Nadal is at it once again.  Ever since he burst on the tennis scene, he became the king of clay, and nothing has really stopped him except his own injuries.

Nadal beat Dodig, a Croatian that’s maybe a year older than Nadal, but far less successful.  Dodig is having his best week in some time beating Soderling and Raonic en route to the semifinals, but he was no match for Nadal.  While Dodig had some success winning points on Nadal’s second serve, Nadal had more success on both first and second serve of Dodig.

The final score was 6-3, 6-2.

Nadal will face his friend David Ferrer once again.  Ferrer beat Nicolas Almagro, 6-3, 6-4.  It’s been said that Ferrer does really well in practice and is more than competitive agianst Nadal, but put him in match situations, and Ferrer isn’t nearly as sure of himself and Nadal is, more than likely, far more competitive.

Ferrer is likely to challenge Nadal, and keep it close, but not much more than that.

Meanwhile, Nadal becomes the second youngest man to reach 500 wins with only another clay court titan, Bjorn Borg, having reached it sooner.  He edged out both McEnroe and Lendl by about a month, so it wasn’t as if he was way ahead of his competition.

Rafa would be going for seven titles at Barcelona in a row, but last year he skipped Barcelona, mostly because he was concerned for his knees.  He seems more confident this year.  With very short matches, he’s not taxing his body as much.  He also appears to be playing more aggressive than he did last week at Monte Carlo.

So congrats to the Mallorcan for yet another milestone in his continuing illustrious career.