Kei Nishikori, the two time defending champion, was joined by the home favorite, Nicolas Almagro on a mini tennis court on the MSC cruise ship.

Nishikori said, “I love Barcelona. The view of the city from the ocean is fantastic.”

Nishikori along with Rafael Nadal, the eight time former champion, has launched the tournament in style, playing mini tennis on the top of Tibidabo Mountain, Barcelona.

Pablo Carreno Busta and Roberto Carballes Baena, joined Almagro for the Peugeot kids’ clinic, while Roberto Bautista Agut was put on the spot by children in a kids’ press conference.

Busta and Cervantes participated in Q&A’s with kids and on the other side, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Pablo Cuevas and Alexandr Dolgopolov visited the  sponsor suites.

The Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona, being one of the most impressive football grounds in the world, David Ferrer and Richard Gasquet were treating themselves as the fortunate ones, for getting a private visit.

With the locals over there, Bob Bryan, Mike Bryan, Lukasz Kubot and Marcin Matkowski participated in a doubles clinic.

To promote the tournament, Marcel Granollers made a live appearance on TV3 ‘EsportsClub’. Inigo Cervantes and Albert Montanes visited local La Boqueria Market.

Top doubles seeds Horia Tecau and Florin Mergea showered love on their hometown fans signing back to back authographs.

Ivo Karlovic and Fernando Verdasco also met with fans, while Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Bernard Tomic did live-stream interviews with Andrei Pavel for the tournament title sponsor.

By Phani Ch