Rafael Nadal and Albert Ramos-Vinolas will be going head-to-head for the third time in their careers when they battle for the title at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters on Sunday afternoon. Both of their previous encounters have gone Nadal’s way; 6-3, 6-0 on the clay courts of Barcelona in 2013 and 7-6(4), 6-2 at the same event one season later.
It is safe to that Ramos-Vinolas is not getting to face his heavily-favored countryman in the most ideal of settings. After all, Barcelona and Monte-Carlo are two of Nadal’s favorite tournaments. He is a a nine-time champion at the former and will become a 10-time winner of the latter if he triumphs on Sunday.
Of course, clay is also Ramos-Vinolas’ best surface by far. Playing the best tennis of his life right now, the world No. 24 is 19-11 this year and 16 of his victories have come on the red stuff. This is his second final of 2017 (lost to Pablo Cuevas in Sao Paulo) to go along with three other semifinal showings and three other quarterfinal performances–all on clay. Ramos-Vinolas punched his ticket to this title match by taking out Renzo Olivo, Carlos Berlocq, Andy Murray, Marin Cilic, and Lucas Pouille, winning his last three contests in three sets.
“I improved my tennis a little–my backhand a little bit,” Ramos-Vinolas answered when asked about his hot streak. “I improved my physical condition. I improved a little bit my mental condition. I also have more confidence. I think there are a lot of things that are going better. It helps me get better results than before.”
“He’s playing better than ever,” Nadal said of his upcoming opponent. “He’s winning huge matches during the whole week. He’s playing with big confidence, with great spirit and fight, overcoming tough situations in every match, and playing a high level of tennis all the time.”
Nadal has had no such trouble this week. The seventh-ranked Spaniard needed three sets to scrape past Kyle Edmund in his opener before picking up the pace to make routine work of Alexander Zverev, Diego Schwartzman, and David Goffin. Nadal is now 62-4 lifetime in Monte-Carlo and 23-5 overall this season.
If those numbers are not daunting enough, Ramos-Vinolas is going up against event greater odds because Nadal is 41-1 lifetime at the ATP level against fellow left-handers on red clay. Nor will it help that the underdog has a trio of three-setters in his legs and is playing in the first Masters 1000 final of his career.
Pick: Nadal in 2 losing 7 games or fewer
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Double fault to give Rafa the match!
At last! A title!
Well done Rafa!
And the champion is: Rafa Nadal!
Rafa won his 70th career title!!!
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Yayyy!!!
Rafa became:
¤ the first man to win the same tournament 10 times in the Open Era,
¤ the first man to win 50 clay court titles in the Open Era.
Hip hip hooray!!! ? ?
Vaaaaaaaaaamoooooooooos Rafa!
Vamoooosssss!
Bravo Rafa! So proud of our Rafa!
We love you, Champ! ❤️❤️❤️
So much drama in the end! Vamos Rafa!!
Finally! A title this season to break the titleless spell, what more doing it by winning his 10th title at MC, a record. Also he has the most clay titles now in the open era, at 50 titles, one more than Vilas’ 49.
Well done Rafa! So happy for you!
There u go Nny!…There’s your PERFECT recovery present from Rafa!!As for other rafa fans Hawks,Lucky,sanju,Nats,Mary,VR[sorry,if i miss any name..can’t think atm!]…BIG BIG CONGRATS U GUYS!!
Off to Barca we go!!woohoo!!
MA,
Yes! This was wonderful to see! Rafa ends the title drought and sets a few more records along the way!
This is going to give Rafa a big boost of confidence moving forward! A record that will most likely never be broken!
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Yeah Nny!And he also has a chance to add another 10th in Barca and RG!..hehe..BUT,i hope he will stay injury free for at least 2 months..after that he can do anything he want!!even though i hope he will stay healthy for a whole year!C’MON RAFA!!!WOOOHOOO!!
MA,
Yes, Rafa has to stay healthy! This title is going to help him. He needed a title so much! The bonus is that he broke records along the way! This should be the piece of the puzzle that Rafa needed. I hope to see him playing more freely and with more confidence.
Bring on Barcelona!
Yesss, finally!!
Vamos Rafa!!!!
Congratulations to all Rafans!
Can’t say how pleased I am that Rafa has set another record. The first player since 1968 to win one title 10 times.
