This should be called the Auckland draw, as three of the four finalists (Nalbandian, Ferrer and Giraldo) at the Heineken Open tournament in Auckland found themselves in this part of the draw.
But lets examine it round by round:
1st Round:
The notable match of this first round is without a doubt the encounter between David Nalbandian and Lleyton Hewitt. They first met back in 2002 when a back-then skinny 21 year old from Argentina made it all the way through to the Finals of Wimbledon and faced off against the #1 player in the world, Lleyton Hewitt. Hewitt would go on to win that match, but they would later meet in an epic 5 setter Australian Open semifinal, one that gets forgotten due to another famous SF that year (Fed/Safin). Hewitt holds a 3-2 head-head record, but Nalby has won the last 2 encounters. Slight edge to David in 4 tough sets.
2nd Round:
The second round has some interesting potential matchups. Stepanek has regained some of his old form, but he is still not the place he once was. A match vs Isner would be fun to watch, although John should have enough firepower to go through. Cilic would love to match or better his Semifinal showing of last year, but he will be challenged in the 2nd rd against the in-form Santiago Giraldo. Lastly, i'd keep an eye on the young Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis. A lot of people see him crack the top 40 by the end of the year. A win here vs Nalbandian/Hewitt would certainly up his credentials.
3rd Round:
Rafa finally meets a little bit of competition. To his credit, Feliciano does have a win against Rafa last year, but Nadal has won all 3 previous meetings on Hard Courts and will be too much for Feli to handle. A towering matchup between Isner and Cilic should give fans a mouth-watering battle, id expect to see a couple of tiebreakers there. Nalbandian/Ferrer could be a rematch of this week's Auckland Final. Ferrer took that one easily, but with the stakes raised, i see David barely escaping a defeat here.
Round of 16
Marin will have done well to reach this point, but against the #1 player in the world, the party stops here. Nadal is hungry for the RAFA slam and he should be rested from the easy path here. Youzhny's deep run at the US Open helped his ranking, thus the lesser opponents he will see until this point. The going gets tough here tough as a potential match vs Nalbandian will test his progress and eventually reveal he's a fluke top 10 seed.
Quarterfinal
Its unfortunate because on paper a Nalbandian vs Nadal quarters sounds like quite the entree following the appetizers, but Nalby could not have asked for a tougher path to the QF. If he survives this far, he'll get hammered by a fresher Nadal.
