Vamos RAFA!

Nadal will win his 5th rome title for sure. however, he will lose more than 14 games for sure and might lose a set as well, probably to Federer. I expect another showdown between Nadal and Verdasco in the finals.

i think these are tough early rounds for roger, and federer fans cringe in the early rounds of tournaments, but what can you do? I always think that gulbis is a dark horse and baggy can never be underestimated, but federer should win this. The nervous wait is almost over.

c'mon federer!

This Federer fan NEVER cringes when Roger plays.....I enjoy EVERY BEAUTIFUL shot!!!
I ALWAYS see Roger in the final......and ALWAYS hope for victory!!!!

i would like to see a nadal vs soderling 1/4 final. That wud be interesting. as for federer, hes going to breeze into the semis against nadal.

The FedExpress is beginning his journey this season on the slow stuff ....just like the surface , i reckon the start will be slow also . I agree with Maxi ....he is rusty when he first starts out . But when the forehand and serve clicks ....expect the beast to show up .
Im hoping Fed is going to go all the way ....his only obstacle is himself with the UE count. If he takes to court with his usual aggressive style and keeps the UE down ...i dont see anyone stopping the train .

However ...lets go a match at a time ...
Federites UNITE !! Its gona be a bumpy first MS on clay :)

C'MON !!

interesting prediction..
i hope it goes as you have predicted till qfs..
of course then ferrero should win over ferrer..
and go to final..
as for top half..
VAMOS RAFA!!!

its gr8 that rafael and federer are seeded to meet at the semis......it improves the probability of having a rafa-roger match at rome...

VAMOS!!!!!!!!!

To those who say Roger has a tough draw, just remember that Tough Draw for the GOAT is an oxymoron, so does this prove that there is no GOAT?

well certainly it has been accepted that there cannot be a GOAT because that is a flawed topic..

nadline (you silly girl) you can be the GOAT and still have a tough road ahead. Nothing is ever a given. Surely you know this by now. Roger can loose, although he is the GOAT and the GOAT happens to be #1 at the moment. We all know Nadal is good, probably the best player on clay ever, but Roger can beat him, and now there is the Sod to contend with for Nadal. Will be interesting, but not nearly as interesting as Roland Garros where Roger generally excels with the Slams... :) Go Rog! C'MON! Welcome back man! Go for it! :)

be all you can be

Those who start complaining about the draw, shut up that's purely an excuse. Let your man handle it.

I see ominous Rafa bulldozering his way to get his fifth Rome title.

Vamos !!!

@sky..
i cannot stand the goat argument.. because i am of the belief that goat is a far fetched topic.. you cannot say somebody is best of all times because "all time" is really a wide topic.. yes if it is your personal opinion, its fine.. everyone has their personal opinion.. me included..
@raindrops..
in complete support of your words..

sky, do you know what oxymoron means?

clayking: i said a similar thing some while ago, but a fed fan (torres) said "all time" means "all time until the present" !!!!!!!

rain: i hope your prediction is as accurate as your ridiculous 6-0 6-1 MC final prediction! :)

well, we all kno if he is a fed fan, he will be saying what he believes..
and if it is his personal belief, you cannot change that..
but if one is a proper tennis fan, he/she knows GOAT is not possible..
the only thing possible is greatest of the era..

The thing is clayking, where does the era start and where does it end. You cannot compare players with a 5 year gap in age to be in the same era. How could anyone compare an 18 year old at the moment with a 23 year old Rafa in say 5 years time, you can't.

@nadline..
what you are saying is generation..
i agree there cannot be a clear cut date for starting of an era..
but it is generally understood when you say federer era, sampras era that you are referring to the time when these guys were the best....
you can roughly say sampras era is 90's, fed era is 2000's..
so you can say the best of an era easily..
on a wider basis- you can say pre open era and open era..
but even that is a big time..

Basically, I think that there are many more components in the making of the best player of any period so I tdon't hink we should attempt to use just one or two criteria.

However, if I was the GOAT, or the best player of the era no way would I think I was in a tough quarter of a draw the highest ranking of which is No 11, certainly not be scared of No 30 in Bagdhatis.

