In looking ahead to Thursday's French Open action, we could have focused on top seed Serena Williams, the active player with the most Grand Slam titles to her credit.
But she's playing qualifier Anna-Lena Friedsam, who has won just two WTA tour-level matches this entire year -- one of them in the first round just the other day. There's just not a whole lot to analyze.
So instead, let's focus on the men's action, starting with two men who are on a collision course to meet in what may prove to be the most talked-about Grand Slam quarterfinal in many years, top-ranked Novak Djokovic and No. 6 seed Rafael Nadal.
No. 1 Novak Djokovic versus Gilles Muller
Big, powerful and left-handed almost always spells D-A-N-G-E-R, and don't let that age of 32 fool you. Muller, who's from Luxembourg, is a late bloomer. He struggled mightily through his 20s and cracked the year-end top 50 for the first time in 2014 -- making the biggest jump among all the men in the top 100. The 6-foot-4 lefty has a punishing serve that can make life uncomfortable for anyone, including Djokovic.
The men have met just once before, in the fourth round at the Australian Open. Djokovic won that in straight sets, but it was tight: 6-4, 7-5. 7-5. True, Muller's serve theoretically is more effective on hard courts, but then so is John Isner's, and he's done some nice work in Paris through the years.
The clay will allow Muller to get a few more balls back than he might on a quicker surface. If he has a great day at the service notch and finds the lines during his return games, he might give Djokovic some anxious moments. The operative word is "some." Even the optimistic scenario for Muller only gives him a set. The call here is Djokovic in four.
No. 6 Rafael Nadal versus Nicolas Almagro
When Almagro, 0-10 at that point against Nadal, upset his fellow countryman in the Barcelona quarterfinals of 2014, the underdog's celebration was so exuberant, you might have thought he'd just won the French Open. Nadal noticed, and he made Almagro pay. He's battered Almagro twice since then, most recently on the same Barcelona court a few weeks ago, 6-3, 6-1.
But in fairness, Almagro is still trying to find his comfort zone after missing the entire second half of 2014 following foot surgery. He's a dangerous player with one of the best one-handed backhands in the game and a slap-shot forehand. Almagro struggled at the big Masters 1000 warm-ups on clay this year, but he did gut out a tough tiebreaker to push Djokovic to a third set before ultimately losing in the second in Rome.
Given Nadal's well-documented struggles and Almagro's explosive game, look for Nadal to get pushed -- hard. But I still like him in four tough sets.
No. 27 Bernard Tomic versus wild card Thanasi Kokkinakis
If you were some kind of moralist trying to teach wayward Aussie talent Bernard Tomic a lesson about wasting talent, you might have put him in just this kind of situation. Seemingly overnight, he has two talented fellow countrymen, Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios, threatening to supplant him as the successor to Lleyton Hewitt. To add insult to injury, both are younger than Tomic.
Kokkinakis and Tomic have already played twice. At the beginning of the year, Tomic schooled the 19-year-old youngster in Brisbane. But in what may have been an ominous sign for the 22-year-old favorite, Kokkinakis pushed Tomic to 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 at Indian Wells. Both Aussies are 6-5 and lean, but that's where the resemblance ends. Tomic plays a quirky, almost gentle game long on guile, while Kokkinakis cracks his serve and plays straightforward "big man" tennis. But I like him to pull the upset mainly because he's already a better mover than Tomic.