ATP - Madrid Tournament Preview

Although some games were already played from the 1st round today I will write the preview for the ATP Masters Tournament played at Madrid.

With seven winners in the last nine years (Andre Agassi, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Marat Safin, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, David Nalbandian and Andy Murray), just two men the world's No. 1 and No. 3 have won the prestigious event twice since 2002 so we could have ourselves another first-time winner.

To compound difficulties for last year's champion and 2005 champ (1) Rafael Nadal of Spain is he is in a loaded section. If Nadal's not near the top of his game, then Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, Marin Cilic of Croatia or (13) Mikhail Youzhhny of Russia could knock him off in the early rounds.

While Nadal may have to deal with Baghdatis in his first match in Madrid, the one he is secretly looking ahead to is a potential matchup with del Potro who possibly is the biggest threat in his quarter. A possible matchup looms in the third round if del Po can get through Youzhny and most likely Cilic in the second round.

On the bottom-half of Nadal's section is (8) Jurgen Melzer of Austria and (12) Andy Roddick of the United States who have difficult traffic to navigate themselves to reach the quarters.

In speaking of challenging draws, (3) Roger Federer of Switzerland has to be a litle peeved that he'll face the winner of Milos Raonic of Canada or Feliciano Lopez of Spain who both went far in last week's tournaments on the clay.

If Federer is able to get through a difficult match on paper then he'll likely target (15) Fernando Verdasco of Spain as his next obstacle. The Spaniard fell in the final of the Estoril Open 6-2, 6-2 to del Potro. And if that wasn't enough (5) Robin Soderling of Sweden is also hovering around in this quarter and could face a must-see clash with Santiago Giraldo.

Then we have Serbia's (2) Novak Djokovic's half of the draw. Djokovic duels with South African Kevin Anderson or Belgian Olivier Rochus in the second round to begin a raucous road to his championship in Madrid. The Serb's journey could include later clashes with (14) Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland and (6) David Ferrer of Spain.

A Ferrer/Djokovic battle is what all of Madrid would like to see for a spot in the semifinals. A match worthy of the finals will be in the quarterfinals can only mean one thing that this clay tournament is stacked and we still haven't even gotten to the final quarter.

Scotland's (4) Andy Murray and (7) Czech Republic's Tomas Berdych anchors that. Floaters in the Czech's section include Russian Nikolay Davydenko and Croat Ivo Karlovic who draws (9) Gael Monfils of France in the first round. Meanwhile in Murray's section a tasty second round match will take place with the winner of Croat Ivan Ljubicic and Frenchman Gilles Simon getting a crack at the Scot.

All in all, up and down, we have one of the best draws on paper a Masters 1000 could offer. Now it's time to see who makes the best of their week in Madrid in what promises to be a stirring tournament from start to finish.

• Name: Mutua Madrid Open
• Category: ATP World Tour Masters 1000
• Place: Madrid, Spain
• Date: 01.05.2011-08.05.2011
• Draw Size: S-56 D-24
• Surface: Clay
• Prize Money: € 2,835,000
• Total Financial Commitment: € 3,706,000
• Draws:

  Singles

  Doubles

  OOP