RafaLint: February 11th
Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty Images
Today’s recommended reading: Act of God – by Steve Tignor (tennis.com)
As usual, Tignor just gets Rafa or his version of Rafa agrees with the one in my head. I do think part of Rafa’s loss yesterday was mental. It was a long match. A long match being played by someone who isn’t match tough. I think Rafa suffered from some lapses in concentration simply because he’s not currently used to the intense concentration that match play requires. That will come in time.
Nadal’s comeback tournament was still a success, and he said afterward that just being there was the most important thing. We might have expected him to win, but nobody could be shocked that he didn’t. It might even be better, in terms of him working his way back and peaking at the right time in the spring, that he didn’t win immediately, that he still has things he knows he needs to improve. The desire to go one step farther will still be there as well. I liked that Nadal began the week saying that it wouldn’t be a big deal if he lost here, but by the third set of the final he was doubled-over and “Vamos!”ing like a madman after every big point he won. The desire to win, not just play, was back, and he couldn’t ignore it.
And I agree with the notion that perhaps, in the long run, it’s better that he didn’t win his first tournament back. Our boy loves a challenge. Suddenly popping back on the tour and dominating might not be the challenge he needs.
Whatever the result, the tennis world has seen Rafael Nadal again. Do we know what we missed during his time away? I’d say we knew it when he hit that drop shot to save set point in the second set. We knew it when he stretched for a seemingly impossible drop volley to save a break point late in the third. And we knew it when he sat down on the sideline looking grim in defeat. Winning or losing, Nadal has a way of drawing emotion out of tennis. Few players have ever had the knack for getting involved in memorable matches the way he has, and he was part of another in his first tournament back. Nadal’s not the only one, of course; we’ve had plenty of emotion while he was away. Now that Rafa is back, we’ll have more of it.
And this – so much this.
Another good article comes to us from sport-magazine.co.uk. What makes is special? It’s an interview with Rafa and I always prefer his own words on his status and mental state: I’m Back! – Rafa Nadal Q & A.
Articles:
- Nadal stunned by inspired Zeballos in Vina del Mar final – by Steve Flink (tennischannel.com) Another good read.
- Breaking down Rafael Nadal’s return – by Jon Wertheim (si.com)
- Racquet Reaction: Zeballos d. Nadal – by Richard Pagliaro (tennis.com)
- The Black Swan – by Jesse Pentecost (thenextpoint.com)
- LiveAnalysis: Rafael Nadal vs. Horacio Zeballos in the Viña del Mar Final – by Amy (changeovertennis.com)
- Zeballos surprises Nadal to win Chilean Open – via Reuters
- Rafael Nadal loses singles, doubles – AP via espn
- Rafael Nadal makes the right step forward – by Steve Elling (thenational.ae)
- Rafa reflects on comeback week – via atpworldtour.com
- Nadal: “El partido estuvo torcido desde el principio” – via marca.com (mangle)
- Give me more time before judging me, says Nadal – by Martyn Herman (Reuters)
- Rafael Nadal: Needs to be balance – Rafa speaks about doping controls via the AP
Videos/Audio:
- Highlights from the final
- Rafael Nadal – Stade 2 le 10 février 2013 – got enough oil on that pasta, Rafa?
- Presser footage
- Audio from the post-final presser.
- iB3 report on the final.
- Indian Wells promo – why the hell is airfare so expensive? *whine*
Photos:
- Photos of Rafa’s arrival in Brazil from the tournament’s site.
Rafa does social media:
- Rafa shared an album of photos from Chile.
- It’s time to celebrate Titin’s birthday!
- Rafa shared a photo of himself, Pico, Titin, Toni and their voluminous luggage arriving in Brazil.
Social media related to Rafa:
- The Brasil Open let us know that Rafa’s arrived.
