Juan Carlos King of Spain !!!

I just arrived in Rome and as the matches don't start before 1 pm at Foro Italico, I had the opportunity to do some sightseeing and visit one of the most beautiful cities of the world.

So I went to all this famous places and piazzas and the much known Trevi fountain. In Rome there are a lot of piazzas like that with some oblique. After that I went a bit early at the Foro Italico to get some tickets and to enjoy all the fun stand of the tournaments.

I was a bit disappointed because Federer played his match on Tuesday against Canas which he securely won 6-3 6-3. But the order of play of the day was really nice with Djokovic, Nadal and Blake on Central Court.

The first match of the day was with the Belgian Steve Darcis who beat Ljubicic 7-5 7-6 in the first round, against the n°2 of the Race the young Serb Novak Djokovic. The first showed a nice battle but in the end when Darcis was serving at 4-4, Djokovic got the break of serve, and then won 8 straight games to overcome his opponent 6-4 6-0. Djokovic improves to 21-5 on the season and will next meet Igor Andreev of Russia who easily beat Juan Monaco 6-1 6-4 in the third round on Thursday.

Italian hopes were on Andreas Seppi when he was facing James Blake who will try to win his first match on the European clay after reaching the final in Houston 3 weeks ago. It was a very intense match where Blake was able to get the first set in his belt after a 7 to 5 win in the tie-break and 6 total breaks of serve. Then Seppi fought back and secure the second set with one break of serve and saving the lone break point he faced. But eventually Blake fired up and raised his level to break twice his opponent in the deciding set to clinch his first win on the European clay since May 2007. Final score 7-6 3-6 6-1.

The big match of the day was coming up next in central court, Rafael Nadal was making his 2008 Rome campaign debut, facing Juan Carlos Ferrero who beat Kiefer in 3 sets. The last meeting between the two former Roland Garros champion was 2 weeks ago in Monte Carlo where Nadal came through 6-4 6-1 before eventually win the title. But even though Ferrero trail 1-7 in their Head-to-Head he played with the right ambition. The first set was very close with a lot of games going into deuce. But both players were playing the important points with some extraordinary points. So they managed to keep their serve until Ferrero a 6-5 converted his 3rd break point.

Nadal called the ATP Trainer because of some right foot problem. After that Ferrero didn't lost his focus and his game, while Nadal did a little bit and very soon Ferrero won the match 7-5 6-1. It is the 2nd loss of Nadal in his last 104 clay court match, the first one being in the Hamburg final last year against Federer. Nadal said afterwards that the calendar was too short for the Clay season and after his two back-to-back titles last weeks he was tired.

Then I went to the outside court to see the doubles match between an Italian pair against the French duo Fabrice Santoro and Richard Gasquet. The Frenchmen prevailed in two straight and tight sets.

In the other match of the day Ferrer also tired lost to Stepanek, Almagro beat Nalbandian in straight sets and Wawrinka ousted his good friend Andy Murray.