By Steve Tignor

After the Grand Slam opener Down Under in January and a month of dueling appearance fees in February, the tours are set to begin 2007 in earnest in the California desert this week. It’s the first Masters event for the men, and one of only a handful of dual-gender tournaments all year. The weather looks good, the men are all there, and the women…well, the men are all there.

Looking down the respective draws you see two vastly different tournaments. The men’s second seed, Rafael Nadal, is in a quarter that features two guys who have beaten him five straight times; No. 2 women’s seed Svetlana Kuznetsova (Svets is indeed the second seed) is looking at Olga Poutchkova and Ai Sugiyama (yep, she’s still playing) standing in between her and the quarters. In other words, this tournament is about the men. Here’s a section-by-section breakdown of the next week and a half in pro tennis:

THE MEN

First Quarter: Well, maybe Roger Federer is making tennis boring, after all. His most likely round-of-16 opponent will be Lleyton Hewitt, a guy who Federer has systematically driven from the sport over the last three years.

The bottom half of the section could be fun. James Blake is the highest seed, followed by Novak Djokovic. That makes for an interesting match—this spring should give us the best look we’ve had at how Djoko will fare against the Top 10. But to get there he might have to get by Dmitry Tursunov, another guy trying to follow-up a breakthrough season. If they play, it will be reckless explosiveness (Tursunov) versus all-around, play-within-yourself competence (Djoko). It all depends on how Tursunov is hitting

Semifinalist: Roger Federer

Second Quarter:We have tremendous, unpredictable talent floating around here—Davydenko, Safin, Murray, Haas, and Gonzo (told you this tournament was about the men). Davydenko is the best of these guys day in, day out, but he still hasn’t risen to an occasion. He could play Sam Querrey in the second round, which I’d like to see—punch versus counterpunch on a grand scale. Safin/Murray is possible in the third round; I like Murray there.

The bottom half is set up as a rematch of the Aussie Open semis between Haas and Gonzalez. This is the first major chance these guys have had to follow up on their breakthroughs Down Under; I’ll be curious to see if either can keep it going through the spring. For some reason I think Haas will get revenge on Feña and make the quarters.

Semifinalist: Andy Murray

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