The singles draw for the Valencia Open 500 has been released! Nando will play compatriot Óscar Hernández in the first round. Provided he wins, he’ll face the winner of Victor Hanescu/Janko Tipsarevic in the second round, with a potential meet-up with good friends and Armada teammates Feliciano Lopez or Tommy Robredo in the quarterfinals.

Nando & Óscar have only met once, in a challenger in 2002 on clay which Nando lost, so the match should be interesting. Let’s hope that the extra training Nando’s had over the last two weeks has paid off and he can go far here!

In addition, because Andy Roddick withdrew from the tournament, Nando has been bumped up to the number 4 seed!

You can view the full draw here :)

The Times Online UK has a really good article about Nando and how he’s been working in Las Vegas since losing in the first round of Shanghai in order to prepare himself for Valencia and Paris in the hopes of making London. It’s a fantastic article with a lot of really great insight.

Also, apologies for the lack of updates, I’ve been super busy, but I’ll be back to working on getting the rest of the unfinished pages completed, including Nando’s tentative 2010 schedule. He’s already been confirmed to play two exhibitions, the Capitala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi and the AAMI Classic in Kooyong.

Click the link below to read the article! :)

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Feli and Nando pulled out of their second round doubles match prior to starting play. The ATP’s site tells us:

[5] W Moodie (RSA) / D Norman (BEL) d F Lopez (ESP) / F Verdasco (ESP) W/O (Verdasco knee)

So in addition to dealing with the foot problem, Nando also has some kind of knee injury :(

He’ll be able to take the next two and a half weeks off until Valencia starts on October 31, so hopefully the problem gets treated by then. We’re all supporting you, Nando!

So that’s it for Nando in Shanghai. Best of luck to Feli in his third round match (he’ll play Jurgen Melzer)

Bit of a letdown today as Nando lost his second round match today in straight sets against Ivan Ljubicic, 4-6, 6-7(6). Nando played fairly well in the first set, holding serve and managing to remain double fault free for the entire set. The second set was a bit of a disaster, although Nando did manage to finally break Ljubicic’s serve midway through the set to come back from a 2-5 deficit and force a tiebreak. However a few costly errors lost him some crucial points in the breaker, and he lost his temper several times (which is, yes, very unusual for him) but did not threaten to shove balls down anyone’s throat, thank the tennis gods.

Not sure yet how this loss will affect Fernando’s chances to qualify for the Year End Championships in London. He needed to make at least the third round at both Shanghai and Paris to strengthen his position, but he has very few points to defend here anyway. It will all depend on a lot of factors, including how well Gonzalez, Soderling and Tsonga and Davydenko do here, as well as potential injuries to Roddick and Del Potro, which could free up two positions. Time will tell :)

Nando may be out of Shanghai, but he does still have a second round doubles match with Feli, who by the way, deserves some congratulations for finding his mojo again and playing so well this tournament, having won two straight matches for the first time since June.

Once he’s finished up in Shanghai, Nando will be heading back to Las Vegas over the next two weeks to get in some more training with Gil Reyes, so news will be a bit slow here as he isn’t competing in any of the 250-series tournaments between now and when he plays in Valencia at the end of the month. All the best, Fernando! Get training and get back to winning! Vamos!

Nando and fellow adidas player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga staged the world’s fastest tennis during a ride on Shanghai’s famous Maglev train, the fastest commercial train on the planet, at speeds of up to 431 km/h (that’s 268mph) The top ten stars attempted to play a mini-game of tennis during the train’s 18.6-mile, eight-minute journey from Longyang Road Train Station to Pudong International Airport.

For Tsonga, “It was a very special experience. I made a few more errors than normal, but at least I was not driving the train because if I made errors then we would all be dead. But it was great for us to do this activity. It is very different than playing tennis in a normal court.”

Nando meanwhile, said “It was a lot of fun, a good experience and you can really feel how fast it is. But I think nobody won. For me it was the first time to ride a train going over 400km/h. I enjoyed it, but I unfortunately I didn’t have much time to see the ride because in only eight minutes we were at the airport.”

Video and pictures under the cut :)

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Have got things all set up here. Feel free to poke around the site, although some bits are still under construction. If you notice anything wonky, please let me know :)

It has been announced that the Davis Cup final between defending champion Spain and the Czech Republic will be played in Barcelona.

Real Federación Española de Tenis (RFET) has selected Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi to host the final, to be played December 4-6. The indoor clay court venue was the site of Spain’s first win in 2000.

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During the China Open, Nando, his parents and a lady I think may be his grandmother, were invited to sample some Peking Duck.

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Nando lost against Novak Djokovic in his quarterfinal match at the China Open, 3-6, 6-1, 1-6. It was a pretty crazy match for the most part with some amazing and not-so amazing playing on both sides, especially during the last two sets. Nando will receive 90 points for reaching the quarterfinals, which keeps him in the running for a spot in the Year End Championships in London. He’s currently #7 in the ATP Race and if he manages to reach the quarterfinals in Valencia and the third round in Shanghai and Paris, he should make the YEC. Since he’ll be seeded in the Masters events, he’ll automatically get a bye into the second round, so as provided he wins his first match in both Masters events, he should qualify!

Below the cut are some pictures from the matches and there are also some really adorable pictures from an autograph session Nando did yesterday.

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In addition to having to decide which four players will be called up for the Davis Cup final, there is also the decision about where exactly the final is to be held. However one city has already been ruled out: Madrid.

After losing their bid to host the 2016 Olympics, Madrid was dealt another rejection by the Real Federación Española de Tenis after Madrid Tennis was informed they were being removed from consideration because of the city’s high altitude. Madrid lies 650 above sea level, and the thinner air tends to make the balls fly. Madrid’s tennis officials said they offered the federation whatever they wanted and more to try and give Madrid the chance to host the Davis Cup final, but were told by team captain Albert Costa that most of the players preferred to play on a court with a lower altitude.

The only two exceptions, naturally, are Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez, both from Madrid, who would have liked to be able to contest the final in their hometown.

“I do not care where we play, but the only one I am not going to support is Barcelona, not because I have nothing against the city, but because it has had a final before and the other cities deserve the same opportunity,” Verdasco explained. “I think it’s for the best that Madrid has withdrawn from the bid to host the final. We have had enough disappointment this week, it will be useless putting money into another competition for us to once again not get it.”

With Madrid out, the decision for where the play the Davis Cup final will be between Barcelona or Valencia, as the other candidate cities, Malaga and Tenerife were rejected because they were open-air venues. The federation will announce its final choice on Saturday.

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