I voted for Fed to win it, but am thinking with my heart and not my head. At 36, he will need three things to happen in order to take the title:
1. Favorable draw
2. Favorable scheduling (no 2:20 am matches like he played a few years ago there)
3. No long Monfils-like 4 hour matches prior to the final. He must come into the final fresh.
All three of those happening are a tough ask.
I'd say this:
1) Favorable draw - looking at the seeds I can't really see anyone who can bother him early on (except Kyrgios). Then of course who would Fed prefer in the SF? I say that there's a positive side to each option - if he draws Nadal - great - less pressure and he can take a lot of points away from him. If he draws Murray? Great because Murray won't probably make it and if he will his level won't be good enough to really compete with Fed.
2) Health - he needs to be 100% healthy, any sort of injury and his chances drop to 0%.
3) I agree with your 3rd point - I don't think a repeat of 2017 AO is possible - any 5-set match could really jeopardize his chances. However, I don't really see anyone who can really push him hard early:
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Del Potro is a question mark and he'll need to go through a 5-8 seed to even get to Federer (potential 4th round)
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Kyrgios for obvious reasons (potential 4th round)
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Isner could push Federer to a couple of tie-breaks and sneak one out if he's lucky but still he'd have to beat a 5-8 seed in the 4th round just to get to Federer (potential QF)
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Raonic could push Federer if his serve is hot but not only he's out of form but the 2017 Wimbledon beatdown must've really dented his confidence against Fed (potential QF)
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Dimitrov could challenge Federer for a set or 2 and maybe even push Federer to 5 sets if he catches him on a bad day (potential QF)
And that's pretty much it until the SF. There are of course players like Muller, Querrey, Lopez or Anderson who have the tools to bother Federer when they get hot but even there I would be confident in Fed getting through fairly easily.
The funny part is that there is a decent chance that Federer won't have to literally do anything until the SF.
I have to say that
the Djokovic, Wawrinka and Nishikori withdrawals can really give the top guys very easy draws. Also, because of this I expect the tournament to be extremely boring until the QF stage (with Kyrgios and Del Potro the only interesting stories before that).
