The third week of the claycourt season saw continued domination from the Kind of clay Rafa Nadal, as well as some resurgence from veteran players such as former number 1 Marat Safin as well as 36 year old Younes El Aynaoui. As many players took the week off to prepare for the Roma Masters that will be held next week, Barcelona and Munich still managed to provide scintillating tennis for its fans.

On the 1st review of the week and Barcelona, Spain. No suprises at this years Open Sabadell Atlantico as home town hero and rock star Rafeal Nadal stormed the strong competition in his native backyard. Its seems as though Nadal is poised to smash all kinds of records this year as he has won Monte Carlo and Barcelona for 4th straight year and how is now 103-1 on the his favourite surface since 2005. Nadal was not the only Spaniard to cheer for in this tourney. Nicolas Almagro, perhaps the second best player on dirt reached the quarter-finals and David Ferrer made his second final in spain this year as he progressed to the finals. Stan Warwinka spoiled the party by reaching the semi-finals along with Dennis Gremelmayr of Germany to be the only none Spaniards in the final four. The Barcelona fans were surely happy with the output from their local stars all week.

A potential interesting match in the tournament that was spoiled by Gremelmayr could have been the semi-finals between Nadal and Almagro. Do not be surprised if you see this match as a French Open semi-final in 3 weeks time. Almagro is a rough customer on clay and I put him with Nadal and Federer and the top 3 favorites for the Roland Garros title. Nicolas is the tour leader with match wins on clay this year and has an impressive 24-3 record on the surface which he will try and improve on next week in Rome.

In closing Nadal has 3 more big tournaments to play this year on clay, and I do not think he has any intention of losing in any of them. Do not be surprised if he wins next week in Roma and skips the following week at the Hamburg masters series, which he lost in the finals in last year.

On to the second tournament review of the week in Munich, Germany. The draw held up pretty well in terms of seeded players as number 1 ranked Paul-Henri Mathieu and second seed Fernando Gonzalez progressed deep into the event. Top seed Mathieu was up ended by Italian upstart Simon Bolelli, 7-6 in the third set in the semi-finals and Younes El Aynaoui rounded out the final 4. The 36 year old Morroco native last made an ATP semifinal at the ATP Masters Series Madrid in October 2003. Its quite amazing that Younes is still able to compete at the main tour level. Although his career record in Munich is 13-2, he definitely knew he had a chance of doing some damage at this event. The cold and quick conditions in Germany really do suit his game. I’m sure this will really light a fire under El Aynaoui and he will be looking forward to qualifying for the Masters Series event in Hamburg in two weeks time.

Marat Safin also made it to his 1st quarter-final of the year as he continues to search for his confidence and reclain the form that would put him in the mix with the big boys at the top. Marat is truely a class player and has no business being ranked as low as 84 in the world. I do not think he will be able to recapture the form that he had in 2005, when he won his second grand slam at the Aussie Open, but surely he could get back to top 15 status.

A great week for Bolelli, as the 58th ranked native of Bologna, Italy, played hard all week and progressed to his 1st career final. He will certainly be looking to sustain his form next week in Rome, where the Italian fans will be in full support of their new hero.

Gonzalez claims his second title of the year in Munich, to go along with his victory in Chile in early February. Fernando is still a question mark in terms of consistency as he is up and down with his motivation. As well he has a ton of points to defend next week in Rome as he made it to the finals last. Enjoy this victory Fernando, because your ranking is gonna take a hit next week.

Technorati Tags: David Ferrer, Dennis Gremelmayr, Fernando Gonzalez, Marat Safin, Nicolas Almagro, Paul-Henri Mathieu, Rafael Nadal, Sabadell Atlantico, Simon Bolelli, Stan Warwinka, Younes El Aynaoui

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