Nadal seeks six straight Monte-Carlo Masters titles
Rafael Nadal will be aiming for a record sixth straight title at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters as the bulk of the world’s top players begin their clay court season this week.
The world No. 3, like most players, will be understandably be casting an eye towards the French Open as he takes to the court to defend his Monte Carlo crown but that won’t mean Rafa is taking his eye off the ball here. Not for a second.
If stringing together six consecutive titles isn’t enough motivation for the Spaniard, then the fact he’s approaching the one-year anniversary of his most recent ATP Tour title (at the Masters 1000 in Rome during May 2009) will surely provide any additional spur he needs to outlast all challengers in his first clay court tournament of the year.
The form guide too indicates that Nadal is primed to build on an unbeaten run at Monte-Carlo that began in 2005. Forced to retire from the 2010 Australian Open after injuring his knee – fortunately it was not another flare-up of tendonitis – the 23-year-old spent February in recovery before re-entering the fray at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells during March.
In this latest return to the court, Nadal showed no signs that he was about to abandon his physical brand of tennis and in reaching the semi-finals (where he lost to eventual titlist Ivan Ljubicic) he showed that whatever the doubters might say about his body’s ability to maintain that style of play it’s still winning matches for him.
Next up for Nadal was the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, and again he reached the penultimate round of play before again falling to the eventual champion, this time Andy Roddick.
Translate that form to clay, where for so long Nadal has been the undisputed king, and it starts to look like the winning formula at Monte-Carlo.
After all, this is a tournament where the left-hander vanquished world No. 1 Roger Federer in the final for three consecutive years, from 2006 to 2008. It may have been Federer who broke Nadal’s record 81-match winning streak on clay in the final of the Masters Series Hamburg in 2007 but the Swiss has been powerless to halt what is now a 30-match winning streak at Monte-Carlo.
There won’t be any chance of Federer getting in the way of Nadal’s title ambitions this year though, with the 16-time Grand Slam champion opting not to include Monte-Carlo in his clay court itinerary this spring, as he prepares for his title defence at Roland Garros.
Nadal’s prospects of claiming his sixth straight Monte-Carlo title are further buoyed by another absentee from the draw – Robin Soderling. The Swede became the first man to defeat the four-time French Open champion at Roland Garros when he completed a shock four-set victory in the round of 16 last year but if the upset is to come at the Masters here, it won’t be Soderling who delivers it.
Nor will Roddick, who ended the hard-court swing as the ATP Tour’s most in-form player, be among those plotting to dethrone Nadal at Monte-Carlo. Aside from a clutch of clay court specialists – none of whom are quite as special as Nadal on clay – that leaves last year’s runner-up Novak Djokovic and 2009 semi-finalist Andy Murray as the highest-ranked players who will be seeking to unseat the Spaniard.
Murray’s year may have looked like it was on an upwards trajectory after the Australian Open, but since the final at Melbourne Park the Scot’s form has headed so far south he’d do well to send a search party to the Antarctic.
Djokovic strung together four come-from-behind victories to defend his Dubai Tennis Championships title in February, but wasn’t a tactic that worked against Ljubicic at Indian Wells or 59th ranked Olivier Rochus in his opening match in Miami.
Not one of Federer, Soderling or those recurring knee problems have managed to halt Rafael Nadal’s supremacy at the Rolex Masters, and it’s hard to see either Djokovic or Murray achieving the feat based on current form.
The red dirt carpets have been rolled out ready for the return of the King of Clay to Monte-Carlo, and all things considered, it’s hard to imagine Nadal’s reign won’t at least last another year.
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