Looking at the French Open draws, its really hard to pick against Rafa. What I don't understand is the logic behind tennis seeding - especially high seeds. Why in the world would you ever want the 1 and 3 seeds to play in the semis? I know this practice has been around for a while, but I don't understand. The only logic that I can think of is that if you have the same players at the top, you want different match ups from tournament to tournament. However, this seems unfair for someone like Djokovic; he's earned his place as the #1 player in the world, why should he have to battle through Federer and Nadal whilst Nadal must only pass the winner of the two (and Murray... lol.) If someone could explain the logic behind this type of seeding it would be much appreciated.
The #3 and #4 seeds are randomly put into either half of the draw. The only certainty when it comes to draws is that #1 seed will be at the top and #2 at the bottom. There can be a #1 vs #3 semi or a #1 vs #4 semi. That's why they always announce stuff like "Murray In Nadal's Half Of The Draw" As for the seedings themselves, they tend to go by ranking, except in Wimbledon for some odd reason, where they seem to go by different criteria, such as past performance.
As for the French, truth be told I haven't been able to keep up with tennis lately as much as I'd have liked to, however I'll express a few opinions.
The bottom half of the first quarter seems quite interesting. I haven't seen Baker play, so I can't comment on his chances, but Simon, Andujar, Bellucci are all good claycourt players, and Tsonga with a home crowd is always a hard one to take out.
Can't see any one of them taking out Djokovic however, nor any of the guys in his route to the quarters, so I'm pretty sure he'll make semis, sans an injury.
Keen to see a Federer-Nalbandian second round, though Federer doesn't struggle against him as he once did. There's really no one else too threatening on his route to the quarters either.
Delpo-Montanes is going to be interesting and I could believe it as one of the big first-round upsets. Berdych has seemed in good form as of late, so a Federer-Berdych quarterfinal is definitely on the cards.
Ferrer looks like another solid quarterfinalist, being a top-class claycourt player with a pretty easy draw. Third round looks like the hardest one for him, and even that doesn't look too bad, seeing as neither Youzhny not Haase are playing as well as they have done in the past as of late.
I'd love to see a Haas revival in this tour, but Dolgopolov will be a tricky match for him if he gets to the second round. I'd also like to finally see Dimitrov make a splash and live up to the hype around him, but I can't see him beating Gasquet at all honestly, especially since he's been performing well. Murray, in my mind, is the only one of the top 4 who has a good chance of getting knocked out before the quarters. He's not that great on clay, and he's returning from injury, so I don't fancy his chances.
Bottom quarter looks interesting. Clay is Tipsarevic's weakest surface, and he's one of the more unreliable top 10 guys in terms of early round matches, so getting dumped out early isn't unlikely. I'd love to see a Kohlschreiber-Almagro third round. I'd say they're the two most likely candidates for the quarters from that part of the draw.
Monaco-Raonic looks like another interesting third round, with a good contrast of styles. Despite there being good players in that part of the draw, it's hard to ever predict against Nadal on clay, so I honestly see him making finals relatively easily unless he gets injured or plays Raonic on a day where he's hitting 12 aces and just as many service winners per set.
