By Mike McIntyre
Robin Soderling arrives in Brisbane as the number one seed. Earlier this week in Abu Dhabi he defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Tomas Berdych, while losing to Roger Federer in a tight three set match. It seems like he is off to a solid start and should be considered the favorite in this tournament.
Soderling will face a qualifier in the opening round this week and has only Mardy Fish as a real threat in his half of the draw. That duo could meet in the semi-finals.
In the bottom half, defending champion Andy Roddick is the number two seed and faces Marinko Matosevic, an Australian wildcard, in the first round. Roddick's draw is much tougher than Soderling's as he will face either Igor Andreev or Alexandr Dolgopolov in the second round. A potential quarter-final match against Marcos Baghdatis also looms followed by either Fernando Verdasco, Gilles Simon or Feliciano Lopez in the semi's. Repeating as champion will be no easy task for Roddick but if he can get to the finals it will be a sign that he is clearly ready to play in 2011.
Also fresh from Abu Dhabi is number one seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. He will face Frederico Gil in the first round and could see Jeremy Chardy in the quarter-finals. For a player who was invisible in many tournaments a year ago, Berdych needs to take this opportunity in Chennai to show he is a true top-ten guy.
Third seeded Stan Wawrinka is also in the top half of the draw and must have been a late entry because he is using one of the wildcard's for the tournament.
In the bottom half, Xavier Malisse the 7th seed could face 4th seeded Richard Gasquet in one quarter-final while 6th seeded Janko Tipsarevic and 2nd seed Marin Cilic could square-off in the other.
Cilic is aiming to win his third Chennai Open in a row, which would make him the only player to have ever accomplished that feat at the Indian event. In 2010 he defeated Wawrinka in the finals and in 2009 it was Somdev Devvarman he took out.
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer continue their historic rivalry by opening the 2011 ATP World Tour season in Doha, Qatar.
Fresh off an exhibition tournament victory in nearby Abu Dhabi, Nadal is seeded first and will face Karol Beck in the first round.
At the Mubadala Tennis Championships, Nadal defeated Tomas Berdych and then Federer to show that he is ready to go on the hard courts.
Here in Doha he will have to get through the likes of Ernests Gulbis, Nikolay Davydenko and perhaps Philipp Kohlschreiber in order to advance to an anticipated final match-up against Federer.
A year ago Davydenko defeated both Federer and Nadal en route to the title. Do no expect a similar result this year as the veteran Russian's game has taken a sharp turn for the worse over the past eight months.
In the bottom half of the draw, Federer opens the tournament against a qualifier. He then has players such as Viktor Troicki and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his path who could pose him some problems.
I'm somewhat surprised in the weak field that Doha has to offer given the fact they have much more prize money to offer than the other two level 250 tournaments that the ATP has this week. Chalk it up to the distance that players must travel to get to the Middle East and then proceed to Australia I suppose.
Look forward to the Federer/Nadal final in a week's time. I'd be quite surprised if either player was unable to advance to that stage.
As for fans of players like Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro, you'll have to wait a bit longer to see these stars in action. Del Potro will take to the courts in a week in Sydney, while I've yet to see any indication of where Murray or Djokovic will be playing. They do not appear in the player list for any tournaments leading up to the Aussie Open, nor have they signed up for the Kooyong Classic exhibition at this point in time.
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