I don t gonna talk about my knee this afternoon Nadal said. I try to arrive as good as possible to this tournament knowing that probably this year will be harder than ever and it really was.
Coming out of Paris opinions were mixed as to whether Nadal would be able to keep up his stellar sequence. Having taking a seven month break after last year s Wimbledon to rest his knees he returned in Chile in February and reached the final of nine successive tournaments winning seven titles.
Some insiders felt he had picked up a sniff of the world No 1 ranking and would keep grinding on until he had overhauled Novak Djokovic and the others ahead of him in the queue. Others more accurately as it turned out argued that he was the sporting equivalent of Cyprus a nation that had borrowed too heavily and was about to face a reckoning.
So while the statistics will tell you that this was an even bigger and more dramatic upset than last year s being the first time Nadal had lost in the opening round of a slam it did not feel that way. Rosol s ambush came out of the blue at a time when nobody but Nadal s support staff had any idea how much pain he was in. Darcis victory arrived after five months of debate and speculation as to the state of Nadal s joints.
Admittedly he had overcome his physical demons during the clay court season. But he had also acknowledged that he never knows what shape he will wake up in from one day to the next. And that his training schedule had been cut back to less than an hour a day to stave off the threat of burn out. As soon as he withdrew from his planned grass court warm up tournament in Halle the week after Roland Garros the alarm bells started to sound.
What then can we expect from the rest of Nadal s year Asked last night when he planned to come back on the tour he replied Not very late . Could there even be a repeat of last year s extended break Not that late for sure. Which was encouraging for when Nadal stays at home he takes so much of tennis s sparkle with him. Judging by his comments yesterday he still intends to play the US Open.
The parlous state of his knees may owe a lot to the pounding they have taken on Plexicushion and DecoTurf courts over the years materials that are really only glorified forms of concrete. Yet as Nadal himself put it grass has become probably the toughest surface for me today .
The lush turf of the All England Club may be relatively soft but the way it makes the ball skid through demands a lower body position. And that in turn places extra weight on Nadal s creaking joints.
It was noticeable yesterday how reluctant he was to hit his double handed backhand a shot which requires him to pivot on the more problematic left knee. He was preferring to slice or to run around and play forehands. But you cannot expect to win matches when such a large part of your game is defunct.
There was an outcry when Nadal was seeded at No 5 here but his defeat by the world No 135 shows that there are no givens in sport. Except perhaps the importance of physical fitness. Not even the great ones can win when their body betrays them.
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