The spring clay segment of the season is gaining momentum; this week the main attention of tennis fans will be focused on Barcelona, where the ATP-500 tennis tournament will be held. The tournament takes place on the courts tennis club Barcelona "Real Club de Tenis Barcelona", the ground here is traditional, not the fastest and not the slowest. There is undoubted interest in this tournament Rafael Nadal. He is now going through the traditionally most successful part of his career: he managed to take his 10th title in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Roland Garros are next... After all, these three tournaments are his most successful, he has never won so many titles anywhere else. Will it be possible to complete 10-10-10 on the route Monte Carlo - Barcelona - Paris this spring and thereby take 30 titles in these tournaments? As for the game in Monte Carlo, I admit, the prerequisites for this are very good.
We are waiting for the 10th title in Barcelona, Rafael...
This year we will not see Kei Nishikori in Barcelona, who played in the final last year and before that won the title twice (right wrist injury). Among the first four seeds we have Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem and... Benoit Paire, who, it turns out, after Nishikori was removed, led the lower part of the tournament bracket. In general, the line-up of participants is very good this season: Goffin, Cuevas, Bautista-Agut, Ferrer, Carreno-Busta, Ramos-Vinolas... Last week, the masters in Monte Carlo and the same Ramos reaching the final showed us what is now in the men's In tennis, the competition is very serious and I think Barcelona will also please us with unexpected results.
Top of the tournament bracket
Headed top part tournament bracket Andy Murray. Murray played two matches in Monte Carlo last week. After a difficult victory over Muller, Andy spoke about the fact that his elbow was bothering him, after losing the match to Ramos-Vinolas in three sets, he already claimed that his elbow was completely fine:
Now I'm confident that my elbow can handle more stress, so it will be easier for me to continue to work on myself and my game
Let's believe, of course, that the elbow is fine, but Murray was frankly not impressed with his performance in Monte Carlo. Undoubtedly, we should expect that he will improve, but I don’t think that his goal here in Baselon is to take the title at any cost. His last visit here ended in defeat in the quarterfinals from Milos Raonic. This happened back in 2012. This year's start will be against the winner of the Tomic - Brown match.
Dominic Thiem at the top of the tournament bracket will try to move towards Murray towards a possible semi-final. Last week in Monte Carlo, despite the fact that he played only two matches, he showed good game. Yes, he lost to Goffin, but, of course, Dominic shone there and it was not fun to lose there. Overall, Tim is fine now. The tournament bracket for the semi-finals in Barcelona is quite working. At the start, the winner of the match is Chardy - Edmund, then Misha Zverev - Monteiro/Evans. Agree, there are no too dangerous rivals here. In the possible quarterfinals we see Carreno-Busta and Gasquet among the seeded ones. Also, in my opinion, we can fully expect Tim to win. Of course, these are all pre-tournament riddles and layouts, but we all know Tim’s potential and expect a successful performance from him here and now.
Of course, at the top of the tournament bracket it is worth paying attention to the finalist of the Monte Carlo Masters Albert Ramos-Vinolas. The Spanish tennis player pleasantly surprised us in Monte Carlo. Indeed, he deserved this success with his perseverance and hard work. Of course, it will be risky to play him in bets in Barcelona, but we can hardly expect an outright decline. Tennis player, in principle, serial, which has already proven to us this season in South America, when I worked 4 tournaments at a good level, I didn’t crash anywhere at the start, I won at least two victories. I think three consecutive three-set matches in Monte Carlo convinced us that he is physically ready now. The match will start against the winner of the Albot/Ruud pair.
In terms of possible bets on first round matches at the top of the tournament bracket, I would like to draw attention to the match Daniel Evans And Thiago Monteiro. Evans has barely played on clay in recent seasons. The tennis player is a typical representative of the hard school, where he has all the success. This season I worked great in the first part on open hard courts. Then, of course, there was a natural decline. However, now his rating allows him to easily get into the main draw of major tournaments, including on clay, which he takes advantage of. Last week I played in Monte Carlo, where I lost to Edmund without any options. Now a difficult test awaits him in the person of the Brazilian tennis player Monteiro, who specializes in clay, who went through a difficult qualification in Barcelona (Rosol, Samper-Montana), and is already well established on the courts. At the start of the season, we played each other on open hard courts in Sydney, when Evans reached the final and shone there. So, then they played in the 1st round and Evans won only in 3 sets. I think now is the time for Monteiro to take revenge. A typical option to bet on a qualifying player, a favorite in the bookmakers' line in the 1st round of the main draw.
Possible bet on the match Evans D. - Monteiro T. Victory of Monteiro for odds 1.58 in bookmaker 1xBet(I don’t suggest a minus handicap, because Monteiro is not one of those who feels confident in this component, although you can try a small minus handicap).
