Barcelona Wrap-up and Rome Preview

The Barcelona final has completed, and despite Nadal's withdrawal at the beginning of the week, a Spaniard still managed to win the title. Fernando Verdasco played solid clay-court tennis to upset last year's French Open finalist Robin Soderling. Soderling just couldn't quite find his range on his groundstrokes for an extended period of time, and Verdasco's movement was sufficiently better than the Swede's that he didn't have many other options. Kudos to Verdasco, who has been quietly putting together an excellent year. And to Soderling, who has made his third career clay-court final, and even though he couldn't seal the deal, he showed that he is still a force to be reckoned with on any surface.

It's always tough to make it to the final only to lose when you have to play the next week, because while Verdasco can build on the momentum he may have gotten from his second title of the year, Soderling played just as much tennis and didn't come away with a title. Both of them are in the draw at Rome, as well as most of the other top players, with a few notable exceptions.

Del Potro, Davydenko, Gonzalez, Robredo, Monfils, Stepanek, and Haas are all out with injury. That's a lot of players in the top 21 who can't play. Andy Roddick is also skipping the tournament, but not because of injury, just because he's decided he doesn't have any chance of playing on clay and doesn't want to bother. He can skip out on the fine he would normally receive because of his veteran status on the tour, but he can't get any more ranking points, and he is still going to get a big fat zero for this tournament, since it's going to count as one of the eight required Masters Series events, whether he plays it or not. And since he just dropped to number eight in the world after Soderling came in second at Barcelona, it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility of a top ten with no Americans as the hard court swing begins after Wimbledon.

In any case, we'll see what happens on that front as the year progresses. This week in Rome, the top players who are not hobbled are all there. Roger Federer is, of course, the top seed. He's still on a quest for his second tournament victory of the year, after his Australian Open title earlier in the year. He'll open up against the winner of one of the most enticing first-round match-ups, between a pair of hot-and-cold players: Baghdatis and Gulbis. Baghdatis beat Federer earlier in the year, so it would be interesting to see a rematch. After that, he may get Sam Querrey, if the American survives to the third round. In the quartefinals, Federer is likely to face either Cilic, Ljubicic, or Nicolas Almagro. I don't see any of these players upsetting the Fed, but I would have said that about everyone who's beaten him since January this year. So we'll just see what kind of form he brings to his first clay-court tournament of the year.

Nadal is the third seed here, and he ended up in Federer's half of the draw. That means it's possible that we'll have the first Nadal-Federer matchup outside of a final in a regular tournament (end of year tourney doesn't count) since Roland Garros in 2005. To do that, Rafael Nadal will have a handful of challenging players to make his way through. Kohlschreiber, Monaco, and Soderling are the likeliest candidates. But if he plays the way he played in Monte Carlo, none of these players poses a real threat. The other potential opponents he might find - Berdych, Wawrinka, Andreev, Hanescu, Melzer - are all fine players, but none of them have the pedigree that they need to seriously challenge the king of clay. I really hope to see a Nadal-Soderling quarterfinal, because I bet that Nadal will want to get some revenge for his loss at the French Open last year. If Nadal is healthy and fit, he's through to the semifinals. It's as simple as that.

Since the semifinal on that half of the draw is looking like it could be Federer-Nadal, the other half of the draw seems like it could be a competition for the chance to lose in the final. Murray is the fourth seed here in Rome, despite dropping down to five in the rankings this week behind Juan Martin Del Potro, who hasn't even been playing. He's also on a three-match losing streak, which is almost unbelievable for a top five player. I would be shocked if that trend continued here, because Murray opens against Andreas Seppi, and has a three-match win streak against the Italian. Once he gets a win under his belt, he might be able to put together his first good tournament since his run to the Aussie Open final. His quarter is not the strongest, with two exceptions - Ferrer and Ferrero are there, and Murray might find one in the third round and the other in the quarters. He could also see Tsonga there, who might open against Thiemo De Bakker, who beat him last week in Barcelona. Other than that, there aren't a lot of likely contenders in Murray's section, which is hopeful for him.

The final quarter of the draw features second seed Novak Djokovic seeded to meet Barcelona champion Fernando Verdasco in the quarters, assuming the Spaniard isn't burnt out after reaching a final and winning a tournament in consecutive weeks. There's an interesting match-up here between Mikhail Youzhny and Lleyton Hewitt, who has yet to get his year going, thus far. John Isner is also in this section, the top American (of two) in the draw, and he plays Horacio Zeballos in the first round. He may get Bellucci in the second round and Djokovic in the third - it's a tough ask for the big American, but at least he's not getting Federer. Still, it's a longshot to think that a US player can make a deep run here.

