Nishikori, Not Nadal, the New King of Clay in Barcelona?; Bucharest; ATP Previews
BARCELONA OPEN BANCSABADELL
Barcelona, Spain; Surface: clay
ADHEREL
Seeds: Rafael Nadal, Kei Nishikori, David Ferrer, Richard Gasquet, Roberto Bautista Agut, Benoit Paire, Feliciano Lopez, Viktor Troicki, Pablo Cuevas, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Fabio Fognini, Jeremy Chardy, Joao Sousa, Thomaz Bellucci, Andrey Kuznetsov
Floaters: Ernests Gulbis, Nicolas Almagro, Alexander Zverev
Notes: Nadal leads the four Top 10 players in his homecountry event that boasts a 64 draw including opening-round byes to all 16 seeds…The tournament courted Novak Djokovic after his early loss in Monte Carlo to no avail…Not a lot of floating talent, but a few interesting openers including the struggling (12) Fognini up against it vs. the winner of Mikhail Youzhny/Rajeev Ram, (8) Troicki vs. whichever incarnation of Gulbis shows up, (6) Paire vs. Almagro, and (15) Bellucci vs. the talented German comer Zverev…Wildcards went to France’s Paire, Sweden’s Elias Ymer, and Spain’s Montanes and Jaume Munar…Pulling from the event were the homecountry’s Pablo Andujar and Tommy Robredo, along with Kevin Anderson, Martin Klizan and Leo Mayer…Nishikori is the two-time defending champion, last year beating Andujar in the final…”I am happy to be back in Barcelona. I feel good and hope to win my third consecutive title here,” Nishikori said…Nadal won the title in eight of nine years prior to that…Ferrer is 0-4 in Barcelona finals…Former champs in the field are Nishikori (2015-14) and Nadal (2013-11,’09-05).
BRD NASTASE TIRIAC TROPHY
Bucharest, Romania; Surface: clay
Seeds: Bernard Tomic, Ivo Karlovic, Federico Delbonis, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Marcos Baghdatis, Guido Pella, Paolo Lorenzi, Paul-Henri Mathieu
Floaters: Robin Haase, Fernando “Hot Sauce” Verdasco, Lukas Rosol
Notes: No Top 20 players, but Bernie Tomic takes a late wild card and the top spot…The Top 4 seeds receive opening-round byes…Tomic could open against Haase; the two have never played and both of the Dutchman’s career titles have come on clay…In addition to Tomic, wildcards went to Romanians Marius Copil and Adrian Ungur…Nicolas Mahut pulled from the event…Garcia-Lopez beat Czech Jiri Vesely in last year’s final…Returning champs in the field are Garcia-Lopez (2015) and Rosol (2013). G-Lo will be looking to become the first repeat champ since Gilles Simon in 2007-08…Homeboy wildcards Copil/Ungur are the defending doubles title winners.
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