I might be wrong Amri, but my impression is Rafa gets to play Almagro for a number of times in each season........

The last time they played was a couple of years ago.

My fav match of the day def. Seppi's win over Isner in front of his home crowd.

I saw a few games of the first set. Nadal looked good on red clay, his usual spring(y) self

I saw a few games of the first set. Nadal looked good on red clay, his usual spring(y) self
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I would expect both Nole and Rafa to play well here but I would not expect either of them to play all their cards if they do meet in the final. RG is the real prize they both want to get.

That said, if Nole does not win here he is putting an awful lot of eggs into that RG basket - his entire spring has been somewhat underwhelming so if he fails to win here and at RG, he will be going into the second half of the year looking quite heavily wounded.

Nevertheless, I can see that Nole might have calculated that it was all a gamble worth taking. You only get so many chances to hold all four slams at once, so he may as well forget about everything else.

I do expect Nole and Rafa to play "all their cards in Rome if they meet" cause that result will have some influence psychologically on RG (and its final if they were to meet there as well). Nadal wants to confirm his win in MC was no fluke and Djoko wants to show Nadal before RG that there is a very good reason why the MC final was so one sided.

But as you say in your following post, the more Djoko does now, the less pressure and work he will have later in the season.