For a set and a half, Rafa was having a Lukas Rosol moment. Rosol, for those that don't pay attention, was the lowly ranked player that upset Nadal in the second round of Wimbledon last year, a loss that sent Rafa to 7 months away from the tour. Rosol achieved this by belting the ball.
The Spanish have a tradition where a child adopts both his father's last name and his mother's. Not everyone follow the tradition as evidenced by Ferrer, Nadal, Lopez. But there is Garcia-Lopez, Gimeno-Traver, Bautista-Agut. With so many Spaniards playing tennis, only rivaled by their Pyrenees neighbors, the French, it's not surprising you've never heard of
With Andy Murray withdrawing days before the start of the French Open, Roger Federer suddenly moved to the second seed, and that meant he didn't have to see Novak Djokovic until the finals. As the third seed, he could have met both Djokovic and Nadal to win an elusive French. But with Nadal as the
Ah, time zone differences. The continuation of the men's final was scheduled at 1 PM in Paris. This would be 7 AM in the east coast, but somehow I forgot I was in Central time (being at an ET clinic) which pushed the time to 6 AM. By the time I start searching for the
The last time Nadal was this dominant heading into a French Open final was 2008. He beat Thomaz Bellucci, then a qualifier, in the first round, then Nicolas Devilder, also a qualifier, then Jarkko Nieminen the 26th seed, then 22md seed and fellow Spaniard, Fernando Verdasco. Nadal only dropped 3 games against 19th seed and
If Novak Djokovic wins his fourth consecutive Slam, not only will he achieve a career Slam, but also have won four consecutive Slams, he'll have beaten the same opponent in all four finals. The last time a male player won four consecutive Slams was the last time someone won a calendar Slam, and that was
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the top 3 women players were practically guaranteed smooth sailing until at least the quarterfinals. Players like Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, and Steffi Graf would lose a game or two in early rounds when women could either not keep up with the consistency or the power or these top
Today, 3 of the 4 quarterfinalists were Spaniards. On the one hand, there was Rafael Nadal against Nicolas Almagro. Almagro's a hard hitter, but Rafa's battled with hard hitters and does a great job moving his opponents around. Add to that, he's never beaten Rafa. Rafa's played and beaten many a hard hitter including Berdych,
It was nearly a once in a lifetime event. Venus crossed the path of the sun in front of the Earth. And Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic were nearly both upset on the same day at roughly the same time. French Open organizers were criticized for scheduling two big matches at the same time, though
Let's get caught up on other news before addressing the subject at hand. Two matches were postponed due to lateness. The shorter of the two matches was Jo-Wilfried Tsonga against Stanislas Wawrinka. Tsonga was up 4-2 in the fifth before the match was called. Wawrinka was able to break and tie it up at 4-all,