Bottom of the tournament bracket
Rafael Nadal topped this part of the tournament bracket. And in the absence of Nishikori, Dominic Goffin will move towards the possible seeding semi-finals. History tends to repeat itself. Why don't we see the Nadal-Goffin match again, as it was not so long ago in Monte Carlo.A good tournament was held in Monte Carlo Rafael Nadal. During each of his matches, there was no doubt that there would be a victory. Yes, we can say that the opponents came to the decisive stages tired and exhausted, but the fact remains. We face Barcelona with a not too exhausted Nadal, who has settled into the clay season very well and is hungry for victories. I think we can expect a continuation of what we started in Barcelona. I wouldn’t be surprised by another of his 10th titles. It will start with a match against the winner of the Olivo/Dutra Silva pairing. In his quarter of the seeds we see Ferrer, Kohlschreiber, Alexander Zverev. Nadal dealt with the last one in Monte Carlo without any problems, but nothing is working out for David this season. Kohlschreiber, of course, is capable of surprising what happened not so long ago in North America, but it will be very difficult for him to count on a victory on clay over Nadal.
I see the main favorites to reach the semi-finals from the bottom quarter Pablo Cuevasa And Dominic Goffin. Both showed good play in Monte Carlo, both love and know how to play on clay. Of course, such a decent workload is not easy for Goffin, I fully admit his early departure in Barcelona, but Pablo Cuevas, after his match with Ramos in Monte Carlo, which he almost gave with his own hands, I think, will not allow such failures. And Cuevas himself is a serial tennis player, and it looks very much like we are now seeing this seriality in his performance. Don’t forget that he and Bopanna won the doubles title in Monte Carlo. The guys (Goffin and Cuevas) can meet each other in the 1/8 finals.
In terms of possible bets on first round matches at the bottom of the tournament bracket, I suggest considering the match between Kevin Anderson And Carlos Berloc. In my article “Difficulties of Transition” I wrote about Kevin Anderson and noted his traditionally unsuccessful starting matches on European soil. And in general, in terms of his career, in terms of his playing style, clay is not the most convenient surface for Kevin. Now we see that he will play his first match in Europe, he even showed up for the qualification of the doubles tournament here in Barcelona with Sa in order to get at least some match practice on clay (I think he himself understands perfectly well that it will not be easy for him). His opponents in the 1st round are the very difficult Carlos Berloc. The Argentine tennis player qualified in Monte Carlo, reached the 2nd round, where he lost to Ramos, who was brilliant there. In general, Carlos Berloc is fine now, as we saw at the tournaments in South America. Our line is almost equal and along this line I propose to build on Anderson’s statistics with his unsuccessful starting matches on the ground in Europe and from the more profile Berlock.
Possible bet on the match Berlock K. - Anderson K. P1 for odds 1.94 in bookmaker 1xBet.
Undoubtedly, an interesting tournament awaits us. Of course, it’s hard to talk about everything in one post; we’ll monitor and predict as the tournament progresses. Happy betting everyone
Spain. Barcelona. Men. Singles. Covering - soil. ATP-500, 48 participants.
Announcement
The largest men's tournament this week was the 500 in Barcelona, Spain, which was attended by four tennis players from the top ten of the world rankings, led by the “king of clay” Nadal. And although it is unlikely that anyone will be able to stand in the way of the Spaniard to the second title of the season, we can still expect a number of exciting fights from the competition.
Society's opinion
If you look at the results of voting among tennis fans, it turns out that Nadal leads by a wide margin. 71% of fans believe in him. The first racket of the world is expected to take second place Murray(which received 13% of the votes). The remaining competitors are present on the list only symbolically. For example, Sasha Zverev has 4%, Goffin and Thiem have 3% each, Carreno Busta and Bautista Agut have only 1% of the votes. As for the other contenders, they have virtually no chance of winning the title. In total, the group of 41 tennis players has a 3% chance, which rather indicates not the real probability, but rather the fact that this is the percentage of users who prefer to bet on odds from 50.0 to 500.0.
Odds assessment
In this review, we will not touch on those athletes who are present in the tournament bracket quite symbolically. Let's consider the chances of those who deserve at least a place in the quarterfinals. Let's start with the weakest in the group of leaders and end with an assessment of the chances of the undisputed leader.
10 Closes the top ten Philipp Kohlschreiber.
The German has always been considered a clay player and in his younger years even won several titles on this surface. Last week in Macarresh he beat the highly rated Paire and reached the final, where he lost to the promising Coric. Today he will meet with the younger Zverev, and if successful, he will most likely face Rafa. But there are basically no chances here. In 15 head-to-head meetings, Kohlschreiber managed to gain the upper hand only once, and even then it happened on grass, on which the Spaniard is not always successful.
