History…  The Italian open was founded 91 years ago and has been played at Foro Italico since on clay outdoors. It is one of the most prestigious events in the tennis calendar with Rafael Nadal holding several records here including for most titles won with 9, most finals with 11 and most consecutive titles with 3.

The Spaniard also won both the longest final – a total of 57 games in 2006 against Roger Federer, when the Masters finals were played in best of 5, and the shortest one, again vs Federer in 2013 with a total of 16 games.

Played in September last year, due to calendar rearrangement from

History… The Mutua Madrid Open is a join ATP/WTA event since 2009 when the ladies joined the ATP Masters event with a Premier Mandatory one of their own. The Ladies rebranded their tournament levels and is now part of the ‘Premier 1000’ structure.

Usually held simultaneously with the Men, The WTA will use the same 64 player draw as previous year, but decided to start a week earlier. The Main draw will go from Thursday to next Saturday, with the Men starting their qualifying on Saturday.

Kiki Bertens is the 2019 defending champion, and although Simona Halep was the runner up, The Romanian holds the record for number of times

History…  The Tournament is staged from 1978,at first being played in Filderstadt, but then relocated to Stuttgart and Porsche Arena from 2006. Interesting fact is that it changed surfaces from Indoor Hard to Indoor Clay from 2009 and also gained Premier Event status since then.

It has emerged as a top location for many girls to test their strength and abilities against the field early on the clay court swing and has managed to always attract big number of high ranked players that made the event that much prestigious to win.

The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, like many others,was cancelled last year due to Covid

Petra Kvitova is the defending

History… The tournament has a rich history dating back from 1897 and it is one of the 3 Masters Series events played on Clay before the culmination which is Roland Garros.

Rafael Nadal is the absolute king here, having won 8 consecutive titles 2005-2012,and 11 in total.

Tournament wasn’t played last year due to the Covid pandemic

In the most recent event, Fabio Fognini took away the title in 2019 beating Nadal in the ¼ final  and the surprising finalist Dusan Lajovic, who on other hand beat Medvedev in the Semi-Final

The Andalucia Open just like ATP Cagliari reached agreement with ATP for 1 yearlong licence to stage a tournament and will fill a void created in the calendar from the cancellations of Marrakesh and Houston

Favourites/Top Seeds…. Marbella has the only 2 top 20 players playing this week in face of Carreno Busta and Fognini. The draw had to be even more packed but Alexander Zverev decided to not take advantage of the given Wildcard and withdraw and that opportunity was accepted but very talented and promising Carlos Alcaraz.

Last year’s QF at Roland Garros, Carreno Busta must be relieved coming into the clay court season