Barcelona Day 1: Bellucci Upset by Giraldo, Nadal's No.1 Fight
On Monday's day 1 of match play at the Barcelona Open, Colombian Santiago Giraldo upset 13th seed Thomaz Bellucci 7-5, 6-3. He will face wildcard Albert Ramos, who defeated countryman Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo, in front of his home crowd to potentially face Rafael Nadal.
No. 1 seed Rafael Nadal returns to Barcelona after skipping the tournament last year to potentially solidify his top place in the rankings.
After losing to Novak Djokovic twice in a row at the start-of-the-season's hard court Masters, Nadal was able to get revenge for his Australian Open quarterfinal loss by defeating David Ferrer in Monaco.
However, Djokovic has remained unbeatable in 2011 and his confidence could steal the No. 1 spot as Nadal has not been able to defeat him yet.
Nadal has a 3,230 rankings point difference to Djokovic but, due to his record success last year, he will have 4,000 points to defend during the clay court season, the remaining two Masters and Roland Garros, compared to Djokovic's meager 540 defending points.
By playing the tournament in Barcelona, Nadal could gain 500 ATP rankings points.
"The two loses of the finals, especially the Miami one, affects a little bit. You are more nervous than usual, for sure," Nadal said, "Always you have to think about positive. You are playing too well, is fantastic because you are playing unbelievable. Let's keep doing like this. If you are winning without playing your best, seems like you have enough tennis to keep being competitive even if you're not playing perfect. So let's try to play better. If you play better, you have even more chances."
All the other seeded players, Albert Montanes, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Kevin Anderson, and Juan Monaco, made it to the second round today.
