Seeds have plunged to untimely exits throughout the first three days of the ATP 500 tournament in Barcelona.  Third seed Fabio Fognini retired with a leg injury on Wednesday, while Jerzy Janowicz suffered his seventh straight loss.  Alexandr Dolgopolov also has seen the clay blunt his momentum from the spring hard courts, falling to 33-year-old Spanish dirt devil Albert Montanes.

But the greatest shock of the Barcelona draw came when second seed and world No. 5 David Ferrer succumbed in straight sets to Teymuraz Gabashvili.  Granted, this result triggered a sense of deja vu.  Ferrer also lost his Barcelona opener last year to a Russian opponent who prefers fast courts to clay.  That setback against Dmitry Tursunov heralded a spiral of diminshing returns at non-majors in 2013 from which Ferrer never quite seemed to emerge.  

The Gabashvili setback still surprised for more reasons than that lightning rarely strikes twice at the same tournament in two years.  Ferrer had appeared to signal a revival from his doldrums last week in Monte Carlo, where he had upset Rafael Nadal and dominated Grigor Dimitrov en route to the semifinals.  Although he fell there to eventual champion Stanislas Wawrinka, a Masters 1000 semifinal suggested that the Spaniard's belief had returned.  

At 32 years old, though, Ferrer simply may not be able to impose his grinding style on opponents week-in and week-out throughout a demanding schedule.  He dropped serve four times in his 6-4 6-2 loss to Gabashvili and won just half of his total service points.  Many observers felt that Ferrer did not cover the court as seamlessly as he usually does, and he fell short in key moments by converting just one of eight break points.  

For Gabashvili, who brought a losing 2014 record into thisweek, the victory avenged a resounding loss to Ferrer at the Miami Masters 1000 tournament last month.  The Russian had not defeated a top-10 opponent in nearly four years, losing his last eight matches against that group.  Gabashvili now will set his sights on a top-50 ranking after reaching hiis first clay quarterfinal since 2011.

A comfortable victor today, Rafael Nadal becomes an even heavier favorite to claim his eighth Barcelona title.  Nadal has not lost there since his first appearance as a 16-year-old in 2003, and he need not face any top-15 opponent this week in his title quest.  A Barcelona triumph for Nadal would tie that tournament with Monte Carlo and Roland Garros for the most successful venue of his career.