Verdasco keeps Barcelona title in Spanish hands
Rafael Nadal was handing out free tennis lessons at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters a couple of weeks ago, and as the results at the Barcelona Open show, there is no better coach on the dirt courts than the King of Clay.
Fernando Verdasco, whose best efforts against Nadal in the Monte Carlo final only yielded one game, turned that around in Barcelona to ensure that, in Rafa’s absence, the title remained in Spanish hands.
Nadal, who’d won in Barcelona for the previous five years, pulled out of the 2010 event to recover from his title-winning run in Monte-Carlo the previous week, leaving the door ajar for his Davis Cup teammate to claim the Barcelona crown.
It was an opportunity the world No. 9 grasped with both hands, seeing off last year’s French Open runner-up Robin Soderling 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in a high-quality final.
It’s not unfair to call into question the 26-year-old’s ability to close out matches against higher-ranked opponents – the 2009 World Tour Finals provide ample evidence of that – but against the world No. 8, Verdasco had no such trouble, recovering well after dropping the second set to close out the match in two hours and four minutes.
"I've always dreamed of winning the title here," said Verdasco after the final. "I grew up watching this tournament on television. It's an incredible feeling, it's hard to put it into words.”
The title, the fifth of his career, provides further evidence to suggest that, despite his demolition by Nadal in Monte-Carlo, the left-hander is in the best form of his career so far and follows on from the SAP Open crown Verdasco won in San Jose during February.
It appears that Verdasco wasn’t the only one taking note as Nadal dished out a drubbing in Monaco, with the world No. 3’s second round Monte-Carlo victim, Thiemo de Bakker, also progressing deep into the draw in Barcelona.
The 21-year-old Dutchman, who lost 1-6, 0-6 to Nadal in the previous tournament, defeated world No. 16 and winner of two clay court titles in 2010 Juan Carlos Ferrero and world No. 10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on his way to the semi-finals at Barcelona.
If Verdasco and de Bakker’s results at Barcelona are anything to judge by, they’ll be queuing up to be comprehensively trounced by Nadal when he returns to the court at the Rome Masters 1000 this week.
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