Nadal: “A nivel tenístico me siento bien, pero aún necesito horas de juego. Zeballos me ha superado hoy”. twitpic.com/c2nhik
— Fernando Grisolía(@FerGrisolia) February 11, 2013
Which Genny translates to: “Tennis wise, I feel OK, but I still need match time. Zeballos has been superior today”
Rafa: “I lack reaction speed, energy when returning, power in my legs so that the ball goes deeper” (via @rafael_plaza)
— Genny SS (@genny_ss) February 11, 2013
Rafa:”From 1st day I said the most important thing wasn’t winning this week. I’m gonna try to improve my physical level” (via @rafael_plaza)
— Genny SS (@genny_ss) February 11, 2013
Rafar: “The balance of the week’s positive. A week ago I didn’t know how my body’d react. Today I can say, pretty well” (via @fergrisolia)
— Genny SS (@genny_ss) February 11, 2013
Nadal: “Pude aguantar jugar una semana entera y eso una buena noticia”. twitpic.com/c2niyn
— Fernando Grisolía(@FerGrisolia) February 11, 2013
Which mangles to: “I could stand to play a whole week and that’s good news”
Rafa:Been able 2 compete up to some level. True that some days it[knee] is better & some worse,&that affects performance (via @rafael_plaza)
— Genny SS (@genny_ss) February 11, 2013
Rafa:”Don’t feel bad tennis wise, but physically need more hours. I was able 2 hold out the whole week &that’s good news” (via @fergrisolia)
— Genny SS (@genny_ss) February 11, 2013
Words for the worried: Nadal’s loss is meaningless. Hadn’t played in 222 days! Tennis isn’t that easy, even for him. A+ for a first event.
— Tom Perrotta (@TomPerrotta) February 11, 2013
Column coming later today. But how can so many of you declare Nadal “broken” on the basis of one event after 200+ days off?
— Jon Wertheim (@jon_wertheim) February 11, 2013
@rafaelnadal se despertó ayer con dolores en la rodilla antes de la final de Viña. Lo contó @cgonzalezlucay desde Chile a @uhradiodeportes.
— Tomeu Terrasa (@tomeuterrasa) February 11, 2013
Which mangles to: “@ RafaelNadal awoke yesterday with a sore knee before the end of Viña. I told @ cgonzalezlucay from Chile to @ UHRadioDeportes.”
Random:
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Thanks as always Miri for all the great articles, videos, tweets and photos
It was the same thing when Serena Williams came back. The media hyped things up that Serena might come back and win everything. Look at what happened at the FO to Serena. It’s mental, Rafa and Serena are two of the toughest players in tennis.
I understand the media hyping up Rafa’s return and waiting for him to lose, it produces better headlines but I cannot believe some of the fans who were expecting him to win this with his eyes closed.
He needs time, he needs more matches and he needs to build his confidence gradually.
I am fine with him not winning a tournament for a few weeks but by FO, I think he will be ready to take on the big guns.
Tom Perrotta, is one of the only ones talking sense.
John McEnroe needs to calm down on facebook :)
I like your views micamica . Thanks for the huge lint Miri
Rafa arriving in Brazil airport, short chat in Spanish
Livescorehunter has Rafa and David’s doubles scheduled for 23.30 CET by my reckoning with time difference it should be on in UK say 8.30ish tht’s if they don’t take it off again, here’s hoping. Sorry round the world fans not sure of your time slots x
Sharon/London, hope you will catch it x
Thanks Patricia/England for letting me know.
It’s 10ish pm I’m on line but the match can’t have started yet. Going to be another late night I think but you have to do it. It’s Rafa after all and I can never sleep when I know he is playing. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Thanks,miri. The only thing that trully worries me is the knee. I hope it’s the pain the doctors warned him about and not anything more serious.
Rafa interview in Brazil (in spanish) I would love a translation
@Miri, please can you tell me why the video appeared instead of the YouTube link?
Good question…it seems to have taken the link and done an embed. I didn’t even know this would happen in the comments.
Great coverage! Love that Tignor is always sensible regarding Rafa. Has anyone noticed that Rafa’s treasure trail is gone again? In pic 15 above you can see his tummy, but I have seen several pics,including shirt changes and it is definitely missing.
Someone also mentioned his lack of visible chest hair. He may have had a photo shoot or something we weren’t aware of in the past or coming up. That’s all I can think of.
Rafa match is on after the Bellucci match which has been going for about 40 minutes now, so it’s not that late here in the UK. TennisTV said they’d show it and then they’d not, so who knows. May be on belivesports.com as they showed the Chile matches.
Ohhh, the doubles… My head thinks it’d be better for him to lose and concentrate on singles but my heart wants him to win, always! Ah well, he’ll do one or the other.
I am watching the LIVE scores on the Belucci match and I can see that the first set went to a tiebreak that Bellucci won. Now I just want Bellucci to win win in straights so that we get to watch Rafa soon!. I am in the UK too and it is coming up to 11pm. So want Rafa on soon. At least a doubles match is more court time for Rafa and that is why Rafa is playing in doubles. But the singles is more important.
