Jack of all Trades: what to expect from the super tournament in Madrid

This week, the Spanish capital will host the second—highest-ranked series in world tennis, the Masters for men and the WTA-1000 for women. Almost all of our strongest tennis players will take part. Daniil Medvedev will try to rehabilitate himself for his unsuccessful performance in Monte Carlo and retain his place in the top 10, and the silver spirit of the 2024 Games in Paris - Mirra Andreeva and Diana Schneider - will play doubles together again.

Non-standard conditions

In Madrid, the women's "thousandth" starts first this week, followed by the men's "Masters". This is one of the youngest tournaments in the series, which appeared in 2002 only for men and was held in the fall on the hard court in the gym, and in 2009 it became a joint competition and changed to a dirt surface. The stadium has also become different, while Madrid cannot be called completely open-air. The three main courts are located under the arches of the large arena, and parts of the roof above each of them simply slide apart during matches if it is not raining. Of course, this does not give the full effect of playing on the ground in the gym, but it still speeds up the flight of the ball, as well as the height of 660 m above sea level. For comparison, Rome and Paris, which host other major clay tournaments, are located less than 50 m above sea level.

Of course, such conditions favor attacking players, as you can easily see by opening the list of champions. In the 2020s, Arina Sobolenko won here three times (every odd year), for whom the local titles remain the only ones on clay, although last season she reached the final of Roland Garros. Petra Kvitova has also won here three times, Serena Williams has won twice, but four-time champion of "RG" Iga Sventek scored only once.

In addition, it was the worst of the major clay tournaments for Rafael Nadal. Despite the home walls, the Spaniard won here "only" five times, and the first was back in 2005 on the hard court in the hall. No, he's still the tournament record holder for the most titles, but at other clay competitions (Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome, Roland Garros) Rafa has won 10+ trophies each! And Roger Federer has put together a complete Madrid collection, winning once on hard, regular and blue clay — the latter was laid only once as an experiment, in 2012. Nadal, as well as Novak Djokovic, then promised to boycott the tournament if he did not return to the usual ground, because the blue turned out to be too slippery and fast. There were no more such liberties with the court surface.

Racket start: Mirra Andreeva wins her second title of the season

In the toughest final in Linz, Austria, she beat Anastasia Potapova.

Among the Russian players in Madrid, Marat Safin (on hard court), Andrey Rublev, Dinara Safina and Maria Sharapova won — all once. However, Rublev also won here in a pair with Karen Khachanov. By the way, the current champion of the doubles tournament is Anna Kalinskaya, who won the title last spring with Sorana Kirstey.

Medvedev's place in the top 10 is at stake.

Daniil Medvedev and Mirra Andreeva performed the best among Russians in singles a year ago. For Daniel, Madrid became the most successful clay tournament of last season — he reached the quarterfinals, earning 200 points. Medvedev lost to Kasper Ruud, who eventually became the champion here. At other clay competitions, the Russian scored 100 points each for the 1/8 finals of Monte Carlo and Rome, as well as 10 rating points for the first round of Roland Garros.

If Daniel fails Madrid after Monte Carlo, he risks falling out of the top 10. True, in the live ranking, after deducting last year's points, he even rises to ninth place, since Lorenzo Musetti is defending the semi-finals here, but everything is very close there — both the Italian and Alexander Bublik, who is tenth. Rublev and Khachanov are defending only 50 points each for the third round.

Mirra also won three victories in the Spanish capital a year ago, and lost to Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals, followed by Andreeva in the quarterfinals of Rome. Gauff is currently leading 4-0 in personal meetings, being a kind of cryptonite of an 18-year-old Russian woman. By the way, it is in Madrid that Mirra traditionally celebrates her birthday (April 29). And in 2023, having received a wildcard from the organizers, it was here that she won her first WTA victories, reaching the fourth round on the move! So this tournament is special for Andreeva in many ways.

She will have to defend 215 points (the women's and men's rating systems differ slightly in the number of points for the middle stages of tournaments), as, respectively, in Rome two weeks later. The virtual deduction of these points does not knock Mirra out of the top 8 ranking, as Elina Svitolina loses even more - 390 for the semi—finals. In the live rating, Andreeva is higher than Svitolina, but lower than Yasmin Paolini, who defends almost nothing here. Mirra is in for a tough fight with Elina Svitolina and Victoria Mboko for a place in the top 8 at the end of Madrid, although there is a chance to overtake Paolini. But the Russian woman will surely remain in the top ten. Karolina Mukhova, who is 11th, will not play in Madrid, although she has just reached the Stuttgart final, and the rest of the pursuers are too far behind.

Andreeva will perform in the Spanish capital not only in singles, but also in doubles. At the same time, if she played Indian Wells and Miami with Mboko, then there will be a reunion with Schneider. We haven't seen the MiDi duo since the Final WTA Championships at the end of last season, where the Russians lost all three matches. While we are talking only about Madrid and Rome, Andreeva did not say anything about her future plans.

Diana, in a recent interview published on the Christian's Court account, confirmed that Mirra decided this year to make singles a priority and not to play a couple at least on the "Slams". About the current association, Schneider said this:

"We will play as a pair in Madrid and Rome. I asked her myself because I like playing with her. I just said, "If you want to pair up in some tournaments, just let me know—I'm always ready." We decided to perform together in Madrid and Rome. I can't wait!"

It should be noted that last year the MiDi were eliminated here in the second round, but in Rome they became semi-finalists, as well as at Roland Garros. In singles, Diana reached the 1/8 finals in Spain, losing to Iga Sventek and earning 120 points.