Rafael Nadal heads a field of four current or former French Open champions this week at the Open Seat 2006 at Barcelona.
Nadal will hope to recover with a first-round bye from his title run at the Masters Series-Monte Carlo over the weekend where he beat world No. 1
Roger Federer in the four-set final, extending his claycourt win streak to 42 matches.
Nadal is joined among the Top 8 seeds by Russian
Nikolay Davydenko, Argentine
Guillermo Coria, Czech
Radek Stepanek, Spaniards
David Ferrer and
Tommy Robredo, Finn
Jarkko Nieminen and Slovak Dominik "The Dominator" Hrbaty.
Nadal will open against the winner of Feliciano "F-Lo" Lopez and a qualifier, while the No. 2-seeded Davydenko will play either Max "The Beast" Mirnyi or "Dr."
Ivo Karlovic.
Last year the No. 8-seeded Nadal beat the unseeded
Juan Carlos Ferrero in straight sets in the final.
Highlights of Monday play in Barcelona are
Andrei Pavel vs. Valencia winner
Nicolas Almagro, Vince Spadea vs. (WC) Al Costa who is competing in his final ATP event, and former No. 1s and French Open winners (10) Juan Carlos Ferrero vs.
Kristof Vliegen, and (15)
Carlos Moya vs. (Q) Evgeny Korolev.