Third set coming up in Bellucci match! Argggggggg!!!
Thanks for posting this, micamica. Here’s a translation of some of it:
“I’m a bit tired now…it was a long week.”
“I want to feel like I’m doing everything in my power to be well tennistically and physically.”
“I have trained very little to prepare for these tournaments..”
“During these 7 months, when all is said and done, it’s not like when you tear your ACL and you have 8 or 9 set months of stopping It’s a different type of injury of daily work, where you have to see day by day how everything is going…”
“The bad moments are when you have doubts..when you’re working at the gym with the physio and when you see things change very little by little…when you don’t really know when you’ll be able to play.”
“I think hard courts are the worst for the body….they are very hard for all the joints, ankles, back, knees. And this is not a player issue, it’s a medical issue…. I think the ATP has to think about how to elongate tennis players’ careers. I don’t imagine football players playing on cement, I don’t imagine other sports with aggressive movements playing on such aggressive surfaces. I think we’re the only sport in world that makes this mistake, and it looks like it’s not going to change for now…..It’s not only about what happens during your career, but about what happens after, how your body ends up after your career. The ATP doesn’t seem to worry about the players too much, but it should…[be concerned] about the years following a player’s careers. Competing so much on hard courts, the only thing we achieve is that, maybe, when our careers are over, it’s very difficult to continue to practice sport. I don’t know how I’ll end up when I finish, and I like to practice sports….Tennis is beautiful, and important, but life is much more so [sniff sniff : ( ]…so it would be nice to be able to continue to do what one likes to do after one’s career. For me it would be nice to be able to keep playing football or tennis for recreation, and the way things are going now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do so in good conditions.”
“Long term, the big objective in my head in Brasil 2016. Not being able to be there in 2012 has left a need and a feeling that I need–that I want– to overcome and 2016 is a very long term objective but a very real one. I’ll be there working every day to arrive there, to Brasil 2016; first, to arrive there being able to compete and second to arrive in good conditions to what could be my last Olympics.”
@Bebe,
oh thank you for translating this.
Thank you so very much for the translation
Bebe,
Thanks for translating Rafa’s comments, loved it:)
It’s nearly midnight in the uk and Belluci is in a 3 rd set with a break so hopefully Rafa/David will be n soon.
Looked at the schedule for tomorrow And couldn’t see Rafa’s singles match anywhere. Thought he would start his singles tomorrow. Anyone know? Thanks.
please hurry up Belluci. I’m getting really tired!
@Sharon,
This is the schedule for tomorrow.
ATP site: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Scores/Schedule.aspx?EventId=533
I am exhausted too, it’s gone midnight and this Belluci match is going on for a while now.
Thank you Bebe for taking the time to translate the interview for us. Much appreciated.
You’re welcome. I am happy to do that when I can….sadly, I don’t always have the time
Thanks Micamica.
Just made a coffee to try and keep awake. Belluci won so wont be to long to wait. Hope they win.
After all that I can’t a link showing the match. Grrrrrrrrr!
I sat up too Sharon till 1.00 pm watching Belluci and then they pulled the plug. Looks like Rafa is playing doubles today and singles tomorrow.
Guys – I know it’s been a long time and we are all excited Rafa’s back, but please remember – comments are a place to talk about the post, not chat back and forth about live matches or other things. That’s what the chat box is for. Thanks!
You know it’s interesting to read what Rafa says about how he was tested a half dozen times for doping even when he was recuperating for seven months. I had a chat with a retired top 50 player yesterday and the first thing he said about Rafa was that he believed that he could not possibly look and play the way he does “naturally”. How sad. This was a statement made of pure sour grapes. When someone is jealous, they simply won’t allow that there is an exceptional athlete out there who is willing to “suffer” as Rafa does, to get the win. I’m so sad that there are people out there who want to win so badly that they’ll cheat and even do harm to thier bodies, but even sadder that honorable people have to (as Rafa put it) pay for the “sins” of the offenders. Being suspicious of Rafa’s clean doping tests casts a bad light on the whole ATP, pointing a finger on “cover ups” etc. Oh it just makes me sad. I sure wish that transparancy was the rule of the day, as Rafa said, so that there would be no question of the results and we could discuss tennis matches and tennis results…after all, isn’t that what we love to do? No matter what anyone says, Rafa is GREAT for the game!