2009 Australian Open Draw
.The Australian Open draws are out (men, women), and I think the smart money at this point is on a Federer/Murray final. Any of the top four could win—Nadal is the world number one, and Djokovic is the defending champion—but Murray is on form and Federer just has an excellent record at Slams and won the last one on hard courts. I think Federer will win it in a repeat of his US Open win over Murray, but you never know, and Murray has the weapons to beat him—last year Djokovic went through Federer in Australia in straight sets after having lost to him in New York. Hopefully, though, the lack of mono will mean a better performance from Federer this year.
Murray and Nadal are set to meet in the semis, which should be a good match if it happens, and Nadal is never one to count out. Federer meets Djokovic, and I think Federer is strongly favored to win that if it happens.
Federer’s third-round opponent could be Marat Safin, and that could be a test, depending on Marat’s form. Again, Federer has to be heavily favored, but Safin might still be dangerous.
All of these predictions could go out the window, though. I think that the consistency of Federer and Nadal, and to a lesser extent Murray and Djokovic, has made Grand Slam tennis seem a lot more predictable than it is. There are a lot of players with phenomenal talent out there, and the Grand Slam events often provide them with tremendous motivation. There’s the money—a good run at a Grand Slam can bring in significant cash by itself, and then there are endorsement possibilities—but also the sense that while most of the time you have to grind out on the tour to try to raise your ranking, a few good matches at a Slam can achieve the same thing. Rainer Schüttler entered Wimbledon last year ranked 94th and made it to the semis, and this happens often. In fact, Wimbledon last year, while another #1–#2 battle in the end, had two unseeded players in the semis (the other was Safin).
Federer came close to getting bounced out of the US Open early by Andreev, and last year the same thing nearly happened against Tipsarevic, but he came through—given that he hasn’t failed to reach a Grand Slam semifinal in the last 18, you have to figure he’ll do it again here, and it seems unlikely that either Djokovic or anyone else will stop him from gaining the final.
If he makes the final, he will extend his streak of either winning the Grand Slam or losing to the eventual Grand Slam winner to 19 consecutive Slams.
Of course, if he wins the Australian Open, he will have matched Pete Sampras’s men’s record of 14 Grand Slam titles.