Thursday, April 26, 2007

Clay Court Crunch Time

The clay court season began in earnest last week with the first clay court Masters Series event of the year – Monte Carlo. 2003 French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero played well, reaching the semi’s before falling to Roger Federer. Tomas Berdych also made the semi’s, solidifying his status as a legit top 15 talent at the tender age of 21, before bowing out to the clay court phenom Rafael Nadal. Nadal also beat Phillip Kohlschreiber in the quarterfinals. Kohlschreiber is a rising young German who has improved his ranking from # 86 to # 47 in the last year. Fernando Gonzalez, who has struggled since reaching the Australian Open final in January, could not turn his fortunes around as he lost to Igor Andreev in the 2nd round.

So it came down to a repeat of last year’s final with Nadal and Federer going head to head. Unfortunately for the living legend Federer, the result remained the same – a 6-4, 6-4 Nadal victory, running his record clay court winning streak to 67 matches. Nadal is now one of just two players to win Monte Carlo three times in a row – Ilie Nastase won it from 1971-73. Federer talked of feeling good about what he learned in the loss, but for someone who so desperately wants a French Open title to complete a career Grand Slam, Nadal is proving to be quite a clay court obstacle. Nadal, now 5-0 vs. Federer on clay, is also 5 years younger than Roger. It will be quite interesting to see if Federer ever solves the Nadal puzzle.

This week there are two events – in Casablanca and Barcelona.