{"id":543,"date":"2011-04-17T23:28:44","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T02:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/?p=543"},"modified":"2011-04-18T22:24:58","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T01:24:58","slug":"barcelona-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/2011\/04\/17\/barcelona-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Singles<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/s-barcelona.pdf\">Main Singles Draw - Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Milos Raonic (CAN) is seeded #15 in the main singles draw in Barcelona, for which the play starts tomorrow now that the qualifying has finished. \u00a0The timing has yet to be posted but he will be playing <strong>Radek Stepanek <\/strong>(CZE) in his <strong>first round match<\/strong>. \u00a0If he is successful there, his next match will be against the winner of the first round match between\u00a0<strong>Robert Kendrick<\/strong> (USA)\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>Simon Greul <\/strong>(GER). \u00a0Starting at the 3rd round, his opponents are a little more challenging: #3 seed\u00a0<strong>Robin Soderling<\/strong> of Sweden followed by #5 seed\u00a0<strong>Tomas Berdych<\/strong> (CZE) in order to make it to the semi-finals (assuming Soderling and Berdych are also successful in their first 2 and first 3 rounds respectively). \u00a0His semi-final match would most likely be against <strong>Nadal<\/strong> (ESP) and possible contenders from the other half of the draw in the final could be <strong>Murray<\/strong> (GBR), <strong>Ferrer<\/strong> (ESP), <strong>Almagro<\/strong> (ESP), <strong>Melzer<\/strong> (AUT), or perhaps #10 seed <strong>Alexandr Dolgopolov<\/strong> of the Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>This would be a tall order, especially on the clay surface where so many of his opponents feel most at home, but <strong>Milos Raonic, now ranked #28 in the ATP World Tour Rankings<\/strong>, might just be up for such a challenge.<\/p>\n<h2>Doubles<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/d-barcelona.pdf\">Doubles Draw - Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Milos Raonic (CAN) and Nico Almagro (ESP)<\/strong> will be playing the first doubles match of the tournament at 11 am (<strong>5 am Eastern Time<\/strong>)<strong> against Dolgopolov (UKR) and Malisse (BEL)<\/strong> on \"Pista Central\" tomorrow morning, 18 April.<\/p>\n<p>Also in the draw is familiar Canadian doubles star\u00a0<strong>Daniel Nestor<\/strong>, who is again seeded #2 in Barcelona alongside <strong>Max Mirnyi<\/strong> (BLR). \u00a0Their first-round bye will see them face either <strong>Bellucci (BRZ) and Dodig (CRO)<\/strong> or <strong>Cuevas (URU) and Dlouhy (CZE)<\/strong> in the second round.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Visit the official tournament website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barcelonaopenbancsabadell.com\/\">http:\/\/www.barcelonaopenbancsabadell.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Learn about Raonic's \"metoric (sic) rise up rankings\" to #28 from this rather comprehensive article on sportsnet.ca <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/tennis\/2011\/04\/17\/barcelona_open_raonic\/\">http:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/tennis\/2011\/04\/17\/barcelona_open_raonic\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Singles Main Singles Draw &#8211; Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell Milos Raonic (CAN) is seeded #15 in the main singles draw in Barcelona, for which the play starts tomorrow now that the qualifying has finished. \u00a0The timing has yet to be posted but he will be playing Radek Stepanek (CZE) in his first round match. \u00a0If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/milosraonic.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}