Click here to follow Busted Racquet
on Facebook.

Under the watch of IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, tennis returned to the Olympic program in 1988 after a 68-year absence. On Sunday, the 89-year old spent the final minutes of life watching the sport he loved.

Samaranch had just finished watching his fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal win the Monte Carlo Masters when he fell ill. His son and daughter took him to the hospital where he soon collapsed, never to regain consciousness. Later, Samaranch’s son told reporters:

"He was feeling fine. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He watched Nadal’s match — he loved tennis — and after the game he wasn’t feeling great so we decided to come (to the hospital) around 6 or 7 at night. "Then he collapsed. They stabilized him but he never came out. And that was the last time he was conscious."

Tennis was played at the first modern Olympics in 1896, but withdrew in 1924. After being staged as a demonstration sport in Los Angeles in 1984, tennis made it back on the schedule four years later in Seoul thanks, in large part, to a lobbying effort by Samaranch.

Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Lindsay Davenport, Stefan Edberg, Steffi Graf, Serena and Venus Williams and Nadal have all won medals at the Games.

Rafael Nadal says he body is "asking him to rest." For once, he’s granting the request.

The world No. 3 withdrew Monday from the Barcelona Open, presumably to keep his injured knees fresh in the lead-up to next month’s French Open. Nadal’s desire to play the rigorous clay court schedule before Roland Garros has often been cited as a possible contributor to his recent injuries.

It had to be an especially tough decision for Rafa, seeing as how Barcelona is his hometown tournament and that he’s the five-time defending champion, but it’s a logical one. His balky knees, attacking style of play and tendency to play deep into every clay tournament are recipes for Paris disaster. If winning Grand Slams is the goal (and it is), then resting is the only move to make. Plus, it gives Rafa a chance to rail against the clay court schedule he so despises.

"I have said on many occasions that the tennis calendar, specifically the clay court season, is badly structured and my not being able to compete in Barcelona is a consequence of that," Nadal said in a statement.

He had been scheduled to play in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome and Madrid all prior to the French, which begins on May 23.

On Sunday, Nadal became the first man in the Open era ever to win five straight tournaments when he defeated countryman Fernando Verdasco 6-0, 6-1 in the finals of the Monte Carlo Masters. Nadal had been hoping to make it back-to-back six-peats in Barcelona.

With European air travel at a standstill because of sprawling ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano, tennis players are getting to their next destination the old fashioned way: on the open road.

The Barcelona Open begins Monday and because of the grounded flights most players had to take to the highways to get from last week’s stop in Monte Carlo to this week’s tournament in Spain. Andy Murray rented a van for his team. Rafael Nadal left on the seven-hour journey almost immediately after his win in Sunday’s finals. And some players hopped on a bus rented by the ATP for the trip.

The tennis players may have passed some other athletes going the other way on the A8 and A9. Barcelona, the defending Champions League soccer champs, was also forced to take to the highways in order to reach Milan before Tuesday’s Champions League semifinal. 

Though air travel is expected to partially resume Monday, tennis organizers don’t have to worry too much if the ash continues to present travel problems in Europe. After Barcelona, the next four big stops on the tour are all accessible via road or rail: Rome, Munich, Madrid and Paris.