A tough road for Federer in Australian Open 2013

All eyes were on the placement of the No. 3 seed when the singles draws for the 2013 Australian Open were held Friday morning in Melbourne.

Andy Murray was placed into the same half of the draw as No. 2 Roger Federer, leaving the top-seeded Novak Djokovic, the defending champion here, with the potentially much easier task of a possible semifinal meeting against No. 4 David Ferrer. Djokovic does have the highest-ranked possible quarterfinal opponent in No. 5 Tomas Berdych. Rafael Nadal is skipping this year’s tournament because of lingering injury problems.

Federer has a difficult draw to get through long before reaching any matchup against Murray. A four-time champion here, Federer opens against the unpredictable Frenchman Benoit Paire, and in the second round he could face Nikolay Davydenko, a veteran who made the final in Doha earlier this month. In the third round Federer could play the Australian Bernard Tomic, who notched a win over Djokovic in the Hopman Cup in his second match of the year, and advanced this week to the semifinals of the Apia International in Sydney. In the fourth round Federer could face the hard-serving Canadian Milos Raonic, the 14th seed, before a possible quarterfinal against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the seventh seed.

Conversely, Ferrer happened into a fairly open section, drawing the least daunting projected quarterfinal opponent in No. 8 Janko Tipsarevic. That portion of the draw would seem to leave open opportunities of a deep run for several promising young players, including the 23-year-old Kei Nishikori of Japan and the 22-year-old Jerzy Janowicz of Poland. Tipsarevic has one of the most difficult and high-profile first-round matches in the tournament, squaring off against the local veteran Lleyton Hewitt. The 31-year-old Hewitt is playing the Australian Open for the straight 17th time.

Link: Australian Open 2013 draw

Date: 11th January 2013, Source: The New York Times