• What the Deuce

A taste of things to come

Andy Murray is the defending champion in Toronto © Getty Images

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With the big guns returning to action in Toronto this week, the Rogers Cup could offer an insight into what we can expect from the final Major of the year. With the US Open just three weeks away, the back-to-back Masters tournaments in Canada and Cincinnati will offer the players a chance to get back into the swing of things, but more importantly, give us a chance to check out the likely contenders at Flushing Meadows.

For many of the players it will be their first competitive action since Wimbledon, and as Andy Murray and Roger Federer demonstrated after the Australian Open in January, a short break can make all the difference, and not necessarily for the better.

Cast your eye across the draw and wherever you look there are players with points to prove. Whether it be the likes of in-form players such as Mardy Fish, Sam Querrey and David Nalbandian, who have all won tournaments in recent weeks and will look to carry their momentum forward, or Nikolay Davydenko who has yet to make a real impact on the Tour following his return from a wrist injury.

Murray is the defending champion in Toronto and has his sights set on Federer's No. 3 spot as he bids to become the first person to defend the Rogers Cup title since Andre Agassi in 1995.

This week also marks the return of US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, who has also been sidelined since January with a wrist injury. A finalist in Montreal last year, Del Potro needs to hit the ground running or risk slipping down the rankings with 2,600 points to defend in the coming month.

All eyes will undoubtedly be on Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, who have had contrasting seasons and have plenty to prove, albeit for very different reasons.

While Federer started the season with a bang, he looked simply unbeatable as he won his 16th Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, he has since fizzled out. His quarter-final defeat to Tomas Berdych at Wimbledon was only his second defeat in eight years at the All England Club.

After a rivalry which saw them go head-to-head 11 times in two years between 2006 and 2007, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have met just once in the last year © Getty Images

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Nadal, on the other hand, hobbled out of his quarter-final against Andy Murray with a recurrence of his knee problems in Melbourne and wasn't seen again until March. But as soon as the tennis circus arrived on the red dirt in Europe, Nadal returned to his scintillating best , winning four titles on the bounce to return to world No. 1.

Rather symbolically, they crossed paths only once, exactly a year since their previous meeting in the final of the Madrid Masters. While last year it was Federer who ended a run of five-straight defeats against Nadal going back to 2007, before going on to win the French Open and Wimbledon, this year it was Nadal who was in the ascendancy.

The Spaniard looked like a player who had forgotten what it was like to lose, and extended his winning record over Federer to 14-7, before going on to reclaim the Roland Garros and Wimbledon crowns.

While Nadal is the favourite to win the US Open and complete his career Grand Slam, Federer will be desperate to prove he is not on a downward spiral. And what better way to do that than with victory in Toronto? His likely final opponent could be the man who usurped him as world No. 1. The pair have never met in Canada, and will only meet this year in the final, as Federer, seeded third, has been drawn on Novak Djokovic's side of the draw.

Looking down the roll of honour, the top four seeds have each won it once in the last four years. The Rogers Cup rotates between Montreal and Toronto, and so although Murray is the defending champion, Nadal returns to York University as the Toronto champion.

This week marks an historic occasion for a number of reasons. It is the first time Federer will have been seeded lower than second in nearly seven years - the last time he was seeded third was at the Masters Cup in November 2003.

The two-time Rogers Cup champion will be desperate to stop the slide - the disappointing run of form which has seen him fail to win a title since January. His name may quite literally be on the trophy, but the man who celebrated his 29th birthday on Sunday will be desperate to claim only his second piece of silverware this season.

It is also only the second time since January 2003 that Andy Roddick has been ranked outside the top ten, but more significantly, it is the first time in history that there has been no American man ranked in the top ten.

And finally, it is the first time in 34 years that the world's top two singles players have played doubles together. Nadal has teamed up with Djokovic (the pair were due to play together last year but Nadal was forced to pull out with injury) - the last time it happened, Jimmy Connors and No. 2 Arthur Ashe paired up back in 1976.

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