9 Ninth place Alexandra Zvereva.
Yesterday, with great difficulty, the German defeated the long-deflated Almagro in three games (7:6 4:6 6:4), and tomorrow he expects to meet the winner of the Kohlschreider-Chen pair. It is clear that Sasha is younger and will have one more day of rest than his veteran compatriot. However, the battle is expected to be stubborn; Philip is unlikely to like the fact that Zverev took away the title of first racket in Germany from him. However, this will be a local battle, and then a meeting with Nadal will follow, who will certainly stop any of the Germans who reach him. On this moment Nadal leads the match against Sasha 3:0. Yes, Zverev managed to put up a desperate five-set resistance to the Spaniard in Melbourne, but it was hard there and, besides, the German still lost. And at the recent tournament in Monaco, Rafa’s advantage was overwhelming (6:1 6:1). So we give Zverev purely symbolic chances.
8 In eighth position we placed Roberto Batisto-Aguta.
Although the Spaniard is already 29 years old, he has always played a third role, even in his own country. I sat behind Nadal, Verdasco, Ferrer and a dozen other competitors. And suddenly, in his old age, he made it into the top twenty. However, this rather speaks not about Roberto’s strength, but about the lack of young talents in tennis. It’s not for nothing that veterans who are over 30 are still on the horse. The Spaniard may well reach the quarterfinals, since there are no serious rivals on his way, but there will be an insurmountable wall for Murray, who leads the score against Roberto 3:0.
7 Seventh on our list was Pablo Carreno Busto.
This is another Spaniard, but much more promising than Agut. This season he is showing good results, but he has not been able to win against a single opponent in the top thirty of the rankings. He is behind Nadal 0:3 in personal meetings, and the losses date back to 2015 and 2016, when Rafa was permanently injured. It is clear that now Pablo has even less chance of creating a sensation than before. He will most likely reach the quarterfinals, since to do this he just needs to break the resistance of Yuichi Sugita. But what the Spaniard will be able to oppose to Tim is unclear.
6 Sixth position by right Benoit Paire.
The Frenchman has been a promising prospect for a long time. However, soon he will only have to serve towels to more successful competitors. After all, the guy is already 27 years old, and there has been no breakthrough. A year ago, he entered the top twenty of the rating, but immediately fell out of it. Since then, victories over really strong opponents have stopped. The strongest of those whom Benoit has beaten this season is the veteran Robredo. At the last tournament in Monte Carlo, the Frenchman lost in the first round to Haas, also a veteran, who had just recovered from injury.
5 The fifth line belongs Kevin Anderson.
He is not considered among the contenders for the title, but in vain. The six-footer from South Africa has an outstanding serve and is capable of sweeping anyone off the court. And the most interesting thing is that Kevin prefers clay courts, which is simply amazing for a tennis player of his size. Another thing is that he is unstable and prone to injury. But now Anderson is quite healthy, which he proved with victories over Ferrer and Berloc, two strong ground opponents. And last week in Houston, Kevin only lost to Verdasco in two tiebreakers. So it would be stupid to discount him. Alas, already in the third round Kevin will have to measure his strength with Nadal, and in this confrontation things are not going well - 3 defeats in three meetings. That's why Anderson is so low.
4 In fourth place David Goffin.
The Belgian is steadily progressing and has quietly climbed to tenth place in the rankings. In Monte Carlo, he managed to stop not only Thiem, but also the second racket of the world, Djokovic. Overall for the season, David is showing decent results. Some even thought he had a chance against Nadal. But the tournament in Monaco last week dispelled these illusions. The defeat 3:6 1:6 demonstrated that without strong blow There is nothing to do against Rafa. And Goffin’s main trump card – speed – turns into nothing against the agile and tireless Nadal. The Belgian was lucky with the tournament draw; his closest opponents are Basilashvili, Khachanov and Paire (most likely), so he must reach the semifinals. But this is the ceiling for David, since Nadal looms there.
3 Third place Dominic Tim.
The Austrian is the only one of all the previously listed tennis players who offers resistance to Nadal (he managed to win one meeting out of three). Tim is in the top part of the bracket, which means he can only face Murray in the semifinals (if he doesn’t crash out first). Dominic operates in a similar manner with the Scot; at 23 years old, he is healthy and capable of progressing. Although Tim lost in two personal meetings, he grabbed one set each time. All this indicates that the Austrian is capable of passing Murray with a certain amount of luck. And in the end all sorts of miracles happen. Therefore, we do not rule out Dominic winning the title.
2 Reserved second position Andy Murray.
Although the previous tournament in Monte Carlo showed that the Briton is still not successful in clay tournaments (there he lost to Alberto Ramos, a very mediocre tennis player, in the second round), but at the moment he is the first racket of the world, which makes Eddie quite optimistic about his chances seriously. However, defeats from Pospisil, Misha Zverev and the aforementioned Ramos force one to doubt that Murray is now able to resist Nadal. It would be wild to expect Rafa to lose to any of the mentioned three players. And in personal meetings, the Scot is inferior to his main competitor 7:17. For Murray, even getting into the finals will be an absolute success.