The clay court season has been relatively straightforward, with two Spaniards, an Argentine, and a Swiss player winning the four tournaments that have taken place so far. I think it's likely that a Spaniard or Swiss player will win this tournament, too.

Barcelona Semifinals

In the quartefinals, I figured that there were three matches which could potentially have upsets. In the end, only one of them did, but it was an impressive upset. While Verdasco breezed past Gulbis and Ferrer had as little trouble with Bellucci as Soderling had with Schwank, Tsonga found himself in a real dogfight with Dutch youngster Thiemo De Bakker.

De Bakker has now had his first career top-ten victory against Tsonga, which is an impressive followup after beating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the last round. Tsonga was among the least accomplished clay court players that he could have faced at this stage, though. His next opponent will be last year's French Open finalist, Robin Soderling, who has yet to really break a sweat over the course of this tournament. It will be a tough ask for De Bakker to keep his tournament rolling at this stage, but he has a chance. You have to favor the Swede, but we could be looking at one of the future's big clay court players.

The other semifinal is much more of a toss-up, between two veteran Spaniards, who are no strangers to the red clay. Verdasco and Ferrer have met on tour eight times thus far, with Verdasco leading the head to head 5-3, and 5-2 on clay courts. He's also won the last two meetings, so the numbers seem to favor "Hot Sauce." The only stat seemingly in Ferrer's favor is that he beat Verdasco here in Barcelona in 2005. It could go either way, though, as Ferrer's career record on clay is more impressive than Verdasco's.

No matter what, this will be an exciting final on Sunday.

Barcelona Quarterfinals

We're down to the last eight in Barcelona, and the field looks almost the way you'd expect at this stage. With Nadal out of the draw, it's actually interesting to see who might make it through to the finish. There have been a handful of upsets, and the remaining match-ups are mostly good.

The only one that I think will probably be uneven is the only match-up featuring a real pretender. Second seed Robin Soderling faces Eduardo Schwank, who had a good win over Fabio Fognini in the first round, but then beat a hobbled Hewitt and lucky loser Ivan Navarro. Expect the Swede to do well in that match. Schwank is only a few weeks removed from being fined for failing to give his best effort against Juan Ignacio Chela in Houston, which doesn't help his chances here.

The other three matches could all be competitive. While everyone was expecting a rematch from last week between Tsonga and Ferrero, young Danish spoiler Thiemo De Bakker upset the player with the most wins on clay this year, winning the first and third sets of his match against Ferrero in tiebreaks. Big win for De Bakker. Against Tsonga, he'll also have a tough time, but this is his favorite surface, and he may be ready to make his move.

The other two matches both feature young guns against seasoned veterans, as well. Ernests Gulbis has had an easy road to the quarterfinals, as both of the seeds in his section were upset before Gulbis in turn beat their vanquishers. He now faces Fernando Verdasco. Gulbis is still trying to build off the momentum he should have gained by winning his first title in Del Ray Beach and to recapture the magic during his breakout run at the French Open two years ago. A deep run here could do the trick.

The last match-up is between two players who have already demonstrated their bona fides on the crushed brick. David Ferrer and Tomaz Bellucci are playing for what would have been Nadal's semifinal spot, so they know what a chance they've been given. Ferrer won their only meeting, earlier this year, and I favor him again, but Bellucci has a shot.

Everyone left in the draw knows that they dodged a freight train with Nadal's withdrawal, so expect everyone to be eager to take advantage of this unexpected chance to win a title. And everyone left has been hot. Of the eight players left in the draw, only Tsonga, Schwank, and De Bakker have not already won a title this year. So this is a tough field to get through.

Barcelona Round of 16

So the Barcelona tournament has lost a bit of its star power. Nadal withdrew before the tournament started, in a decision which I think is probably for the best. He demolished the field in Monte Carlo, but the clay court season is long, and he doesn't want to run out of steam during the French Open, like he did last time. He wasn't the only withdrawal, as Tomas Berdych also pulled out before the tourney began. Robredo also retired with injury once his match started, knocking three of the tournament's 16 seeds.

Several of the others who had a possibility to go deep in the tournament have already lost. Juan Monaco lost to Gimeno-Traver, Lleyton Hewitt to Eduardo Schwank, Fernando Gonzalez to qualifier Albert Ramos-Vinolas, and Albert Montanes to Jeremy Chardy, who then lost to Ernests Gulbis.

Since the tournament's order has been upset, the matches on the docket for tomorrow are a motley assortment of crackerjack matchups between the seeds that remain and surprising contests from players that aren't very familiar. Tomorrow's best matchup is between Nicolas Almagro and JW Tsonga, which should feature plenty of really big hitting. Soderling also faces Feliciano Lopez, which should feature a few aces.