#CHAMP10N
This is the year of Fedal. Buckle your seatbelts folks. This has been and is gonna continue to be awesome. Is it bold of me to say Rafa and Roger will occupy the top two spots in the world at year’s end? Because I don’t really think it is at this point
Thank god that is over and dusted. It’s been one hell of a rollercoaster week. Don’t think my nerves could stand anymore.
So happy for Rafa
Oh forgot to say RAFA YOURE A BEAST!! TENTH MC TITLE FOR THE KING OF CLAY #vamos Nice to see Rafa make history again and get a title again. Obviously if Fed was here I woulda rooted for him but without Roger here, I want either Rafa or Stan to win these events. I want that throwback Fedal year mixed in w a little bit of Stanimal and Kyrgios magic as well.
rc…if u reading this,congrats for your win on Bracket challenge!!YAY!!C’MON RC!!!
Unbelievable this guy!! 10 titles at a masters 1000 event is INSANEEEEEEEE!
He’ll be going for an 11th next year (God Willing) and perhaps he can then equal Martina’s record of 11 Eastbourne titles.
He is extremely likely to win his 10th at Barcelona as well and it makes me so excited to think that will give him so much confidence. He finished this week playing great tennis!
The ATP Race as of now:
1.Federer- 4045
2.Nadal- 3235
3.Wawrinka- 1590
4.Goffin-1415
5.Dimitrov-1375
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11 Murray-930
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20 Djokovic-655
Unless Djokovic and Murray pick a good chunk of points in the clay season, they will fnd it very tough to stay with Federer and Nadal, the way things are going.
Greetings from Roland Garros:
https://twitter.com/rolandgarros/status/856147528710053888/photo/1
🙂
Rafa!! Congrats everyone! MC is Rafa’s playground… I’m sure it won’t happen because of the Monaco royalty, but I feel like it would just be wrong to not rename the center court at Monte Carlo, “Court Nadal”, some day! 🙂
True. I’m pretty sure they are already naming the Barcelona center court after Rafa
Yep, they named it officially after him the other day I believe. I wonder if Basel will one day named their court “Court Federer”? 🙂
I am sure it will be.
Scratch that. Monteiro is already playing a qualifying match on Court Rafa Nadal as we speak. That’s awesome
So happy to see Rafa smiles and bites the trophy ?
10th it is! Here is hope and wish for a few more 10th this year! ?
Vamooosss!
Congrats my fellow Rafans! ?❤️
Yeah, so happy to see the Rafa smile! They shown all of Rafa’s previous nine trophy lifting/biting moments over the big screen there; we could see Rafa from being a teenager in 2005/2006, to a grown up young man and then into his late 20s, with that same mesmerizing smile!
How amazing it is that most of us here have been watching him all these years and time just flies past all of us, a good twelve years have gone by! And Rafa is still winning, there!!
His first title and trophy after turning 30!
Congrats all Rafa fans! Finally after a long wait we are able to see our man lift a trophy! If he wins RG, I do not care if he wins anything else or not thereafter.
Rafa is playing aggressive but against the top guys he is likely to revert to his usual style.
not at all. Let him consolidate his win in barcelona and he will be ready to play aggressive against the top players too. Btw, would you mind explaining how all of a sudden Rafa got power on his forehand ? did he gain speed in a couple of days? You were concluding that he has lost power on his forehand as he is slower now. It is mostly to do with his confidence. He can still play pretty aggressively with his forehand.
I never said Rafa lost power on his forehand or that he suddenly gained speed in a couple of days. If you were logical, you would have understood my point. You show yourself in a poor light by making ridiculous taunting statements without bothering to understand what I said. I do not draw conclusions from single matches but from trends. If that is what you do, time for you to start taking a more scientific approach.
So I do not have to explain something which I never said but which you deduced erroneously based on bad logic.
It is no ridiculous taunting statement. I have read many times in your posts where you dismiss there is nothing mental and everything is linked to loss of speed! I DID NOT say YOU have said Rafa has gained speed ! You are the one not reading carefully.
So what exactly is your ‘logic’ ?
You said that if Rafa wins, would I say he has gained speed. You seemed to think I had concluded Rafa had lost speed because he lost a match and I will say he has gained speed if he won and so I should explain how he gained speed in a few days!!!That is a ridiculous statement as I do not draw conclusions from single matches but by observing over a period. So don’t keep making silly statements starting with “what exactly”. You are probably not reading anything properly, a fault you had admitted to once when you erroneously claimed that I had claimed I was a male and you had raised similar silly taunting questions.
