Fernando has recently joined the Twitter craze and you can follow his account below

FerVerdasco83

There’s also a little feed on the sidebar where you can view his most recent tweets, right above the one to view the most recent tweets from this site’s twitter, verdasconews. In addition, there are some links to the site’s facebook, twitter and youtube accounts, and a link to send me an email if you need to!

Fernando is currently training in Las Vegas right now. His next tournament starts in just about a week, at Legg Mason in Washington DC. After that, he’ll be playing the Toronto and Cincinnati Masters before preparing for the final Slam of the year at the US Open. Vamos Fernando!

The Spanish Davis Cup team has joined the “Show abuse the red card” campaign sponsored by the Ministry of Equality.

The players posed holding a symbolic red cards as a sign of social rejection against abusers.

The players joined the cause while in France preparing for last weekend’s Davis Cup quarterfinal in the town of Clermont Ferrand.

The cause is the result of an agreement signed on May 20 by Spain’s Equality Minister Bibiana Aido and President of the RFET to promote equality between men and women and to create awareness and encourage the prevention of gender violence.

The campaign, the minister said at the signing of the agreement, “holds the prospect of making a simple gesture, a symbol recognized by all, a gesture involving the whole society: drawing a red card against all abusers.”

Spain was knocked out of the Davis Cup in the quarterfinals with a clean sweep by France, 5-0, preventing them from attempting a Davis Cup hat trick. Fernando lost his singles match on Friday against Michael Llodra, and his doubles with Feliciano against Llodra and Julien Benneteau, both matches going to four sets.

Fernando is currently in Madrid celebrating Spain’s victory at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. His next tournament is the Skistar Swedish Open in Båstad. He has a bye in the first round and will play either Stephane Robert or Jonathan Dasnières de Veigy in the second. Vamos Fer!

Davis Cup quarterfinals day is here! The opening ceremony kicks off today as well as the first two singles matches. David Ferrer is up first against Gael Monfils, and then Fernando takes on Michael Llodra. Fernando will play doubles with Feliciano on Saturday against Llodra and Benneteau, and the reverse singles will be held on Sunday.

The tie kicks off at 7am EST, 11am GMT and 2:00pm local time (check out this handy time zone converter to find your time zone!) and will be broadcast on several international channels (check here for times and stations)

Vamos and good luck, boys!

Fernando is back to training normally with the team after twisting his ankle during a training session on Monday.

Fernnado is currently aiming to play both singles and doubles with Feliciano, and the two trained with coach Francis Roig and Nicolas Almagro and with David Marrero, who is accompanying the team during their stay in Clermont-Ferrand.

The official draw will take place tomorrow morning and the tie will begin on Friday!

(via noticias web)

Fernando wrote an article for the UK’s Daily Mail Online about his hopes for the upcoming Wimbledon Championships, and a little about where he stays, what he eats and what his practice routine is like during the grass Slam.

WIMBLEDON 2010: Fernando Verdasco: A house near SW19? No way, who’d do the cleaning?

Being from Madrid and growing up on hard courts, it’s always tough getting used to the grass after a year away. But you must do it as soon as possible, because this is the most important tournament. If I could pick a Grand Slam to win, it would be Wimbledon.

My preparation has been hard this year because I finished the French Open with a foot injury and had to pull out of Queen’s, but I’m feeling fine now.

I arrived in London last Tuesday and played exhibition matches at the Boodles tournament at Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire on Friday and Saturday to get the rhythm of grass.

There are so many traditional things that make Wimbledon so special: how beautiful it is, the grass and the buildings; that they won’t let you have sponsors on your kit; all the players have to play in white; and that they serve strawberries and cream.

I’ve reached the fourth round three times now, but I’ve got sad memories of SW19 because I’ve lost big matches when I had really good chances to win.

They’re the hardest losses to take, probably the hardest of my career.

I was two sets to one up against Radek Stepanek and 3-0 up in the fourth in 2006, but failed to reach the quarter-finals. Then, in 2008, I was two sets and a break up against Mario Ancic and I lost 13-11 in the fifth.

They were really tough experiences for me. I’ve never played against Fabio Fognini, my first-round opponent, on grass before, although I beat him on clay in Acapulco, Mexico, this year.

But if all goes well, I could meet Andy Murray in the quarter-finals. I’m really looking forward to trying to make that happen.

It would be such a great experience to play the British No 1 at Wimbledon. If I reached that far, it would be one of those matches you keep in your memory for the rest of your life.

I know what it’s like to have your home crowd willing you on from the matches I’ve played in Madrid. It’s a great feeling, but it makes you feel more pressure because you want to win so badly — a bit like England or Spain in the World Cup.

I watched Spain’s first match and, of course, I would like to see all the matches — but I’ll put the tennis first.

My family are coming over for the tournament and we prefer to stay in a hotel in central London, rather than a house in Wimbledon village, because there are so many of us.

It’s a bit quieter. There will be around eight of us this year: my parents, my little sister, my cousin, a couple of friends and my fitness coach.