With Nadal's withdrawal, this tournament completely opens up, and this is a really important tournament for every player hoping to put together a good clay-court season. Next week's tournament in Rome almost certainly belongs to one of the world's top three players, as does the tournament in Madrid a couple weeks after that. There are only a handful of other clay court tournaments, and they're all 250-level.

So look for Ferrer, Ferrero, and Verdasco to continue the Spanish dominance on this surface, while Tsonga wants to prep for his French Open run. Robin Soderling wants to try to equal his clay court effort from last year, and there are a handful of young guns hoping to take the tournament: Tomaz Bellucci, Ernests Gulbis, and Thiemo De Bakker. These last few rounds suddenly got very interesting, without Nadal around to burn through the rest of the field.

Monte Carlo Wrap-up, Barcelona Preview

Well, it looks like rumors of Rafael Nadal's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Despite the fact that he hadn't won a title since his monumental loss at the French Open last year, despite his months out of the game with knee problems, despite his surprising losses in recent months after blowing leads, Nadal came back and showed everyone why he's the king of clay. Verdasco was dismissed just as easily as Thiemo De Bakker or Michael Berrer, and that's saying something. Despite not facing his two biggest clay court opponents, Djokovic or Federer, Nadal made such light work of the resistance he did face (Verdasco, Ferrer, and Ferrero are all solid clay court players, anyway) that I don't think anyone could have stopped him this week. Bjorn Borg could have traveled through time to 2010 from 1980, and he still would have barely been able to win a set.

This was a really bad day for finals, as a matter of fact. In addition to Nadal's trouncing of Verdasco 6-0, 6-1, Francesca Schiavone beat Roberta Vinci in the Barcelona women's final 6-1, 6-1, and Sam Stosur beat Vera Zvonareva 6-0, 6-3. In three matches, the losing players combined to win a grand total of 6 games. That's a single set, that they managed to win, all playing together. At least Verdasco had the excuse of playing an in-form Nadal on his best surface.

Looking ahead to Barcelona, Nadal is in action once again, trying to defend a second consecutive title for the sixth consecutive time. That would be... even more unprecedented than his win today was, I suppose. Let's take a look at the draw. Since this is 500-level tournament rather than a Masters 1000, the field is a bit depleted, but most of the clay-court specialists are still around.

Nadal is the top seed and 5-time defending champion here this week. Who knows if the conditions will suit him as well as they did in Monte Carlo, but he's going to have seriously drop his level of play to be challenged. Which is not to say that there aren't strong players in his quarter. In the third round, I expect he'll face the winner of the most intriguing first-round matchup, between Finn Jarkko Nieminen and Brazilian Tomaz Bellucci. I would like to see Bellucci-Nadal on clay, because I expect we'll see that matchup another dozen times in the next five or six years. Eventually, Bellucci may get the better of the master, but at this point, he's just not developed enough as a player and Nadal is far too strong for him. Nadal's quarterfinal opponent will probably be David Ferrer again, and I expect that the result will be much the same as it was in Monte Carlo. He may also face Tommy Robredo there, but Tommy has even less of a shot.

Nadal's semifinal opponent will probably be either fourth seed Fernando Verdasco or fifth seed Fernando Gonzalez. Both have good results on clay, and are slated to meet in the quarters. There are a handful of spoilers in that section to watch out for, though. David Nalbandian is there, as is Ernests Gulbis. Igor Andreev plays Richard Gasquet in another enticing opening round matchup, and the lone American in the draw is Michael Russel, who apparently missed the memo that every US player is just going to consider the clay season a lost cause. I hope he wins a match.

The other half of the draw features a projected quarterfinal match-up between JW Tsonga and Juan Carlos Ferrero, which one of the best matches at Monte Carlo, so that would be an exciting rematch. Both will have to get through tricky match-ups in the round of 16 to have a replay of last week's three-setter, though. Ferrero faces Juan Monaco and Tsonga is up against Nicolas Almagro. Really, any of those four has a legitimate shot of making the semifinals.

Their opponent could be just about anyone, as the two top seeds who are weakest on clay ended up in this quarter. Berdych is slated to face Soderling for a spot in the semis, but despite the Swede's amazing run to last year's French Open final, he's really not a specialist on the red clay. Look for a dark horse, maybe Horacio Zeballos or Lleyton Hewitt, to make a run to the semis from this quarter.

The question of the week is really going to be whether Nadal is going to have any more trouble demolishing his opposition than he did last week. It seems like he simply can't continue to play the kind of imperious tennis he managed last week, but he's done it here five times before. Why not a sixth time for the second week in a row?