By Mike McIntyre

Down to the final eight men at the Olympic tournament in Beijing already and it’s nice to see Roger Federer among them after the recent hard court struggles he has had.

Seriously though, did anyone think that Fed was not going to bring his “A” game in his chase for Olympic gold? From all the press he has done leading up to the tournament we know that winning there would rank just about as high as a Grand Slam trophy. He’s had a nice draw, overcome his previous Olympic tormentor from Athens in 2004, Tomas Berdych, and looks to be a lock to make it to the finals.

His quarterfinal match against American James Blake is almost a foregone conclusion judging from his 8-0 career record against him. Blake does not have a diverse enough game to challenge Federer on any surface.

Certainly an Olympic Gold would silence the growing number of fans and media alike who seem to think Federer may be on the downswing at the age of 27. Not only that but it would give the Swiss master a nice confidence boost heading into the US Open. There is hope he could still salvage something from an otherwise unspectacular season by his standards.

Apart from Federer, there is an interesting matchup between Fernando Gonzalez of Chile who captured the Bronze Medal in Athens and Frenchman Paul Henri Mathieu. This should be a closely contested matchup between these hard hitters, whose career head to head is tied at three apiece. I’m not one bit surprised that Gonzo has stepped it up, as he no doubt would love to have a repeat medal performance. The flag bearer for Chile is quite proud of representing his country and has found another gear here in Beijing.

In the bottom half of the draw everyone is hoping that a Djokovic/Nadal encounter develops out of the quarters. The Serbian Djokovic will first have to overcome Gael Monfils of France. I would consider Monfils a surprise to make it this far, and yet he showed us at the French Open this year that he is capable of making it deep into a big time tournament.  Djokovic holds the career edge at 2-0.

Finally let’s not forget about upcoming world number one, Rafael Nadal, who enters into new territory against Jurgen Melzer from Austria. The Olympics often produce surprise tennis stories, (see Massu, Fish, Gonzalez in Athens, 2004) and Melzer is definitely one for this year’s edition.  Don’t expect him to get much further than Nadal, but you just never know.

Beijing seems to be on track for medal finishes from the big three. What remains to be seen is the order those men will place.