Would this be the first time since the French Open 05 that Fed- Nadal could meet in a match that is not a final. Other than the TMC RR of course

i want to see a federer vs nadal match this time. nadals obvioulsy gonna be the favourite; but i wud like to see how close the match ends up being. Furthermore, Rome is the masters series event where you should base your FO predictions on. Simply becoz its in the middle of the clay court season. Its not too early so things can dramatically change by paris, and its not too late where players may back out due to fatigue.(and wanting to save up energy for the FO)

This is a tale of two draws indeed! Don't think anybody has it particularly easy, and there are a couple of very interesting potential match ups that could come into play. But when it's all said and done, I expect Rafa to be the one lifting the trophy come next Sunday.

Go Rafa!

a resurgent murray or djokovic will reach the final at the bottom half
söderling to take out nadal in the qf and then succomb to federer in the semis...
fed for champ

OPTIMISM AT ITS BEST!!
that's croc for you!! :P

Can anyone tell me where Verdasco is in the draw? Thank you in advance!

he is in djoko boy's quarter..

I'm surprised to see a potential Fedal SF. I guess the draws are random after all. Certainly, the final will be just an after thought of sorts.

Well, there are certainly "seasoned", "wiser", "more experienced" people out there who say that Federer's draw is "tough", "difficult", and who am I to argue. It's not federer who has said that he has a tough draw, it's what is being reported out there!

Perhaps they should have phrased their words in a different way. We all know that Gulbis seems to be turning to a corner with his tennis, and become more pithy, stronger, challenging, though still topsy turvy, inconsistent. And as for baggy, he is playing some resurgent tennis after his long injury, but i dont know that much about his style on clay, nor gulbis for that matter.

I dont think any of the top 5 would enjoy facing gulbis. But as has been said, Fed is the No.1, experienced and therefore no problem. Those early rounds should be a doddle, as they should be for rafa, novak, andy.

I dont think fed is playing until Tuesday though.

ewwww...just the thought of first round makes some fedfans vomiting already ... eeeeyoooookkkkss

Baghdatis beat Roger in the 2nd or 3rd round at Indian Wells last month. It was a shocker since it was one of the first Tourneys back after Marcos' injury. Roger's play has kind of spiraled since.

Verdasco played a really smart game today against Soderling. My guess is that Rafa will do the same.

Andy M. plays Ferrer in the 3rd round. That will be no cake walk for him. David has been on fire the last few months and we all know Andy's hurting.

Just heard that Djokovich has a shoulder injury. If so, his draw just got alot harder. Verdasco beat him in MC and I would expect he'll do the same in Rome.

Vamos Rafa for sure. It's a tough draw for him, but I have no doubts he'll get through it with relative ease except for the second set against Federer.

Maya,
Er, Fed only played 2 matches since the loss to Baggey so it's not really a spiral. In fact this will only be his 5th tournament this year so it's very early. Not to mention clay season is just starting for him.

And it's only Rafa's second tourney on clay. Of course some have said that you can't really count count MC because he played nobodies, so in essence, it's almost like it's Rafa's first tourney on clay too chr18.
Just the fact that fed lost to Baggy is what makes it interesting just as many are hyping up the sod/Rafa possibility.

fan4tennis - yeah Nadal has played a whole bunch of nobodies. He only beat the Barcelona champion 6-0, 6-1. LOL.

Soderling looked below average today, if he had played Rafa today in that form he would have been crushed. I don't know what took Verdasco so long.

Ricky , I never claimed he played nobodies. Others trying to diminish his MC victory said that Rafa only won because he played nobodies.

and other who predicted Sod would beat Ferdasco 60 61 now said Sod would beat Nadal.... so funny.... read what Roger said at his Rome recent interview.... Rafa is the best in clay.... VAMOS!!!!

This is what Fed had to say about Rafa. Clearly shows how much he respects him.

??
?I was surprised to hear that everyone thought that Rafa was not playing so well,? said Federer.

?He surely should have won Qatar in January because he was playing so well over there and for those who saw the match against (Nikolay) Davydenko (in the final) he was clearly the guy but Davydenko got lucky, saved match point and played incredibly in the third set,? said the Swiss.

?Things would have been very different going into the Australian Open but then he pulled out injured (in the quarters) and so everybody gets negative.