Also vr I don’t know why you are trolling and attacking me creating bad blood when Rafa fans should be rejoicing. Stick to tennis analysis instead of making a fool of yourself by attacking without understanding or more likely without reading.
firstly, I don’t have any intentions of creating ‘bad blood’ and I don’t do that. Stop being so sensitive and playing the victim of ‘attacks’.
okay, if you are really into ‘logical’ debating, we shall see who creates a fool out of themselves if we ever get to debate in future.
And no, I am not keen on ‘attacking’ or creating ‘bad blood’ so I am off this.
I am actually pretty psyched now for the inevitable post-Roland Garros race to #1 between Rafa and Fed! I know that #1 is not the first thing on his goal list, but I think that his choice of whether or not to play RG could prove decisive in if he can end the year #1. If Fed skips RG completely and Rafa wins RG, I think he would need to win Wimbledon and have Rafa NOT win US Open to realistically have a shot at year end #1. But if Fed plays RG and even just makes the semis, that could be enough to make the difference if it came down to the wire between he and Rafa.
This is me going under the assumption that Rafa is going to win RG. The only person who can realistically take Rafa out at RG (Novak) is slumping hard, so it’s just really hard for me to see Rafa not claiming that 10th RG… I think he’s going to end this season with 10 MC, Barcelona, AND RG titles, personally. The one tournament that I, personally, believe Rafa MUST win in order to have a shot at #1 is Roland Garros… If he somehow doesn’t win that one, it’s hard for me to see him getting to #1 when all of Fed’s traditionally best tournaments are post-Roland Garros, and he already has a major and 2 Masters. So the way I see it, it’s Roland Garros or bust for Rafa. And I believe he is going to win it! 🙂
Good post Kevin! I agree.Rafa has to have a great clay season to have a chance if Fed continues his form into the second half of the season and Nole and Andy continue slumping. If Andy gets back into form, Fed has competition at Wimbly. If Nole also gets back into form , Fed has competition on hard courts from both Andy and Nole. If Rafa has a great clay season, then his chances of grabbing # 1 are higher than Fed’s if Nole and Andy get back into form.
You’re right, Mary, that Fedal finishing 1 and 2 could depend on how Murray and Nole play in the latter part of the year… If I was forced to bet money right now on who ends this season #1, I personally would use the following criteria:
-If Rafa wins Roland Garros, and Fed completely skips it, I would bet on Rafa to end #1 because Fed would then probably have to win Wimbledon and US Open, or one of the two plus like 3 Masters titles and going deep everywhere else to end up with more points than Rafa.
-If Rafa wins RG, and Fed plays it and goes deep (final or semis), then I would probably back Fed to end #1 simply because he traditionally does very well in the second half of the year, whereas Rafa only has a couple times.
-If Nole and/or Murray happen to find their form again, that would, imo, make things equally potentially more difficult for Fed and Rafa in terms of year-end #1. So if Nole/Murray truly managed to find their form again, it would become too much of a toss-up for me at that point.
-This is all so damn speculative and subjective because we never know what will ultimately happen with ANYONE through the whole season. I doubt it would be the case- but neither Rafa nor Fed could end up winning any of the remaining three majors, however unlikely that is… Rafa could win RG, and then his confidence could spark a run of winning all the big hardcourt tournaments while Fed doesn’t win a single other title for the rest of the year… Fed could go on a tear, winning something like Wimby, Cinci, US Open, Basel, and WTF, while Rafa wins nothing after RG… Nole could magically find his form and run the field again… Kyrgios could come storming back and blow everyone away… Even though these things are likely to not happen, the point is that we have seen things go the way we wouldn’t have thought they would before!
The one thing we do know for sure- Fedal will have likely won all the biggest tournaments between the two of them by the time Wimbledon starts… Therefore, I certainly wouldn’t bet too much $ against the two of them finishing the year 1 and 2! 🙂
I don’t think #1 is a priority for either Fed or Rafa. Doing well in the Race obviously is. It’s really all about the majors for them now. Of course Rafa wants to do well in the clay court season – it’s his Prime Time for banking those ranking points. I expect Andy would like to stay at #1 for awhile but not sure about Novak. I think he wants to enjoy his tennis and his life more now, not just focus everything on winning.