The accolades continued to rain down Monday on Rafael Nadal after the Spaniard made tennis history at the weekend by winning an eighth straight Monte Carlo title in beating world number one Novak Djokovic 6-3, 6-1. But with the king of clay now turning his attention to lifting a seventh from eight attempts at the Barcelona Open, he’s received an unexpected morale boost from his second-seeded main rival this week, Andy Murray.
“I don’t think anyone can question the fact that Nadal is the best ever on clay,” said world number four Murray, who learned his own dirt tennis in the Catalan capital as a teenager.
“You can never say ‘never’ but his eight in a row is a record that will certainly be hard to break,” said Murray, who has played Barcelona twice (2005, 2006) but won just one match. He withdrew to let an elbow injury heal in 2011.
Nadal will aim to keep his focus this week. “I’m only concentrating on playing well here, this is one of the nicest tournaments of the year for me. That is my challenge, not to become number one again, I’m home and this is very special to me. I’m so comfortable here.”
Murray said he wants to start improving his own record at the Real Club de Tenis, where he begins in the second round against Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky, who beat Russian Evgeny Donskoy 6-2, 6-3 on Monday.
