On Monday, David's first tournament of the European clay season this year begins, the Masters at Monte Carlo. The event held at what's probably the most picturesque site in the world is no longer mandatory for the top players but still awards the same amount of ranking points as the "proper" Masters events.
It'll be the seventh time David plays this tournament. Last year, he reached the quarterfinal, where after playing a brilliant first set against Roger Federer, David ran out of gas and eventually lost the match in three sets. Together with another quarterfinal appearance back in 2004, it was his best result at Monte Carlo so far.
After Monte Carlo, a couple of very busy weeks lie ahead of David. As a matter of fact, from now on he'll only have a single week off until Roland Garros, also known as the French Open, begins on May 25.
Here's an overview of the clay tournaments David is scheduled to play:
Monte Carlo Masters 1000 (April 13 - 19)
Barcelona Open 500 (April 20 - 26)
Rome Masters 1000 (April 27 - May 3)
Estoril (May 4 - May 10)
Madrid Masters 1000 (May 11 - May 17)
Week off
Roland Garros (May 25 - June 7)
The official site would probably call it the "schedule of a champion". I'd call it an extremely ambitious schedule, even for a player who's 100% fit. - But according to his coach, David is not 100% fit...
In an exclusive interview for Cadena 3, Luis Lobo said that David "has to recover from pains in his hip which have troubled him for eight months" and that as soon as he recovers "and doesn't feel pain anymore he'll be able to train and play freely". Lobo declared that "the objective for this year is to solve these hip problems and then see what happens".
He added that if David "has continuity and consistency he'll be inside the Top Ten again", defining consistency as "having clear goals" and confirming that David "has tackled those goals very well this year".
About the upcoming clay season, Lobo said that David "has to adapt to clay, he has what it takes to beat anyone on clay, he has to work and see how it goes on a day-to-day basis".
- I have to admit that I'm not really sure what to make of this. I don't recall having heard or read anything about hip problems before. At the same time, I cannot help but wonder why David agrees to a schedule as this if he's troubled by lingering injury problems.
We'll probably have no other choice but to take Lobo's advice and see how it goes on a day-to-day basis.
2 comments:
I thought Buenos Aires and Acapulco were clay. Do you mean the European clay?
I find this schedule depressing in that it suggests he needs to attend a lot of tournaments to get a decent number of matches in. I mean, given his tendency to fall out at the start. A busy schedule is only a problem for those players who go deep into tournaments. So I get the feeling he's not even anticipating that.
The sudden revelation of a hip problem sounds weird to me too.
Whoopsee. Just made a little edit there. :)
I'm simply glad we're back in Europe. And the European clay season just is the real thing. Building up to Roland Garros...
The schedule does look a bit like he's not really expecting to go really far in those tournaments. Then again, he could still drop out of one of them.
As for the hip problem, I've noticed how he sometimes seems to be in pain when he gets wrong-footed and has to change directions abruptly. But that's something I already saw at Indian Wells, last year. More than eight months ago.
The whole thing is indeed very weird.
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