-3

Nadal bts. Roddick: 7-6, 6-3

Two intriguing matchups for today. Murray vs. Federer should be very interesting. I personally believe that Murray has a better chance of winning this as it’s a best of 3 sets match. I’ll take Murray in 3. But wouldn’t be surprised if ninja Federer showed up.

Nadal vs. Simon is a mismatch on the paper. Simon gets a lot of balls back, but that won’t work against Nadal and his punishing strokes. It’ll be probably 3 and 4 for Nadal.

What are you picks? Andy or Roger? Rafa or Gilles?

In the wake of the news that Bob Bryan had to pull out of the Davis Cup tie with Spain, Patrick McEnroe put a brave face on as he claimed that he believed the U.S. had a legitimate chance of upsetting Spain if they managed to win a point on the very first day against Rafa and Ferrer.

I don’t think it’s impossible. It’s definitely not impossible. We feel we have a chance. As I said, we’re the underdog, but we’re certainly not here strictly for our health. We’re here because we think we can win.
Saying that, we’ve been in tough situations before, in Seville in the final, 2004. It was a great team. Rafa was just coming up then. Moya was playing well. Ferrero. They had many great players. We went over there, we fought extremely hard. Andy played a great match against Rafa on the first day. He had a chance to go up two sets to one in that match.
I feel like if we can be in that kind of situation on the first day, we have a chance to win a match, anything can happen. So obviously it’s difficult, but we played a lot of away ties, particularly these guys here played in a lot of away ties. We’ve got that experience of sort of expecting the crowd to be loud, expecting lots of things to happen.
We’ll just try to go out there and play our best.

I do believe that they have a chance to win a match or maybe too (a dead rubber), but I doubt U.S. has a legitimate chance of beating Rafa or getting more than a match from the other 2 singles matches. But stranger things have happened in the past. Right now it looks 4-1 for Spain.

The draw for the U.S. Open 2008 is out. Just as expected, Federer has gotten Djokovic in half of the draw whereas Nadal has gotten an extremely difficult path to the final with Murray, Blake, Nalbandian, Berdych, and Troicki all on his path. Andy Roddick, the top American hope didn’t get any favors from the draw with Santoro in the first round and Gulbis possibly in the 2nd round.

While Nadal seems to have a tough draw, Federer has the toughest draw with Roddick, Djokovic, Davydenko, and Stepanek all on his way to the final. But if the form holds, we wouldn’t see Roger past the semis, and it will be a Djokovic Nadal final. We shall see. Here is the full draw.

There are a lot of people who play tennis around the world. We have a 12 times grand slam champion. A bunch of former world No. 1s and grand slam winners who will be playing at the U.S. Open. But there is only one question that matters: who can stop Nadal? I thought before the Olympics that Djokovic would be the one stopping him, but now I see that beating Nadal in a best of 5 sets matches is absolutely difficult and will take a superhuman effort. Guys like Djokovic, Federer, Blake, or even Murray may want to disagree, but at this point, the new No. 1 has so much confidence that he goes in every match as a hot favorite. Now if he gets injured, that’s a whol other story but if Nadal plays his best, there will be no one that can stop Nadal. As far as Federer is concerned, he may have to think about his plans for next year already. With his confidence in an all time low, he has absolutely no chance of beating Nadal, and unless Nadal gets Djokovic in the semis, I can’t see how Federer can win this tournament.

Early predictions: Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, Murray in the semis. Winner: Nadal (against any of the other three regardless of the draw).

We are still not done with the Toronto masters but the Cincy draw is out and unlike other years, Cincy could be a historic tournament. You may ask why. It’s the first tournament that Nadal has a chance at taking the No. 1 spot if Federer fails to reach the quarters. With the draw that Federer has, he will probably have to go through Ginepri, Karlovic, and Roddick to reach the semis and meet the resurgent Murray there. Djokovic and Nadal should really make it to the semis again as Murray won’t be around to spoil their meeting like he did tonight by beating Novak.

My favorite match up is Nadal Youzhny and then Nadal Ferrer. But Ferrer and Youzhny need to make it there so we may not get these match ups after all. I think Cincy will be Novak’s tournament. He doesn’t really have anyone who can beat him in his draw and he should go on to face the winner of Kiefer – Gilles Simon – Blake in the quarter.

My pick is of course Nadal to win the whole tournament. Regardless of his match against Gasquet tonight and Murray tomorrow, Nadal is the best player on the planet right now, and with Federer losing his grip, it should be Nadal’s tournament to lose. Of course, Djokovic will have something to say about that.

Federer is out but Toronto Masters has served up some amazing matches for the quarter finals. First up we got Cilic vs. Simon. Then we have Blake vs. Kiefer. Blake really has the chance to reach another masters final, but he needs to stay focus or this chance will slip away like others. With no Federer or Roddick in his path and with Davydenko out, Blake simply is out of excuses.

But the two other matchups are even better. Nadal will face a red hot Gasquet who dominated Ferrer last night. My pick is still Nadal as he wants that No. 1 position so bad. But he will have to wait another week as Djokovic will take him and Murray out before winnning the tournament.

So here is my pick: Djokovic beats Murray (3 sets). Nadal beats Gasquet (3 sets). Blake beats Kiefer (3 sets). Cilic beats Simon (3 sets).

Semis: Djokovic over Nadal in 3. Blake over Cilic in 2.

Final: Djokovic over Blake in 2.

Who are your picks? Please share.

My favorite part of the year is upon us with the U.S. Open coming up soon. But first things first. The Toronto Rogers Masters. The draw is out and we have some interesting match ups if everything goes according to the plan:

1. Federer’s Quarter: Not easy by any means though he has avoided Djokovic in his half. He still will have to beat Gonzalez and/or Roddick on his way to the semis.

2. Davydenko’s Quarter: Davydenko was on a tear on hardcourts before the clay court season. I expect him to beat Haas and potentially meet Blake for a spot in the semis. At this point, with Blake losing steam, Davydenko could reach the semis without much trouble.

3. Nadal’s Quarter: Nadal has Baghdatis, Berdych, and Ferrer on his path, but he should make it to semis. This year is Nadal’s year and reaching a semis here will help Nadal finally closing on that No. 1 spot.

4. Djokovic’s Quarter: Djokovic’s draw is the easiest in my opinion. He has some tough opponents in his draw but no one that actually can beat him on a hard court. On the other side of the quarter we have Murray and Safin. That will be an interesting match up but something tells me Murray will face Djokovic in the quarters on his way out of the tournament.

Predictions:

Semis: Federer over Davydenko, Djokovic over Nadal.

Final: Djokovic over Federer

Who are your picks?

P.S. don’t forget that ESPN is supposed to cover this event so don’t pay ATP a ton to watch the  coverage online.

The Olympics are almost upon us. Okay. We are a month away, but still. So we know Federer loves the olympics the most as he needs to find a way to salvage his poor season. But here are my favorites for the Olympics.

1. Novak Djokovic: call me crazy but somehow I think winning a gold medal for Serbia is a bigger deal to Djokovic than it is to a Federer who doesn’t even go to Davis Cup matches that often.

2. Rafael Nadal: the best player in the world will be in the final if he’s lucky, and he has Federer’s number. He could bring a silver for Spain.

3. Roger Federer: Federer will probably win a bronze at best. He did not perform well in the last Olympics when he was peaking. Now that he is “unpeaking” and he has lots of young guns going for the gold. He will have yet another disappointing result.

Dark Horses: James Blake, Murray, and Davydenko.