Rafael Nadal will be feeling a little more confident about his US Open defence after seeing his draw for the tournament which begins on Monday.
Nadal may be struggling for form but he's landed the nicest quarter of all the top seeds and the defending champion will have ample chance to play his way into form before he reaches the latter stages.
Nadal won the title last year with swashbuckling, aggressive play from the baseline, bludgeoning even the likes of Novak Djokovic into submission. Coupled with some new-found 'pop' on his first serve, it was an irresistible combination but the Spaniard appears to have gone back into his shell this summer.
He looked rusty in Montreal, uncharacteristically blowing numerous chances of victory against Ivan Dodig and then he was far too passive in Cincinnati. Fernando Verdasco should have put him away in round three but the in-form Mardy Fish made no mistake in the quarters.
Thankfully for Nadal, he may not be seriously tested until the quarters. He's up against Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev in round one, a man who's barely won a match all year and by the third round he's seeded to meet the veteran Croatian Ivan Ljubicic. He may pose a threat on other surfaces but Ljubicic has never dealt with the humid conditions in New York throughout his career and has a poor record at the event.
The next highest ranked seed in this quarter is David Ferrer, a man who knocked him out of this event four years ago. However after a superb season, Ferrer suffered a hairline wrist fracture in training just over a month ago and after making a rapid recovery, he simply did not look sharp enough in Cincinnati to threaten the top players this fortnight.
Nadal's biggest threat to making the last four is likely to be Andy Roddick but even the 2003 champion is not quite his ebullient self right now and his preparation for the tournament has been far from ideal.
