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The master of the clay court, Rafael Nadal continues his hunt for a 10th French Open title with a second round all-Spanish match up against Nicolas Almagro in what could prove to be an interesting match. Join The Roar for live scores from around 9pm (AEST) when the match gets underway.
Nadal and Almagro have a rather long history of playing each other. Almagro turned pro in 2003, while for Nadal it was 2001 when he turned pro. Since then they have played each other 13 times, Almagro only getting the better of Nadal on a single occasion. Interestingly, out of the 13 clashes between the pair, 10 have been on the clay court.
They first met way back in 2004. Nadal has won 10 of the games in straight sets and the pair have already played twice this season. Firstly, in Miami and then in Barcelona. Nadal won both of these encounters in straight sets, only dropping a combined total of 10 games over the five sets.
The game in Barcelona was on clay in the round of 32 and Nadal won 6 – 3, 6 – 1. It was a shamashing and will be in the heads of both players coming onto the court at Rolland Garros today.
Interestingly the pair have met three times in the French Open in 2008, 2010 and 2012. All three occasions have been in quarter finals and Nadal won all three games in straight sets.
Coming into the French Open Nadal has been in solid form winning plenty of matches and progressing right to the pointy end of clay court tournaments.
His most recent even was in Madrid where he defeated both Grigor Dimitrov and Thomas Berdych on the way to losing the final against Andy Murray. It was a similar case in Monte Carlo where he defeated both John Isner and David Ferrer before losing the semi final to Novak Djokovic.
Of course Nadal has won nine French Opens and has an excellent record at Rolland Garros. Incredibly he has only entered 10 French Opens.
Nadal’s first round victory at the 2015 French Open was an absolute smashing of Quentin Halys. It was expected by everyone, however Halys was able to fight and gain the odd break point which must worry Nadal. His inability to beat the big guns, in the lead up to the French Open must also worry him.
Meanwhile, Almagro was five and five in his last ten matches heading into the French Open. The world number 154 has struggled to match it with a number of players. However he has had victories recently against the likes of world number 25 Leonardo Mayer and if we go back to February he beat world number 18 Tommy Robredo.
Almagro’s first round victory took four sets and a tie breaker, but he will be undoubtedly happy with his performance against the 69th ranked Alexandr Dolgopolov.
PREDICTION: You can’t go past Nadal, but I tend to think it won’t be in straight sets.
Nadal in four sets.
Join The Roar for our live scores of this game from around 9pm (AEST) and don’t forget to leave a comment if you’re following along.