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.