The Draw is out.

http://www.barcelonaopenbancosabadell.com/archivos/MDS.pdf

Why is Nadal playing in this tournament? He should just wait and play in the next big clay event, Rome.

As he gets older, I think Nadal should start to save himself for the bigger tournaments. This would help to improve his level of play by the end of the season, including the US Open, and prolong his whole career.

He's a member of the Tennis Club where this tournament is held, and all of his Corporate Sponsors are heavily involved in this event. He's committed to play there as part of his contracts with all of them.

Yep, Maria, you have to look after the corporate sponsors.

Dedric I agree with your comments about Nadal form towards the end of year ,particularly at the US Open, he just seems fatigued after the long season. Hardcourts obviously torture his legs and he should limit his tournament time on these surfaces as much as he can.Easier said than done but this year he has a realistic chance of getting The Grand Slam. He can only do this by being fresh going into Flushing Meadow. Murray with the flu, Djokovic fronting a really hot humid day and Federer with pre-fatherhood nerves would help too, of course.

I guess this is how a Canard evolves into a Mantra. The "Nadal-is-too-fatigued-after-Wimbledon" stuff, I mean. Last year after Wimbledon he won titles on the hard courts of Toronto, plus the hard courts of Beijing for Olympic Gold, and then made the Semis in Cincinnati & New York. I'm guessing plenty of hard court stalwarts like Roddick, Blake, et.al, would have given just about any part of their anatomies for a second half of the year like that. And Roddick & Blake basically blew off the clay season and still couldn't match Nadal's results from last summer.

Maybe it's time to realize what's becoming obvious: Nadal purposely bags off the last half of the year except where he has to play. And why wouldn't he? As long as he can run through the clay season like he does and focus his energy on Wimbledon, he's smart to manage a schedule from January-March so as to peak when he does from April to June. And concentrating his maximum efforts between January - June will keep him around longer. He won't be able to do what Federer did - stay around for every tournament all the time all year long. None of this is unusual. Sampras used to do this also, but with the roles reversed. Sampras basically showed up when he had to for the clay season (the longer he stayed there the worse his results were), and his whole "season" kicked in from Wimbledon through the US Open, and then the indoor season which made dealing with his serve even more of a nightmare. In fact, looking at it that way - not even Sampras had the game to be truly dangerous the year round like Federer. But his management of when to turn on the maxium effort is what helped to keep him at #1 for the vast majority of 6 years.

Some of that came from Nadal, because he has stated before that he was fatigued. Of course, that's not hard to understand, since hard courts are the most fatiguing/battering to the body, and Nadal is not alone by any means in saying he was tired from a long year. Or even a long summer of hard court tournaments. All of the players have to pace themselves, esp. on hard courts.

I always thought Nadal's weaker second half performance was his weaker second half performance more than fatigue. (Weaker is, of course, a relative term.) Because he has been learning how to play better and better on hard courts, but until the AO this year had not made a major final on hard. He had won some Master's events, showing prowess and potential. But has been continuing to get better on hard courts even as he's been dominating on clay and at the top on grass. So, in a sense, I think he'll appear less fatigued the next couple of years as his results improve.

He'll also be less fatigued because he's adapting his style to play more hard court positioning rather than so far back as on clay, because I think he won't have to work quite as much. He can make his opponents work more by being closer to the baseline or even on it, and can end points sooner, also, by doing that. Also, as his serve has improved the length of points on hard courts has likely decreased some. All of which make it a little less taxing. Match after match, tournament after tournament, that adds up.

I have to wonder if Rafa cares all that much about his "weak" second-half record. Of course, he absolutely cares about the U.S. Open, but Madrid (now Shanghai), Paris, the Masters Cup (now the Tour Finals), and all the rest? I'm not so sure. His scheduling is smart: full guns Australia through Wimbledon, a bit of a breather (winning the Canadian Masters 2x during that "breather," mind you), peak again for the US Open, and then ease off a bit through the Tour Finals. It's just not humanly possible to redline it all year long, and no one will argue that Rafa's dominance at #1 is somehow diminished because he has yet to win the Paris Indoors

Unfortunately, the Nadal/Verdasco final I was hoping for is not to be It will be interesting to see how well Davydenko does against Rafa since ND did play Rafa awfully close in Rome a couple of years ago. I'm rooting for Ferrer against Gonzalez, but either/or, whoever makes it to the final will get annihilated.

I think Rafa cares. He's such a competitor, he can't help but want to win when he enters a tournament. However, I think he has realized: 1) that he's still learning and getting better on hard, just as he did on grass, and he won't win everything like he does on clay), and 2) pacing himself for the long hard court part of the year is wise. Don't think he'll get caught up in overplaying on hard....or thinking winning even masters events are worth as much as the USO, or compromising the first half of the year.

I didn't have time to watch the match; worse yet, I had to delete it to clear space off the tivo for all the Rome coverage. Crappers! I hate how life gets in the way of fandom! Well, congrats to Rafa for a 5th straight Barcelona title (another 500 Series tournament with shockingly large prize money). And congrats to David Ferrer for at least pushing him in the 2nd set. Anybody get a chance to see it?

Yeah, I saw it. Ferrer was obviously overwhelmed in the first set, both mentally and on the court. He started playing much better in the 2nd, along with Nadal's serve going south in a hurry. Ferrer's point construction was working very well: pummeling the Nadal back hand for long stretches, and the rushing him on the forehand side. Nadal coughed up more than a few errors that way. And some of the errors were stunningly bad to watch, like his mid-air smash he attempted on the forehand side that went 5 feet beyond the doubles line.

All that said Nadal still won the match in straight sets, despite losing his serve three times. He's now won the last two clay court tournaments with a level of play well below his best. Both here and Monte Carlo his First Serve Percentage was below 60% for the whole tournament. So he won both titles having to hit a 2nd Serve ball over 40% of the time and still lost but one set in 9 matches. Amazing to think he can pull that off posting numbers like these. If he can manage to get that First Serve Percentage up to the more customary Nadal level of 65-70%, it would be hard to see how anyone facing him could cope with that.