RafaLint: March 23rd
Photo by AP Photo/ Alan Diaz
Articles:
- Shortest presser ever?
- Ruthless Rafa Races Into Third Round – by Matt Fitzgerald (atpworldtour.com)
- Flashback Friday: Roger Meets Rafa for the First Time in Miami – by Chris Oddo (tennisnow.com – thanks @olerafa)
- Double Single Rafa
- Rafa Nadal: “Me siento prácticamente como en casa” – EFE (mangle)
- Le jury de L’Equipe vote Nadal – people really like how that boy plays on clay. (mangle)
- 100 Greatest of All Time – via The Tennis Channel. So much wrong with this list, IMHO.
- Practice is Perfect at the Sony Ericsson Open – by Thomas Swick (worldtennismagazine.com)
Photos:
- Practice photo from Ella Ling.
- And another of her favorite Rafa photos from Miami last year.
- Love @ll has added some doubles pictures to her IW set.
Rafa does social media:
- Rafa shared a peachy practice photo with us.
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Well, that is strange. What a really short interview! Does that mean there were no other journalists there or did Rafa suddenly leave or is the transcript wrong? I checked out everybody else’s transcripts form that day and they all pretty long with many, many questions. Weird!
Since this is Miami and somewhat considered the “Grand Slam of the Americas,” it gets a heavy Spanish-speaking influence in terms of media coverage. Thus, Rafa actually only had 1 question in English Wednesday and like 15 minutes of Spanish press — ASAPSports just didn’t transcribe that. A similar thing happened *last night* as his press only shows like 2 questions.
Hope that helps!
Ah, thanks. That makes sense.
Yes, thank you, Romi.
Isn’t the L’Equipe article dated from May 2010? I remember them doing a special edition of their newspaper for that matter. A group of experts, journalists and former tennis players had designated Rafa as the best clay-court player ever, even before he won his fifth Roland-Garros. So I guess it’s even more true now… :)
Rafa played at a very late hour ; probably he and the journalists wanted to go home.. :)
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The transcript is from the 22nd, which means it’s his pre-tournament presser, not his postmatch presser from yesterday.
Loved watching the flashback! What a thrill. Almost made up for not seeing his match last night. Thank you, Miri.
Flashback Friday: Roger Meets Rafa for the First Time in Miami.. Thank you Miri for the wonderful memory lane. Watching the video of 17 year -old Rafa beating Roger at Miami has made my day..
Rafa is a special being..
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Aaah flashback Friday. The GOAT list could do with updating!
H’mm, how seriously do you take L’Equipe’s poll when one of the panel is Uncle Toni? :-) Of course, Toni being Toni he put Borg in first place.
I recorded and watched TC’s 100 Greatest this week. Of course it’s nonsense – as many of the participants noted – but it was interesting viewing – not for the rankings but for the vignettes of players’ careers. I’d been wondering what they were going to do about Djokovic – guess they decided that one great year is Not Enough to make the list, which is reasonable. Still, he was kind of the ghost at the banquet.
Re the photo posted by Rafa – all I can say is the boy IS cheeky!
Toni believes in reverse psychology. Rafa must not get a big head and go all mushy. So he off course tells Rafa that fed IS the GOAT and Borg is better than him. So work harder! But I don’t think he has locked Rafa in a cupboard for being lazy like Ferrers’ coach.
To be fair to Tony, this L’Equipe jury thing happened almost two years ago, in May 2010, when Rafa still had “only” four RG titles. If they repeated it today, maybe even Tony would put Rafa first, though I’m not entirely convinced. He does seem to believe in tough love ;-)
thanks for the lint Miri. I enjoyed reading the resutls of L’equipe but NOT surprised at all that Toni would rank Borg ahead of his own newphew. :-)
does anybody know if nadal is playing doubles today?
Great flashback! It’s just that flashbacks make me sort of uncomfortable these days, don’t know why.
Irrelevant observation: Rafa’s bandanas have greatly improved since then. Thank God.