Remember the last time these two played? It was last season, in the Indian Wells semifinals, and Ivan Ljubicic shocked Rafael Nadal, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (1). That occurred over 12 months ago, and quite a bit has happened since then in tennis. But here's what I recall from it: booming Ljubicic serves, deep, powerful forehands—one of his best on match point—and a deceptively strong backhand.
Like I said, plenty has changed since that match. Nadal has won three Grand Slam titles, for one. But the biggest change in this specific match-up was today's conditions in Monte Carlo. There's the surface, of course, slower and owned by Nadal, but there was also the wind. It brought the dirt to the denizens in the stands, altered the flight path of the ball and caused the players to at time look silly in trying to be correctly positioned for their shots.
No one looked more uncomfortable today than Ljubicic, who, aside from a break of serve in the second game of the match, got nothing going. His serve—the one checkbox in the tale-of-the-tape against Nadal I'd give to him—was largely negated because of the conditions, and it was harder for him to set up those devastating groundstrokes, what with the wind, the bounce and Nadal's one-with-the-clay philosophy. Of his shots, the forehand worked best, keeping Nadal beyond the baseline, but the Spaniard wasn't exactly struggling to get them back. And too many of Ljubicic's replies were errors, rather than additional pressure.
Nadal easily took the first set 6-1, breaking Ljubicic in all four of his service games, and aside from a hairy final game, in which Ljubicic earned a break point, didn't have much trouble in the second set, either. It ended 6-1, 6-3 to the world No. 1, who is two wins away from his seventh consecutive Monte Carlo title.
—Ed McGrogan