Rafael Nadal
Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal continued to have an outstanding year after topping their respective foes in the finals of the Mutua Madrid Open titles at Park Manzanares on Sunday in Madrid.
Williams successfully defended his Madrid Open title with another dominating performance against Russia's Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-4. Serena captured his 50th career singles title and held a tight grip on the top spot of the WTA rankings.
Great Britain's Andy Murray will reclaim the no.2 spot in the ATP ranking next week despite losing to Tomas Berdych 6-7, 4-6 in the quarterfinal round of the Mutua Madrid Open.
Former world's no.1 Roger Federer doesn't think Rafael Nadal still needs the top seeding for him to have a great shot at winning again the French Open title.
It's clay-court season. The sky is clear, the heat is intense and the dirt is red. These are the normal environment tennis followers often relish during this time of the year in the ATP tour. All until the calendar takes a twisty turn at the Madrid Masters.
One of the best soft-court players in the history of tennis shared his disdain for hard courts, though he had a great point to make about playing on them. Rafael Nadal expressed his concern for tennis players spending significant amounts of time on concrete courts and said that the ATP doesn't care about the safety of its players by continually having tournaments on such surfaces.
Rafael Nadal lost both the singles and doubles finals in the VTR Open in Chile on Sunday, but made it back onto the court healthy for the first time in seven months in the process. Nadal offered his take on how the ATP should administer drug testing to its athletes as well.
