Rafael Nadal plays Philipp Kohlschreiber in the first round of the Qatar Open this week.
Nadal is not completely 100% at the moment, revealing in Abu Dhabi last week that his troublesome shoulder is still giving him grief. He was comprehensively outplayed by David Ferrer in the semi-finals of the Mubadala World Tennis exhibition tournament but recovered to defeat Roger Federer 6-1, 7-5.
Nadal insisted in the pre-tournament press conference that he's determined to be competitive over the next few weeks.
"I will play like this until my mind and my physical performance say, 'finish'," he said. "If you are working very hard physically, but your mental game is not there, you don't feel competitive, you won't feel hungry to keep winning or to keep fighting every ball. If you're not ready to compete and to combine both things, [it] will be very difficult to be competitive in all the tournaments."
Nadal does not have a great record in Doha by his standards. He reached the final two years ago, missing match points as he went down in three sets to Nikolay Davydenko but apart from that, he's never come close to winning the title.
Kohlschreiber can be a dangerous opponent on hard courts but Nadal has won all seven of their career matches. Not only that but the German had a sub-par 2011, finishing the season ranked 43. Expect Nadal to progress comfortably.
