Fernando Verdasco, who reached his first Master 1000 semis last week in Monte Carlo, continues to play well in Barcelona.  Verdasco, apparently, had not planned to play Barcelona but was given a wildcard.  He faced talented but erratic, Ernests Gulbis, in the quarter finals and won, 6-2, 7-6(4).  Gulbis has been having a solid, if not spectacular, year, but has yet to beat a truly big name.

David Ferrer continues to play well on clay beating Brazilian, Thomaz Bellucci, 6-4, 6-0.  Thiemo de Bakker, who some had predicted might have a breakout year, had a big victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.  Robin Soderling had an easy win over Eduardo Schwank, 6-2, 6-3.

The semifinals will pit Ferrer against Verdasco and  de Bakker against Soderling.

Andy Roddick is chosing to skip Rome next week.  He is expected to play Madrid.  Rome should feature all the top players that are healthy including Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray.  It is still unknown when del Potro will return back to action, though presumably, he’ll try to play before the French Open.  So far, Delpo has only played one tournament this year, the Australian Open.

Rafael Nadal had been originally scheduled to play Barcelona, but said that he didn’t want to play four clay events like he did last year.  He regretted that, especially since he was five time defending champ, but it makes sense for him to give himself enough rest, heading into the French.

Heading into Rome, many questions still remain open.  Is Roger ready to win the French again?  He played well at the French, but then lost early in Indian Wells to Baghdatis and lost early in Miami to Berdych.  In both matches, he had match points.  Fed chose to skip Monte Carlo and hasn’t played since Miami.

Novak Djokovic had an even worse outing at Indian Wells and Miami, losing to early in both tournaments.  He fared somewhat better in Monte Carlo reaching the semifinals, but lost handily to Fernando Verdasco.

Andy Murray has been in the doldrums since Melbourne.  His best showing was a quarterfinal loss to Robin Soderling in Indian Wells, but he lost early to Mardy Fish in Miami, and lost easily to Philipp Kohlschreiber in Monte Carlo in the 2nd round.  Murray took a van to Barcelona to train, the site of his junior days in Spain, but chose not to play in Barcelona.  Folks have been using other means besides air travel due to the Icelandic volcano.

Of the 3, the biggest questions remain with Andy Murray.  Clay is already the surface Murray performs worst on, mostly because Murray doesn’t like to attack much.  Clay, once the surface of the defense-minded, is now the surface where you need to hit 2-3 “winners” to win a point, and if you aren’t looking for chances to score, you often find yourself on the losing end.  Novak Djokovic, at the very least, shows some understanding of how to play on clay and has both the consistency and the skill to hit big shots that appears part and parcel of what’s needed to win on clay.

Given Nadal’s effortless win in Monte Carlo, it seems, at this point, he’s the odds-on favorite in Paris.  Still, one could imagine a player like Robin Soderling, potentially giving him trouble on clay as he did last year.  The other players that have given Nadal trouble are currently injured (del Potro and Davydenko).

The other big question mark is Roger Federer.  He was having consistency issues on hard courts, and it seems he still needs to resolve those issues.  However, he had trained quite well leading to Australia, and one presumes he knows how to prepare on clay as well.

The biggest issue, which has yet to bite Roger Federer, is Nadal’s ranking.  Nadal lost his number 2 ranking in Australia when he failed to defend his title.  Novak Djokovic then became number 2 in the world and has held the ranking since.  Rafa will lose ground to Djokovic since he will fail to defend Barcelona.  Djokovic will remain about 1000 points ahead of Rafa.

Although Rafa has a lot of points to defend (winner of Rome, finalist in Madrid), Djokovic also has a fair number of points to defend (finalist of Rome, semifinalist in Madrid), and Djokovic hasn’t been playing great, though he’s been playing OK.  Rafa, on the other hand, has been playing well.

Let’s see how the clay season turns out!