Ferrer, Lopez, Raonic Headline Madrid Monday Action

There are 11 main draw singles matches and one doubles match on Monday’s schedule, with four Spaniards in action at La Caja Mágica, including No. 9 seed David Ferrer, one of five seeds in action along with No. 10 Richard Gasquet, No. 11 Milos Raonic, No. 12 David Goffin and No. 16 Gilles Simon.

Madrid native Feliciano Lopez opens the day’s action on Manolo Santana, in a rematch with Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer who ousted the left-hander in the second round a year ago. Lopez is the only player in the tournament’s 15-year history to participate in every singles draw (since 2002) and has an 18-14 career record in his hometown tournament, reaching the QFs four times (2003, ‘07-08 and ’14). After withdrawing from Houston and Barcelona with shoulder tenditinis, Mayer opened his European clay court campaign with a run to the Estoril quarters, where he lost to eventual champion Nicolas Almagro.

Two-time semi-finalist Ferrer, one of three Spaniards making his 14^th consecutive appearance here (along with Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco), faces compatriot Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the final match on Madrid’s main show court. This is the third year in succession that Garcia-Lopez has faced a fellow Spaniard in the first round in Madrid. Last year he lost in three sets to Verdasco – which, like this year’s match-up with Ferrer, was the only all-Spanish first-round showdown in the draw – while in 2014 he beat Pablo Andujar.

A quartet of Frenchmen are also in action on Monday, led by No. 10 seed Gasquet who faces qualifier and main-draw debutant Roberto Carballes Baena. All four of the Spaniard’s match wins in 2016 have come on clay, including last week’s first-round win at Istanbul (d. Ilhan) – his first ATP Tour-level match win since February’s run to the Sao Paulo quarters (l. to Carreno Busta). Gilles Simon, the No. 16 seed who reached the final here when the tournament was a hard-court event in 2008 (l. to Murray), takes on Marcos Baghdatis, back in Madrid for the first time since 2013 and looking for his 300^th ATP World Tour level match win (299-222 record). Qualifiers Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Lucas Pouille also make their Madrid main-draw debuts, with Herbert taking on Sam Querrey and Pouille up against No. 12 seed Goffin.

Back in the Top 10 Emirates ATP Rankings this week for the first time since October 2015, Raonic takes on Brazilian left-hander Thomaz Bellucci, who pushed him to two tie-break sets in their previous meeting in Shanghai last year. Raonic, the No. 11 seed, has a 22-20 career record against left-handers; this is his first match against a southpaw in 2016. Fellow Canadian Vasek Pospisil takes on 37-year-old qualifier Radek Stepanek to round out Monday’s action on Arantxa Sanchez.