Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will kick off their Madrid campaigns during second-round action on Wednesday. Nadal has an intriguing opener on his hands with Fabio Fognini, while Djokovic is facing Nicolas Almagro.
Fabio Fognini vs. (4) Rafael Nadal
Familiar foes Nadal and Fognini will be squaring off for the 12th time in their careers when they clash in round two of the Mutua Madrid Open on Wednesday. Nadal is leading the head-to-head series 8-3 and has not dropped a set to Fognini since losing a 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 stunner at the 2015 U.S. Open. The Spaniard prevailed 7-5, 6-3 later that fall in Beijing, 6-2, 7-6(1) last spring in Barcelona, and 6-1, 7-5 earlier this season in the Miami semifinals. Nadal has won four of their six previous clay-court encounters, with each of Fognini’s victories on the slow stuff having come in 2015 (Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona).
A resurgent Nadal is not looking as vulnerable in 2017. The world No. 5 boasts a 29-5 record, including 29-2 against opponents other than Roger Federer and 10-0 on clay. Nadal is coming off consecutive titles in Monte-Carlo and Barcelona, where he combined to go 20-1 in total sets and 19-0 in his last 19 sets. Fognini lost his opening match in three straight tournaments following his run in Miami, but he managed to beat Joao Sousa 6-4, 6-4 on Sunday in Madrid. Based on respective current form, nothing suggests the 29th-ranked Italian has much of a chance in this one–unless Nadal’s ear infection is more significant than expected.
Pick: Nadal in 2 losing 5-7 games
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(WC) Nicolas Almagro vs. (2) Novak Djokovic
Djokovic will be playing his first match since jettisoning his entire team when he takes the court on Wednesday in Madrid. Boris Becker became old news after the 2016 campaign and everyone else–including Marian Vajda–followed suit last week. Djokovic decided to hit the complete reset button after going just 7-4 in his last four tournaments, with early losses at the Australian Open (Denis Istomin), Acapulco (Nick Kyrgios), Indian Wells (Kyrgios), and Monte-Carlo (David Goffin). The world No. 2 also missed the Miami Masters with an elbow injury before returning in Monte-Carlo, where he scraped past Gilles Simon and Pablo Carreno Busta in tough three-setters and then fell to Goffin.
Up first for Djokovic is a fifth career ATP-level meeting with Almagro, who trails the head-to-head series 4-0. They most recently faced each other two years ago on the red clay of Rome, where Djokovic got the job done 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-3. Almagro gave himself another shot at Madrid’s second seed by beating fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 on Tuesday. The world No. 76 is an even 7-7 this season (5-4 on clay) and he is coming off a quarterfinal performance in Estoril. Clay will give Almagro a remote chance on Wednesday, but he will likely become impatient from failing to penetrate Djokovic’s defense and ultimately break down from the back of the court.
Pick: Djokovic in 2
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HA WATCH HE WILL HIT A WINNER TO SAVE THE MP NOW
Congrats to Me
#NID
NOPE RAFA WINS!! Bring on the Kyrgios v Rafa match ??
Rafa battled through!! ✌ Woohoo!!
Lol Fabio makes me laugh.
Yay. Rafa!
Seems to me that Djokovic and Nadal both won matches they shouldn’t have. I guess that’s why they’re Djokovic and Nadal.
I’m a genius.
#AlbertHawkeinstein
Benny, I know your e-mail address BTW.
Wait for real? I thought only Ricky could see email addresses lol
i am the only one who can
How does hawkeye know Benny G’s email address?
Nope. There is something funky going on with this site.
Benny’s login credentials showed up instead of mine the other day.
Benny’s email has two tennis players and a few numbers.
Very strange that this happened but I remember nny saying her posts were showing up under Lucky’s name or vice versa a while back so it was likely the same thing.
maybe you 2 are using the same computer!
Yeah Ricky. That must be it.
#SMH
Along with nny and Lucky too.
Sorry but I don’t think Rafa will survive the bombs of Kyrgios. Also we now get to see Herbert v Coric. Let’s go!!
Coric will win.
Aside: is it pronounced cor-ich or chor-ich? Discuss amongst yourself. Maybe Ricky should start a poll.
It’s corich not chorich! In fact it’s a different letter in Croatian language not only pronouncing differently…
Natashao, if you look at how his name is written,
Borna Ćorić, the first c and the last c have the same accent mark on top. So both c ‘s are pronounced the same way.
@Mary 3:21am,
You are right, but I did not talk about the first and last letter of Coric’s last name. I talked about the first letter of his last name only: C-oric vs CH-oric. That’s what hawks was asking! The capital letters are different letters in Croatian… and it is C-oric while Marin is CH-ilic!
Trust me, I know my own language ?
Nats, I thought you were Serbian, not Croatian?
Also are people from Croatia, Croats or Croatians?
People from Serbia, Serbs or Serbians?
I did have an issue where Lucky’s login information came up instead of mine. Then my posts were showing up under Lucky’s name. I did post a comment about what was going on at the time. I changed the login information back to my user name and email. I did mention it at the time because I thought Lucky would wonder what was going on.
It hasn’t happened since, but I thought something must have gotten messed up.
Allez Herbert!!!!!
It’s airbear and chorich like chillich
eh-bear. Silent r
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AZk_ywFJYm4
Aside: there’s a Seinfeld bit for everything from a show about nothing. Discuss.
Lol
Mary Carrillo is still talking about Federer LOL.
What a federazzi fedfawn.
Gimelstob is a sexist misogynist.
Is that redundant?
No. But I don’t know that Gimelstob is a misogynist. Various other unpleasant things, yes.
He’s a lousy tennis commentator! I know that!
chorich
Chorrecht!!!
Lol!
Carlos Moya’s wife (Carolina Cerezuela, a Spanish actress) and son watched Rafa’s match from the stands:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_e7-dzXgAAgTkv.jpg
C.Moya has a lovely family. 🙂
They showed this beautiful woman in the stands during the match and the tennis channel commentators identified her as Carlos Moya’s wife. She really is stunning.
I did expect Rafa to have difficulties with Fog since coming back from being ill. Whenever Rafa has any health issue it affects his mental state and he loses focus. It did not help having Fog ‘in the mood to play well’ on the other side of the net! Great Rafa was able to fight off all those attacks from Fog and emerge victorious. Good job, Champ!
Nick is next! Would be great to beat Nick in 2!
Vamos Rafa!
At least Rafa isn’t playing doubles. I know, he never does during the clay season, but I’m trying to find a bright side. If Rafa’s ok physically he’ll be pumped from winning. He gives himself credit for the fight.
I suppose Rafa will up his game when facing Kygrios. He knows he can’t afford to lose his own service game, and knowing how hard Kygrios could hit the ball, I think Rafa would not want to go into long rallies with Kygrios. I hope Rafa uses his guile, his varieties to beat Kygrios.
Dimitrov sure looks strong…he’s a break up on Dr. Ivo
Curious has big weapons but lacks subtlety. It will be up to Rafa to use his guile to outwit him. It will have been a boost to have won even when he was not playing his best tennis.
Onwards and upwards.
A summary of Rafa’s on-court interview he gave to Alex Corretja in Spanish (made by Genny SS):
¤¤ Rafa acknowledged he didn’t play his best. It was his 1st match in altitude and with quite a lot of wind – not easy to deal with, and the things got really complicated.
But Rafa is very happy to be through and he hopes to play better in the next round. Even though he’s aware his next rival will be very difficult, as his huge serve will be a true weapon on this court, but hopes to compete well.
Corretja told Rafa it must be difficult to play a player like Fognini, who can hit winners off both wings. Rafa agrees, but pointed out that he is aware he played a bad match and thus helped Fognini to have more winners than usual. But if playing a bad match was today’s negative part, positive part is that he was fighting all the time and was there mentally. Today wasn’t a day to play well, it was a day to just win in whichever way and thus to have another chance to play tomorrow. Sometimes winning this kind of matches give you the opportunity to make a “click” the next day. If you don’t keep trying and fighting, you may miss this chance. So, he is very happy to have that chance. ¤¤
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_fMSKLWAAAaToP.jpg
Vamos Rafa!
Smart words.
Especially the part about allowing fog winners caused by his own poor play.
Commies very rarely mention that even though it’s obvious.
Fognini played a truly awful match.
Thanks Augusta.
The good news is, Rafa wasn’t feeling unwell.
Mark Petchey kept calling Fog a genius overtime he hit a winner but it was obvious that Rafa was playing a bad match and Fog was taking his chances and hitting whatever wherever. Fog got broken as many times as Rafa so if that’s genius then I don’t know what winging it is, which is what Fog was doing.
Genius must mean hitting easy winners off short balls then.
Thanks, Augusta. Rafa is the only commentator I really trust. (Sorry, Ricky)
Rafa’s R3 match won’t start before 8 PM (local time).
In Mark Petchey’s lexicon, that must be the definition of genius!
Oh snap Mary.