With Monte Carlo, one of the most beautiful destinations for a tennis tournament at an end, the European clay court season rolls on into Barcelona and Bucharest.
Barcelona, a 500-point tournament, is the bigger of the two, and features the king of clay, Rafael Nadal, who just claimed his ninth title at Monet Carlo. Nadal will be looking to add yet another clay court title too his already huge trophy cabinet.
Looking at the draw of Barcelona, I can honestly not see Nadal having much trouble in at least making the final of the tournament, especially considering his passion for playing this tournament in Catalina.
Fabio Fognini who was one of Rafa’s bogey players last year, could be his quarter final opponent. However the very suave Italian has been unfortunately injured since February, and was extremely poor in his return in Monte Carlo last week, losing 6-2 0-6 1-6 to Pablo Lorenzi.
David Ferrer is also on Nadal’s side of the draw, however I can’t see Rafa having too much of a difficult time against his fellow countryman. Nadal leads 19-2 in overall head to heads against Ferrer on clay, and since making the quarter finals at the Australian Open, Ferrer has had some surprisingly poor results.
The biggest threat to Nadal claiming his Barcelona crown is not a surprising one at all. Number 2 seed, Kei Nishikori, is back in Barcelona and looking to defend his title. If he is successful in doing so, it would be the third year in a row that he will be champion. However I think Kei is going to have a much more difficult time if he is to reach the final compared to Nadal.
Things should be straight forward for Kei, up until the quarter finals, where he will most likely be up against Dolgopolov or Bautista Agut. Dologopolov, who is a pure shot maker, can trouble anyone on his day if he can make his powerful shots consistently. Bautista Agut, who is proving to be one of the more solid players on the tour, has had a great year so far claiming two titles already.
Despite all this however, Nishikori has a perfect record against both Dolgopolov and Bautista Agut, winning four out of four times.
It is fairly difficult to see who a possible semi-final match up could potentially be for Nishikori, with some quality names featuring in the third bracket of the draw. Richard Gasquet, Alexander Zverev, Benoit Paire and Pablo Cuevas are the top players which feature in this part of the draw and would be dangerous match ups. Gasquet will be one player who Nishikori would be hoping to avoid, who he has never beaten in six attempts.
I really do hope that we have a Nadal against Nishikori final in this tournament, it would be one extremely interesting match to watch. Knowing Nadal, he would be only hungrier for more clay court titles after his Monte Carlo success, and would be hugely tested against Nishikori, who we all know is a quality player and has proven he can beat all the top players when playing his best tennis.
The Bucharest tournament, which is a 250-point tournament, does not host as many top players as Barcelona. However it will have Australian tennis fans interested as it features Bernard Tomic, who recently dropped down to Australia’s number two ranked player. Bernie who is now ranked 21 in the world and is the tournaments number one seed, has never had a great record on clay and it would take a huge effort for him to take out this title on his least favourite surface.
Ivo Karlovic is the number two seed, and considering he is yet to win a match in 2016, his likelihood of winning this title are very low.
The Bucharest tournament draw is extremely open, and there are so many players who could potentially win this title. Federico Delbonis, who won Casablanca a couple of weeks ago, could be a good chance to win his second title of the year.
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who is the defending champion, would be disappointed with fairly early exits so far this clay court season. This would be a great chance for him to get his clay court season kick started. Maybe unseeded Fernando Verdasco, who has not been playing consistent enough tennis at all this year, could use this tournament to find some form and gain some confidence leading into the French Open.
Despite it being very difficult to predict a winner, I’m going to stick my neck out and say my prediction to win is Kyle Edmund of Great Britain. Edmund has been fantastic on the challenger circuit over the last couple of years, and is only 21 years old. These tournaments are perfect for players like him trying to make their mark at the ATP level.
The clay tournaments come thick and fast this time of year, and always make for interesting viewing leading up to the second Grand Slam of the year!
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