1 First place without any doubt Nadal.
The “king of clay” suffered only 4 defeats this season, 3 of them from one person - Federer. Moreover, all the failures happened on hard. On clay, Rafa immediately won the first tournament, and immediately at the Masters in Monaco. With all the competitors for the title in Barcelona, the Spaniard has an overwhelming balance of personal statistics. Perhaps at the moment there is no one who could compete with him in earthen tournaments.
| Tennis player | Rating | Pos. in the ranking | Wins/losses (last 20 matches) | Preferred coating type | Chances of winning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R. Nadal | 4235 | 5 | +16 -4 | priming | 60% |
| E. Murray | 11690 | 1 | +13 -3 | grass | 10% |
| D. Tim | 3385 | 9 | +14 -6 | priming | 8% |
| D. Goffin | 2975 | 10 | +15 -5 | hard | 7% |
| K. Anderson | 730 | 66 | +4 -5 | priming | 5% |
| B. Peer | 915 | 49 | +11 -9 | priming | 4% |
| P. Carreno Busta | 2025 | 20 | +13 -7 | priming | 3% |
| R. Bautista-Agut | 2145 | 18 | +14 -6 | dirt and hard | 2% |
| A. Zverev | 2005 | 21 | +13 -7 | hard and synthetic | 1% |
| F. Kohlschreiber | 1240 | 31 | +12 -8 | dirt and hard | 0% |
Conclusion
It's hard to imagine who could beat Nadal in Barcelona. Last year, marred by injuries, the Spaniard was still able to win here, defeating Kei Nishikori in the final. This time the Japanese refused to perform, so Rafa has practically no competitive rivals.
The Barcelona Open is an ATP elite tennis championship. World Tour 500. The tournament takes place on the clay courts of the Royal Tennis Club. 48 tennis players will take part in the competition. Prize fund is over 2 million dollars.
The Barcelona Open is part of the elite ATP World Tour 500 category. The tournament will take place from 18 to 24 April on the clay courts of the Royal Tennis Club. 48 tennis players will take part in the competition. The prize fund for the 2016 tournament will be $2.1 million.
Tournament history
The tournament was first held in 1953 through the efforts of the influential Count Carlos de Godó Valls, who coincided with the construction of a tennis center in the capital of Catalonia. The winner is awarded the main prize - a pure silver cup on an oak stand. The trophy cup is engraved with the name of a new champion each year.
The first winner of the competition was Vic Seikas from the United States. Then the tournament took place in July, but starting from next year was postponed until spring. The postponement was due to the start of a series of clay competitions preceding RolandGarros.
In 1960, a central court was built that could accommodate 3,000 spectators. That same year, the first Spaniard, Andre Gimeno, celebrated his triumph on it. In 1967, before the match against the Soviet team in the Davis Cup, the main court was reconstructed, after which it began to accommodate 8,500 spectators.
Since 1968, the tournament has been called International Championship Spain. In 1969, due to frequent rainfalls, it was moved to autumn, where it would remain for several seasons. By 1980, the Barcelona tournament became the most prestigious autumn competition.
In 1990, it shifted again to spring, where it remains to this day. In 2005, the rising tennis star Rafael Nadal from Spain became the winner of the competition for the first time. After his first triumph, he then won the tournament three more times in a row, setting a record for the number of victories in competitions. IN different years such victories were won here famous tennis players like Carlos Moya, Thomas Muster, Marat Safin, Richard Krajicek, Ivan Lendl, Bjorn Borg, Ilie Nastase. Now the tennis tournament in Barcelona occupies a significant place in the bracket tennis tournaments, annually collecting best athletes planets.
List of participants
The list of participants in the tournament will be determined only before it starts, but some of the world tennis stars have already confirmed their participation in the tournament:
- Rafael Nadal
- David Ferrer
- Kei Nishikori
- Dominic Thiem
- David Goffin
Where are the tennis courts
The tournament takes place on the courts of the Barcelona tennis club "Real Club de Tenis Barcelona", which is located at Carrer de Bosch i Gimpera, 5 - 13.
We recommend getting to the courts by metro. To do this, you need to take the green line meters L3 and get off at the "Maria Cristina" station. Further on the map below, a 15-minute quiet walk will take you to the courts. By the way, the Camp Nou stadium is located in the same area, but you have to go downhill, not uphill.
How to buy tickets
Ticket prices start from 7 euros (qualifying), 14-85 euros (preliminary rounds), 45-90 euros (quarter-finals). A trip to the semi-finals and finals will cost 52-110 euros. Those interested can purchase a subscription to all competitions. It costs 199-410 euros (depending on the stand).
