Federer Regains No. 2 Ranking, Wins Madrid

Federer beat Berdych 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 in Madrid to take back his No. 2 ranking from Nadal. Who would have thought that Nadal would drop in the rankings during the clay court season? Certainly not me.

Check out the Madrid award ceremony and Federer's acceptance speech below:

Nadal Wins Eighth Straight Monte Carlo Title

Rafa won his eighth straight Monte Carlo title after beating Djokovic 6–3, 6–1 in the final yesterday. Nadal hadn't won a match against Djokovic in quite a while, so this was a much needed win for him. 

Although the score suggests a fairly one-sided match, Djokovic was certainly not at his best after learning of his grandfather's death during the tournament, so I'm not sure this is necessarily an indicator of what's to come for the remainder of the clay court season. However, regardless of the situation, eight years in a row of winning the same event is pretty awesome, so good job Rafa...and I really hope Fed doesn't wind up in your half at the French. 

Clay Court Season Begins in Monte Carlo

So, the back-to-back Indian Wells and Miami events took a lot out of me—yes, I did in fact watch the tournaments from my couch—and so I needed a little tennis break before I could focus on the clay court season. Which basically means that I missed the start of the Monte Carlo tournament and am only starting to pay attention to match results now.

The most exciting thing about Monte Carlo for me is waiting to see if Nadal can win the event for the eighth time in a row. THE EIGHTH TIME IN A ROW. It's actually pretty ridiculous.

Nadal has been having knee issues as of late, so who knows what will happen, but I think it's really important for him to win this event so he has some confidence going into the rest of the clay court season. I just realized how stupid it sounds for me to say that Nadal needs confidence going into his favourite part of the year, but if he can't win all (or at least most) of these upcoming clay events then he might have some trouble at the French Open. After all, Djokovic really really wants that trophy.