Rafael Nadal of Spain during semifinal match of the Monte Carlo Tennis Masters (Photo: AP)
Rafael Nadal makes a welcome return to the Real Club de Tenis after missing last year with injury as the five-time winner bids for more clay history with the Barcelona Open starting on Monday.
The world number one claimed titles uninterruptedly from 2005-2009 before being forced out a year ago to take treatment on his knee. The absence of the nearly-local tennis hero from the nearby island of Mallorca hit the event hard.
But then national number two Fernando Verdasco rose to the occasion to win the title and keep the honours in Iberian hands for an eighth consecutive year.
Nadal has dominated on the clay of the Catalan capital, where he has turned the event into one of his personal spring playgrounds in the run-up to the French Open next month.
The 500 series tournament is populated with potential challengers to Spanish clay superiority in the form of Top 10 players and grand slam finalists Andy Murray, Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych.
Murray, the world number four ahead of Soderling on fifth and the seventh-ranked Berdych, has turned his game around on clay, winning his first matches since January at the Monte Carlo Masters in a remarkable and welcome return of form.
He even gave Nadal a tough three-sets battle in the semi-finals, but his participation at Barcelona is in doubt due to a right elbow injury that required a cortisone injection zone before he took on the Spaniard.
The Scot who learned his tennis in Barcelona, has played the event three times, the last time in 2008. Of his four matches, he won one, in the 2005 first round.
With his new-found game, Murray is confident as Roland Garros approaches in little more than a month. "I feel like I'm hitting the ball well, each match I'll keep moving better," he said. "That's the one thing I'll need to keep getting better at in preparation for the French."
Soderling has been in town for a week training after being forced out of Monte Carlo with a knee niggle, which he says is now fine.
Monte Carlo semi-finalist Jurgen Melzer of Austria takes the sixth seeding ahead of Frenchman Gael Monfls and number eight Spaniard Nicolas Almagro.
The top eight seeds all have byes into the second round.
Canadian Milos Raonic, whose ranking has improved from near 200 to his current 34th, will be seeded for the first time at the ATP level on 15th and opening with a Czech test against Radek Stepanek.
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