I generally like Americans and America, but quite often attention to detail doesn't appear a strong point ( says he, assuming that Americans are responsible for this nonsense ).

It's a bit difficult to figure out. They don't seem to have re-done the whole draw. Rather, they seem to have mis-seeded the 6,7,8 pairings. So original 6 was Bopanna/Qureshi, 7 was Nestor/Zimonjic and 8 was Linstedt/Kubot. Now 6 is N/Z, 7 is B and Q, and 8 is Mahut and Llodra.

This necessitated a switch in the first quarter - pulling M and L out and putting L and K in - and in the 2nd quarter, doing the reverse. It also involved switching the 6th (3rd Q) and 7th (4th Q) seeds. So far, so good.

What I'm not clear on is why the remaining changes happened:

In the 1st quarter, Fleming and Hutchins moved in, Marray and Haase moved out ... and Delbonis and Monaco moved from the 2nd slot (v the Bryans) to the 6th (v Linstedt/Kubot).

In the 3rd quarter, Haase and Marray moved in, Fleming and Hutchins moved out ... but Haase and Marray moved into the 19 slot (v Cilic/Dlouhy) and Sock and Harrison moved from the 19 slot to the 21 slot (the one vacated by Fleming and Hutchins)

In the 4th quarter, no one moved in or out, but the placement shifted: Benneteau and ERV went from 27 (v Cabal/Farah) to 30. Rojer and Tecau went from 30 to 29 (v. Benneteau and ERV). And Granollers/Lopez went from 29 to 27 (v Cabal/Farah)

As noted, they can't have redone the whole draw, as there's too much consistency with the previous one. But I cannot work out what the guiding principles were for the changes beyond the seeds!

-- Edited by Spectator on Thursday 20th of March 2014 03:03:12 PM

PS: Went on Twitter to see what doubles players were saying, in case it helped to work out what was going on. Not much joy on working out the logic, but looks as if it's Mahut who caught the error:

@ERogerVasselin: Bravo à @nmahut d'avoir été attentif sur le tableau de double #boulette #tetedeserie #onrefaitletirage

Or, roughly (and subject to correction):

Bravo to Nicolas Mahut for having paid close attention to (can also mean "taking note of" ... as in noticing the issue with) the doubles draw. #blunder #seed #redoingthedraw

-- Edited by Spectator on Thursday 20th of March 2014 02:19:19 PM

Yep, looking at Spectator's descriptions of the changes they made to seeds 6 to 8, they did indeed initially use the previous rankings - these were the Indian Wells seedings.

I presume one reason that they do use this Monday's rankings ( apart from the late start that makes the new rankings available ) is so that the the happenings in the immediately preceing Masters tournament are reflected in the Miami seedings - good idea if followed !

Not totally surprisingly Mr Mahut has been well aware that he and Llodra CR 38 ( 14 + 24 ) should be in the seeds in place of Kubot and Linstedt CR 39 ( 29 + 10 ) and he has gone :

"Non, zis is not right" and various French utterances.

You can see the difference between the old draw and then new draw here - http://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?t=424114

They haven't re done the whole draw, just changed it a bit. I can see why they've had to move a few seeds around, but why have they randomly changed a few teams around for no apparent reason?

Robin Haase (NED) & Jonny Marray CR 344 (302+42) d. Marin Cilic & Lukas Dlouhy (CRO/CZE) CR 241 (197+44) 6-4, 7-6 (4)

Well done.