How about that Rafa???

Full credit to Rafa. It looked grim in the second and third round (I really thought Petzschner would win), but he fought back. Didn't see the Soderling match, but I did catch the Murray match. I'm just going to come out and ask, what does it take to light a fire under Murray? His game plan against Rafa in Australia was flawless, absolutely dominating the match. He reverted back to the counter punching style against Fed, got dominated. He did his counter punching thing against Rafa again yesterday, got dominated. So much talent there is being thrown away because he is too stubborn to kick his game up a notch against the top players.

Now back to Rafa. Best player in the world, by far. Not quite as dominant as Fed was from 04-06 (I think he lost like 12 total matches in those years), but I still think there is some room for improvement in his hard and grass court game. I said the guy could end up with 18-20 majors if he could stay healthy a year or two ago, and I stand by that. He will undoubtedly end his career as the best player ever, so long as he can stay healthy.

Rafa was cruising until the beginning of the second set, when the wind kicked up. 

Considering the unbelievably violent way he strikes the ball on the forehand (and part of the time on the backhand as well) and the exquisite timing it takes to do that, it's a testimony to Rafa's unparalleled athleticism that he hits the ball cleanly on a consistent basis.  Other people simply can't do that with the sort of swings Rafa routinely delivers.

So, in a "normal" (for him) performance, Rafa had the whopping total of 3 unforced errors in the entire first set!  But then the wind kicked up and caused both players problems.  Clearly it was a gusting, inconsistent wind that made it hard to know where the ball would be and when.  The spectacularly high quality of play in the first set gave way to errors, and then to both players trying to find ways to avoid those errors while continuing to play aggressively.

When you're playing Rafa, you know he's going to run down and return balls nobody else can get to, and that he is not going to give you anything (because of his determination and consistency).  You know he's going to raise the level of his play considerably on the big points.  Everybody knows all of this: players and fans alike.

What is not so obvious is that, no matter who you are, Rafa is going to out-think you as well.  You saw that today, as he did a better job than Tomas of solving the puzzle created by the wind.  He dialed it down a notch, increased his variety and gave himself more margin of error than usual -- and he always has a higher margin of error than anyone else.  Once he got a feel for where the ball would be, he upped the aggression level.  Brilliant stuff.

And his knees held up sufficiently to get him through the tournament.  So the good news for the Nadal camp just keep getting better, but the knee issue continues.  I was distressed to hear Rafa say that he's only going to take two or three weeks off, and to speak as though he intends to play Canada and Cincinnati.  That is an absolutely horrible idea.  McEnroe had earlier said that Rafa was going to take 5 or 6 weeks off, which would be perfect: get some treatment, let the knees heal, minimize time on hard courts.  I sincerely hope that Rafa does what McEnroe said he would do rather than what Rafa said he intends to do. 

It would be a shame if such a great player had his career cut short because he failed to take proper precautions to safeguard his health.

It was an amazing performance from Nadal to win the final easily. A very well deserved win. He would have beat anyone today, and he proved that he is the best player in the world right now. If he stays healthy he can easily win another 4 or 5 slams in his career. He also seems like a nice person, and that counts for something too.