?So even if he wins everything after that then people are not going to be happy because the focus is on the Australian Open.

?So I think that there was a little too much negativity around Rafa and I went through the same thing (last year).

?It?s true, 11 months for a player like him is a long time without winning a title but you?ll have to assume that once the French Open was on and the clay season on, then he would be back on again.?
??

Fed and Rafa have tremendous respect for one another.

Link to the article.
http://www.soccerway.com/news/2010/April/25/foolish-to-write -off-rafa-says-federer/.

fft, you can find the rome draw at:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2010/416/mds.pdf

Who is Soda going to lose to acc. to your prediction, Ricky?

Wow, so heart-warming to hear Fed speak that way.I guess he is just returning the favour. As Rafa was so supportive when Fed went through a barren patch in 2008.
Vamos Rafa and to a lesser degree, vamos Roger!

So after Chardy match... we can transfer Nole from cold to red hot!!!
Who was watching, knows what I am talking about... Just waiting for Verdasco...
AJDE NOLEEEEEEEEEE

Ricky, what's your predictions like now Federer's out?

chr18 - Regarding Roger, it's not a huge spiral, just a little bitty whirlpool. I guess I was thinking in terms that he didn't get very far into the draw at Indian Wells, and even less so at Miami. As far as I'm concerned skipping Monte Carlo didn't help, and so it continues with his first match in Rome. The good thing for Roger fans though is he does come back.

ATP- Master Series Rome Preview by Hartmut Hesse

Today I want to take a look at the draw for the 2nd ATP 1000 clay-court tournament of the season.
The first Masters series event was won by Rafa Nadal, but 5 of the top 10 players were not in the draw because of different reasons. Federer felt that the tournament comes to early for him in his preparation for the French and some other big names were injured (Del Potro, Davydenko, Soderling) or did not feel like playing on clay at all (Roddick).
But now at least Federer is ready to make his start on clay for the 2010 season and if both win, he will meet Nadal in the semis? already.
But besides this interesting semi-final match up, there are some other very exciting possibilities in the draw. First of all Federer might face Baghdatis (if Marcos beats Gulbis for a 5th time in a row?) in his opener and he can take revenge for his loss in Indian Wells. In the Quarters Roger might face Cilic, who was not as convincing on clay yet, as at the Australian Open in the beginning of the year. But it will be a good indication for Cilic?s potential to reach the top 5 some day, and a tough test for Federer. But Cilic will also have to beat a tough clay-court player like Almagro to get to the quarters.
Nadals section of the draw is also very interesting, since his opener will be against Kohlschreiber, then maybe Montanes and in the quarters either red hot Berdych, who like to play against Nadal, especially in his current form. Or a rematch of last years? French Open disaster, with Robin Soderling, who just proved that his clay-court abilities were no fluke, when he reached the final in Barcelona. So, a tough draw section for Nadal, and he will be happy that he made a wise decision and did not play in Barcelona. He will be rested for these matches and he needs to, if he wants to be still fresh, when he plays Federer in the semi-final.
The bottom half of the draw might see a quarterfinal between Novak Djokovic, who is seeded No. 2 and Barcelona winner Fernando Verdasco. But Verdasco played the final in Monte Carlo already and I don?t think his legs are still fresh enough to make another splash in Rome, even though he has a pretty good draw, with only Youzhny in his way. But so does Novak and I see him winning against Verdasco this time.
In the other section there will be a rematch between De Bakker and Tsonga in the second round and De Bakker has to prove if his great performance in Barcelona was not just a one-hit-wonder. Tsonga will be eager to take revenge and it will be an exciting match for sure. Murray runs into Ferrer again and has to prove that he is one of the contenders for the French Open. I doubt it and see Ferrer winning against him in the round of 16. Even though he also played 2 events already, I still see him with enough left in the tank to reach the semi-final, where he will face Djokovic.

So, here is my prediction:

It?s Nadal over Federer and Ferrer over Djokovic. So, another Spanish winner in the 3 big clay-court event of the year. Nadal will take the title, because the other Spanish players just have too much respect for Nadal to beat him in a final.
This win will give Nadal even more confidence and make him the clear favorite for the French Open, even if Federer should win in Madrid again like last year.

Let?s see if I am right? ;)

Hardy Hesse