Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Not shaping up the way I wanted it to

The Australian Open started last week and in what, for me, is the most unfortunate result so far, defending champion Rafael Nadal is forced to withdraw due to injury in his quarterfinal match against Andy Murray.

This is bad news (at least to us Nadal fans lol). Rafa was unable to defend his lone Grand Slam title last year and will lose a whole lot of points. It's also been a very long 8 months since he won his last title. His confidence can't be that good after losing 6 times to top 10 players in the last 2 months (prior to December, he had the best H2H record against top 10 players in 2009). And if he's injured this early in the season, it's not a good sign for how things will shape up the rest of the year.

He did put up a good fight against Murray in the first two sets before having to retire though, so there are good signs that he will do well once the ATP tour hits the clay court season. He does have a lot of points to defend between now and May so hopefully he finds his 2008 form sooner rather than later.

No comments: