| Clay Season- Nadal vs The Field | ||||
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 The clay court circuit is having its start in the lovely Monte Carlo a place which I'm very familiar from the days when it was the training base of the Monte Carlo Tennis Academy. Since then we have evolved into the larger MCTA Group, but the country club is still one of if not the most stunning venues for a tournament. The mens scene on clay is predictably Nadal versus the field with Rafa most likely to dominate again. Funnily the pressure is a little off Federer since no one is expecting him to win the French so I think he may well make final again and hope against the odds that someone other than Rafa is standing on the other end. The unknown quantity is Murray and I fully anticipate a strong challenge especially if he can get off to a good start and beat someone like Davydenko which will fuel his belief on a surface which should suit him as an excellent mover with a good tennis brain. I believe he will be No3 before Wimbledon unless Novak can pull a rabbit as big as winning the French out the bag. Some surprises may come from Davydenko, Nalbandian (who has not had a great clay court season in years, so probably not) and Verdasco who needs to show quickly that Miami was just a blip and his mission is still very much alive to make the top 4 the top 5. Generally someone emerges as dangerous but at present I'm not seeing anyone else on a major mission. While the men are predictable the women are totally not! Who will win the French? I don't think either Venus or Serena are solid enough or mentally prepared to grind enough to win and defending champion Ana Ivanovic I think will struggle unless she steps onto the centre court and a wave of "that winning feeling" engulfs her and inspires her to reach the heights of last year. So that leaves us with Jankovic, Dementieva, Safina, Azarenka, Kuznetsova, Radwanska and no doubt another .....ova who will impress. I fancy Jankovic to finally win a Slam if she can relax to keep enough pace in her game and let her legs do the work, because she is fast and can run all day. She tends to hit short and lose pace on her shots when she gets tight which allows girls to come at her. If she defends aggressively she will be hard to beat. As with every clay season the front runners emerge and build towards the French. It is not a surface where players don't feature at all the suddenly turn it on at the French. Clay is a momentum surface more than any of the others, so watch form build and see if you can pick the contenders by the time Roland Garros kicks off. |
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