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By Kamakshi Tandon

Marat Safin, practicing at Indian Wells on Tuesday, will be one of the many players looking to decrease the gap between Roger Federer an the rest of the field.                 © Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Guillermo Vilas currently holds the men’s record with 46 wins. Federer is at 41 after taking the title in Dubai last week, and will hit 47 if he wins Indian Wells.

Few would bet against him doing it, which just leaves the question of who will emerge as the best of the rest.

With Ralfael Nadal now clearly in a Slump with a capital S, his Rivalry with Federer is also fast losing its capital R. The Spaniard has reached just two semifinals since Wimbledon and will have his work cut out to turn things around here. Mikhail Youzhny – the guy who knocked him out of the US Open and again at Dubai last week – is probably waiting in the quarterfinals, with nemesis Tomas Berdych or Marcos Baghdatis possibly to follow.

Andy Roddick has arguably been Federer’s strongest challenger over the last six months – read: the only player to have taken more than more set off him. On the down side, the beatdown Down Under remains fresh in everyone’s mind, and Roddick hasn’t won a title since last August. On the plus side, he’s in a very navigable section of the draw, with potential quarterfinal opponents that include Ivan Ljubcic, Richard Gasquet and David Nalbandian – all would be underdogs against Roddick on this surface and in front of an American crowd.

Both Nadal and Roddick’s cause is helped by being in the slightly weaker bottom half of the draw and – perhaps more importantly – are well away from Federer.

Federer’s job, meanwhile, might be a little harder because he’s in the stacked top half of the draw. Lleyton Hewitt is a possible third-round opponent, and young gun Novak Djokovic – who took a set off Federer in Dubai – could be next. The two have had a short but fractious history, with Federer accusing Djokovic of taking fake injury timeouts and Djokovic accused of having too much swagger leading up to their match in Melbourne. And after last week’s three-setter, it looks like this could become an intriguing rivalry on the court as well. The problem for Djokovic? Federer is now never off-guard going into their matches.

If the seeds hold, it’ll actually be James Blake facing Federer in the quarterfinals in a repeat of last year’s final. Blake will have to put the round-robin controversy of last week behind him, but a bigger problem might be that he’s played Federer six times and won just one set.

The most interesting question of the draw may be which player will turn up to face Federer in the semifinals. With Nikolay Davydenko struggling recently, two matches will likely be key – Marat Safin vs. Andy Murray and Fernando Gonzalez vs. Tommy Haas.

Marat Safin planned to spend a couple of days and ‘enjoy Las Vegas’ after exiting in the semifinals there, but he still got to Indian Wells nice and early, practicing in the warm sunshine on Tuesday after a cold week in Vegas. He’ll need to be in good shape to beat young gun Murray, who defended a title for the first time at San Jose in February and could reach the top ten with some good showings in March.

Murray was also in Las Vegas last week – he wasn’t playing, but did catch a first-round match in the stands alongside Andre Agassi, who showed up to support his hometown event and even paid his own way in.

Now a veteran at 28, Tommy Haas has been on a hot streak this year, reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open, winning in Memphis and giving Federer a good challenge in Dubai. After his memorable run in Melbourne, Gonzalez has had to go straight to play at Vina del Mar and Davis Cup, and has been laid low since.

If Federer does end up champion as expected, he’ll also have won his past eight tournaments. That would set up him up for another record to chase at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami: winning nine tournaments in a row.