Nadal intimate (well, not really)

Google translates the title of this article to “Nadal intimate: his doubts, pressures, life” – which is clearly an overstatement on the depth of the article. The interview took place during the Australian Open, so I’m assuming it was pre-injury. (But have had a lot of sugar this afternoon, so my mental faculties aren’t what they should be.) Thanks to CC for sending in the link.

4 Feb 2010 | by miri | 18 Comments

aRafaelite’s Australian Open diary: photos from the last 2 days

(Sorry I’m so late getting this posted for aRafaelite – I kept forgetting.)

3 Feb 2010 | by aRafaelite | 3 Comments

AO practice sessions

Posted by TheOnlinemovies2010.

Posted by australianopentv – thanks Atch2.

3 Feb 2010 | by miri | 16 Comments

AO Rafa blog & Q&A – final

Rafa sent in one last blog entry to the heraldsun site.

Hello everyone,

I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye and thanks. I had a great time during my stay in Melbourne.

It is obvious I would have loved to be there today, writing this blog from my Melbourne hotel room waiting for the final.

*sniff*

But this year it was not meant to be. I really felt great during my stay in Australia.

The people there are simply amazing, it’s one of the nicest countries

29 Jan 2010 | by miri | 39 Comments

AO photo sets on flickr

Some nice ones to browse through…

shelly9141′s photos of a practice session – the racket and string people can look at the original sized photos for details; the rest of us can use those to drool over
delsblog’s photos of the Rafa/Murray match
Assorted photos from Richard and Michael
sashinmania’s Nadal in action set
La Rusa Loca’s photos

28 Jan 2010 | by miri | 16 Comments

aRafaelite’s Australian Open diary: day 7 & 8

Wednesday 26 January – Raw

A part of me felt like the tournament was all over after Rafa’s devastating withdrawal last night. I felt a little raw this morning. I had said previously to xta, if I feel like this following Rafa, what must his Mum feel like watching his matches?! I’ve avoided the news, the internet, everything except Nadal News since the loss because I can’t bear to hear all the speculation about career-ending injuries. I should have remembered some ear plugs though, because guess what everyone was talking about on the way to Melbourne Park? By the

28 Jan 2010 | by aRafaelite | 17 Comments

aRafaelite’s Australian Open diary: day 6

Tuesday 25 January – Out for the Count

Today was Australia Day. A national holiday. A day when Australians celebrate being Australian. Which means parades, fireworks, Triple JJJ (trendy radio station)’s Top 100 songs of the previous year, cricket, BBQs and beer. Well, any kind of alcohol really. This affects the tennis in a number of ways:

1. It makes it bloody hard to get there due to the parade that goes though the centre of Melbourne. Annoying, because they don’t warn you about it.

2. Despite the fact that the last remaining Australians in the singles draws (Stosur and Hewitt)

28 Jan 2010 | by aRafaelite | 2 Comments

aRafaelite’s Australian Open diary: day 5

Monday 24 January – Losing Streak

I’m really on a tear here people. The only two players I’ve got behind in Round 4 who’ve actually won, are Rafa and Tsonga. Everyone else I’ve got behind has crashed and burned. Which is frankly the only way to describe what happened in Verdasco’s match against Davydenko today. Actually other expressions do come to mind, but I’ll get to that shortly.

First up on my schedule today was recovering from Feña’s late-night loss last night. I wish I’d seen more of Gonzalez earlier in his career. There was a while (after Henman

28 Jan 2010 | by aRafaelite | 5 Comments

Facebook update

Rafa’s updated his Facebook status:

Went to the hospital as I arrived and we will have results and diagnosis in the morning. My press guy will send a release with the information to the media. Thanks all for the support! / He pasado por la clinica para hacer pruebas y sabremos el diagnostico por la mañana. Mi jefe de prensa enviara un comunicado a la prensa con la informacion. Gracias a todos por el apoyo!

And he’s also posted videos (English/Spanish) that he recorded in the airport in Melbourne.

28 Jan 2010 | by miri | 7 Comments

Out a month?

At least, that’s what this article at marca.com suggests. (Thanks to Jamee for sending in the link.) Google translation:

An MRI ruled today the precise scope of the Injury
Nadal will be out for a month …

After solving their problems in the foot with the templates, the knees have now become the main Achilles heel of Spanish • He will miss at least the tournament in Rotterdam and the Davis Cup

JOAN SOLSONA. Melbourne 28/01/10 – 13:20

Rafael Nadal at noon

28 Jan 2010 | by miri | 114 Comments