Yes, and he is not moving well at all. That's ok, I never expected him to do that much this year anyways. Hopefully he trains hard and dethrones Nole at the Australian Open.
agreed.
most important thing is that he gets out of London with no injuries.
to me that is absolutely huge.
he does not have a confidence problem against nole. nole has a confidence problem with nadal at slams after this year.
nadal is just spent. there can be no other conclusion.
But Nadal also lost to Nole at Shanghai; not to mention, he won all his matches here except for the one against Nole, so it's not a very valid argument that he'd be only totally spent here against his main rival when he won all his other matches. That's not giving much credit to Nole, herc.
Anyway, 2014 is definitely looking interesting. If Andy is still feeling it and into tennis then it should be a 3 way rivalry. Just because Nadal has beaten Andy a few times in Slams, doesn't mean he'll continue to do it going forward and Andy has beaten Nadal twice and of late, he's beaten Nole. So Nadal just doesn't need to beat Nole, he'll need to beat Murray as well. They may just draw each other at the 2014 AO.
well we knew nole would be rock solid emma.
he almost always is.
nadal was just double faulting early on and dug himself a bit of a hole.
and all those easy forehand misses. some were absolute sitters. he was not moving his feet and his return was just terrible.
that does make it easier for his opponents.
looked like a tired, shaky, and unfocused nadal to me.
as for nole, well he was the defending champion and he was also the more prepared of the two.
I am surprised the score was not 6-3, 6-1.
nadal`s style of play is far more demanding because of his heavy topspin strokes off both wings. he does not serve well and his return game is just horrible on some days on quicker hard courts. that makes it even more difficult for him to win his matches.
I think the mental and physical fatigue is more cumulative for nadal. he had a long and difficult clay campaigns. the man won 10 tournaments which means he was deep in all of those events.
so he is not just physically spent but also mentally spent by this time.
nole is taller and far more efficient as a player. he plays close to the baseline and gives up very little court. he has the greatest return in history so every single ball comes back with interest.
and now his serve is improved. and if that was not enough, now he is a huge threat at the net.
nadal, on the other hand, makes life very difficult for himself on the court.