There's only been a handful of players that have pulled off the Nadal-Federer double, that is, to beat both at the same tournament. They include David Nalbandian, Nikolay Davydenko, Juan Martin del Potro, and Novak Djokovic. The two play such disparate styles that beating both is a task. And yet, the most shocking person that
What a difference a surface makes. Nadal had been coming off a series of losses in the US where his opponents would serve well enough to hold serve and then go for big enough shots that Nadal would struggle to hold his own serve. In Indian Wells, Ljubicic lost rather handily in a first set,
For those of you who doubted Nadal was back, he's back with a vengeance. Verdasco started off nervous, then had few answers for Nadal. Everytime he'd come back and tie things up, Nadal would win another point, get another break. Nadal wins over Verdasco, 6-0, 6-1. The question is how his form will hold up
I was perusing a website that was making predictions about the Monte Carlo semifinals which pitted Novak Djokovic against Fernando Verdasco and Rafael Nadal against David Ferrer. The thinking went something like this. Given that Nadal had easily mowed through his first two rounds, dropping one game each, and given that he dropped 6 games
Rafael Nadal showed that he's still master of clay dispatching fellow Spaniard, David Ferrer, 6-2, 6-3 in the semifinals of Monte Carlo. He will face fellow Spaniard, Fernando Verdasco in the finals. Verdasco had a surprisingly easy match over number 1 seed and number 2 ranked player, Novak Djokovic, winning 6-2, 6-2 showing Djokovic has
Although the event is held in mostly French-speaking Monte Carlo, the tournament has taken on a Spanish flair. Spaniards Rafael Nadal and Juan Carlos Ferrero met in the quarterfinals. Nadal finally got something more than a token challenge against Ferrero, but still won rather handily, 6-4, 6-2. David Ferrer edged Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-5, 7-6(1). The
Today marks 3rd round action in Monte Carlo and the Spaniards are having a great day. Rafael Nadal, despite his prowess on clay, has apparently never double-bageled an opponent. He came close to doing this in his route over German, Michael Berrer, up 6-0, 4-0 in less than an hour. Berrer managed to win a
Last year, Andy Murray might have felt he was making progress on clay. Always his weakest surface since turning pro, Murray's problems were compounded this year by his loss in the finals of the Australian Open. While his straight set drubbing by Federer was not entirely unexpected, what was unexpected was how the loss affected
By the start of 2009, people were looking at Nadal as being the next champ. He had claimed the number 1 spot, beat Federer at a Slam besides Wimbledon or the French (the Aussie Open) and left the number 1 in tears. Few expected 2009 to turn out the way it has. Nadal went into
I won't do point by point blogging, because that is completely distracting when it comes to actually watching the match. I'll do it game-by-game. Surprisingly this is the early match, rather than Soderling-Berdych. On the other hand, it is a Friday, so you can imagine someone skipping work to watch this, and still having Friday