We had the chance to get a house near the All England Club this year, but my father didn’t really like the idea. It would be difficult to find somewhere to eat every night, plus we would have to clean and look after the house — and we don’t want to be doing that!

In the evenings, we like to go and have dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Kensington.

The owner is a friend of mine and knows all the Spanish players.

We go there quite a lot during the tournament. Wherever we are in the world, we normally go to Italian restaurants and eat plenty of carbohydrates but here, since we’ve found this restaurant, we can eat our own food, such as Spanish ham and tortillas.

We spend so much time out of Spain, it’s nice to find a piece of home. I also enjoy the strawberries and cream at the Club, although the cream isn’t too healthy. I can’t be having too much of that!

My day-to-day routine varies. It depends on the draw. We’ll go to Wimbledon and hit in the morning, then warm up and play a match. My best friend on tour is Feliciano Lopez, but I practise with a lot of different players.

If we have any free time, we might go for a walk down Oxford Street and do a bit of shopping. But in Grand Slams you must really focus all your energy on the tournament.

You just have to play and practice and then rest. Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain too much!

(via daily mail)

Fernando Verdasco attended the Forum Ferrándiz AS, where he said he hoped to be among the top five ranked players before year end and that he believed Rafael Nadal would again regain his number one ranking.

“It’s very difficult to finish in the top five, but I look and I see that it is possible. You have to have the results I’ve had these three weeks throughout the year. I will fight with everything I have to get it.”

“The last three weeks have given me great confidence, I have improved my self-esteem and I hope to be playing in the final in Roland Garros. If I have Nadal in my side of the draw, of course it will be very difficult. But with Federer, Djokovic or Murray, I think I have the potential to reach the final.”

Read more

Fernando kept the Trofeo Conde de Godó in Spanish hands as he defeated Robin Soderling 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to become the fourth consecutive Spanish winner of the Torneo Godó (after Moya, Robredo & Nadal)

Fernando’s victory today at the Barcelona Open is his fifth career title and second title of the year and marks the third time this year he’s won a tournament where he’s beaten a top ten player in the final (def. Tsonga [10] in the Kooyong exhibition and Roddick [7] in San Jose) Barcelona is Fernando’s first 500 series tournament win and, according to him, winning this title has marked the finest moment in his career so far.

Some stuff from his post-match presser:

“I’m very happy to have won this tournament. It was a tough final and it’s been a very difficult week; there has not been an easy match but it was all worth it in the end to lift the trophy. I have never played in two consecutive finals before.

Everything you can win gives you confidence and this tournament is very special for me, as it is for all the Spaniards. But what I achieved last week and this is going to help me a lot in terms of confidence and experience. Having played in last week’s final was a help to me today.

Of course Nadal is a tough proposition on clay and he’s one or maybe even two levels above everyone else, but I really feel like I can beat anyone else right now and I think I have a good chance of making more finals on clay. The important thing is to get to Roland Garros in good shape.

In the second set I let my level drop a little, I was waiting for him to make errors precisely at the time when he started to play better. I started to drop the ball short and he was stepping inside the court, which is when he’s very dangerous. In the third set I began to hit deeper and harder again so that would not be so comfortable. I noticed that he started to tire a little bit and that encouraged me to fight harder even though I was tired.

I feel like I have made a lot of progress mentally over the past year and I can cope better on the days when maybe not everything is going quite right. I have learned that when things are not going well, you have to keep fighting, and that on the court you have to do whatever you can with what you have, because you’re not always going to be hitting the ball incredibly well and you’re not always going to have good days. There are few of those, so you have to try to fight and learn to suffer although those are not nice feelings. I think that in the last year I’ve taken a big step forward in this sense.”

Unfortunately Fernando lost 6-0, 6-1 to Rafa in the Monte Carlo final. The score doesn’t reflect how close at some times the match was (check out the amazing point below!) but Rafa was just too good from the first point.

Despite the loss, Fernando can take away some positives from this week. Not only did he reach his first ever masters semifinal, but he reached his first Masters final, and will re-enter the top ten at #9 this week. So despite a disappointing finish, his success in Monte Carlo will give him some confidence for the rest of the clay season. Barcelona next, where he will face either Richard Gasquet or Igor Andreev.

Here’s his post match presser:

(Apologies for not getting this posted sooner, I was having server issues that wouldn’t let me login to wordpress. Got it all sorted and now I can post!)

Fernando delivered an impressive 6-2, 6-2 defeat to top seed Novak Djokovic today to advance from his first Masters semifinal to his first Masters final. Fernando was on almost perfect form throughout the match, needing a little over an hour and a half to seal the deal. His first serve was on fire with 75% in the first set and 81% in the second, with four aces and a single double fault. It was a good match from Fernando and will give him confidence going into tomorrow’s final

He will face compatriot Rafael Nadal in the final. Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow’s match, Fernando will re-enter the top ten at #9

Match stats:

You can also watch here, if you speak Spanish (and even if you don’t!) a video from his post-match interview, where Feli makes an appearance :)