After two rounds, the field has been whittled down from 128 to 32, with only one major upset – Andy Murray going down in the 1st round to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France. Speaking of France, they have the most players left in the draw, six. Next is, surprisingly, the U.S. with five – a couple stars in Blake and Roddick, a grizzled veteran in Vince Spadea, a young player on the rise in Sam Querry, and Roddick’s buddy Mardy Fish, a former top 20 player who’s still only 26.

The most interesting 3rd round match-up pits two former runner-ups against eachother – Lleyton Hewitt (2005) and Marcos Baghdatis (2006). Hewitt is not the player he once was, as his freakish speed has been reduced to just ‘nice’ speed, while Baghdatis is clearly in his prime, a supreme shotmaker who could probably work a little harder if he wanted to, but nonetheless has his ranking solidly in the top 20. Bags had a harder time in the 2nd round than Hewitt, having to take down 2005 Aussie Champ Marat Safin 6-2 in the 5th set, while Hewitt defeated a qualifier ranked 216 in the world, Denis Istomin, in four sets. I’ll take Bags to win in four sets.

Another interesting 3rd round battle will be between Marin Cilic of Croatia and last year’s runner-up Fernando Gonzalez. Cilic reminds many people of another tall dark Croatian tennis star, Goran Ivanicevic. He’s only 19, and in the 3rd round of a major for the 1st time, but he’s already taken out two very good players – Nicolas Almagro and Jurgen Melzer. Watch for a potential upset here, Cilic is a rising talent.

Interesting potential matches include Ferrer-Nalbandian in the 4th round, Youzhny-Davydenko 4th round (battle of the Russians), and Roddick –Nadal in the Quarterfinals.

Finally, in case you were wondering, in our draft my friends and I got 20 of the final 32…not great, but decent when you consider we didn’t know the draw beforehand.