Click here to discuss this and more with fellow tennis fans.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n[divider]<\/p>\n
To be an ex-champion is no assurance of repeating in a world as competitive as tennis. \u00a0Tommy Robredo and Fernando Verdasco can attest to that. \u00a0Robredo was, in 2004, the last winner of the Open Banc Sabadell before the interruption of one Rafa Nadal, who wrote his name on the trophy 5 consecutive times before injury made him decide not to play in 2010, allowing Fernando Verdasco to win the tournament (that year.) \u00a0The return of the Mallorcan in 2011 augmented his reign: \u00a0his trophies grew to 7, to date. \u00a0(In the current tournament,) Robredo has got through the first round, beating Marc Lopez, but Verdasco succumbed to Ernests Gulbis, dropping him out of the Top 40, and adding one more loss to a bleak period, (he’s only won 3 matches in 8 tournaments.)<\/p>\n
Robredo and Verdasco are two champions who frame Nadal’s domination in Barcelona. \u00a0And they are 2 champions with issues, struggling to find a way back to an elite level that they used to be part of. \u00a0Robredo, within touching-distance of 31, got as high as #5 in the world, when he regularly found himself in the last 8 of Grand Slams. \u00a0Verdasco, 29, had his career high in April 2009, when he reached #7 in the world, after making the semi-finals of the Australian Open, where he lost to Nadal in 5 sets.<\/p>\n
At the time, the future looked rosy. \u00a0Verdasco was still working with Andre Agassi’s ex-trainer, Gil Reyes, in Las Vegas, and had made a big leap in the rankings. \u00a0Robredo was displaying some of the best tennis of his career. \u00a0But then things went sour. \u00a0Verdasco changed the structure of his team, abandoning Las Vegas, and modifying his work habits. \u00a0He changed his methodology, and, probably, his mentality. \u00a0 In 2010, he won the Open Banc Sabadell in Barcelona and was quarterfinalist at the USO. \u00a0Since then, however, he hasn’t won a single trophy.<\/p>\n
Robredo’s case is more dramatic, because he spent 2 years laid low by an injury that doctors couldn’t identify. \u00a0His left leg hurt, but he kept hobbling along on the circuit. \u00a0Until (one) Dr. Vilar\u00f3 decided that he needed an operation on the ischiotibial muscle in the leg. \u00a0“It took a year to figure out what it was,” explains Robredo. \u00a0“But when they operated on me, Vilar\u00f3 did something magic. \u00a0After a week, I was more flexible than a girl they’d operated on 6 months earlier. \u00a0And the pain has disappeared. \u00a0It’s a struggle to get back to my competitive level, but that’s a question of time and matches. \u00a0The injury is completely forgotten.”<\/p>\n
Robredo is now #43 in the world, while Verdasco is #35, though he’ll give up his place in the top 40 with this loss. \u00a0They’re both a long way away from the positions they enjoyed in their best moments. \u00a0Now the expectations fall on David Ferrer and Nadal, who start their campaigns in Barcelona against Dmitry Tursunov and the Argentine Carlos Berlocq, respectively.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[Note: \u00a0Clearly this is old news, as Barcelona was won by Rafael Nadal, defeating Nico Almagro. \u00a0I chose it for the insight into these two players. \u00a0I know we have Verdasco fans on the boards, and everyone has been happy for the resurgence of Tommy Robredo. \u00a0I hope this tells you something you didn’t know.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[divider] Translated from:\u00a0“Verdasco, en crisis” (El Pais, April 23, 2013) Click here to discuss this and more with fellow tennis fans. [divider] To be an ex-champion is no assurance of repeating in a world as competitive as tennis. \u00a0Tommy Robredo and Fernando Verdasco can attest to that. \u00a0Robredo was, in 2004, the last winner of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[781,93,779],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis-international-access","tag-atp","tag-fernando-verdasco","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}