At the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament this week, Rafael Nadal is making his first appearance since losing to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semifinals of the Australian Open. Nadal is the top seed in Rotterdam, but he will have to navigate his way through an extremely difficult top half of the draw if he hopes to make his way to the final.

 While the clay-court events in South America are still in full swing and the U.S. hard-court stretch is heating up as it makes its way to the Masters Series tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami, the top players remain in Europe this week. The ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament boasts an incredibly strong field of contestants and the top half of the draw looks especially brutal.

Rafael Nadal, the top seed, is playing for the first time since the Australian Open. He won’t have any time to work on getting back in the swing of things, however, as the Spaniard has been dealt a tough opening-round matchup with Dmitry Tursunov. If Nadal is lucky enough to survive the Russian, he will most likely face two-time Grand Slam champion Lleyton Hewitt in his next match. Eighth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis looms large as a potential quarterfinal opponent.

Like Nadal, Baghdatis will have to play great tennis just to make it that far. In the first round the Cypriot has to face Robin Soderling, a quarterfinalist last week in Marseille. The winner of that showdown will get whoever emerges from another enticing opening-round clash between Fernando Verdasco and Jarkko Nieminen.