wow! I agree with you indy, but I am glad Fed is out, and Evo did better than him

Another wierd GS.

nice one reidy
gordon got through in a tough QF 6-4 in the third

There's something about Rafa's performance these last 2 years, and in the USO in particular, which really leaves me baffled frankly.

1. He loses to Rosol early at Wimbledon 2012. Clearly knees appear to be an issue. Something is clearly up anyway.

2. He is out of the game for 7 months with no matches, planning to come back for the Aussie Open.

3. 3-4 weeks before the tournament he pulls out, citing a heavy bout of flu putting back his training. Either he was ready for the AO or he wasn't, a few days out with flu so long before a tournament shouldn't make a difference to your decision. Odd.

4. He then comes back and in his first 9 tournaments he wins 7 (including RG and Indian Wells on the dreaded hard courts) and loses in the final of the other. That's extraordinarily brilliant. He looked superb at RG.

5. 3 weeks later he appears at Wimbledon and loses to a journeyman player ranked outside 100 with no track record of beating top guys in Round 1, with terrible problems with his knees.......and disappears for another 5 weeks.

6. He comes back and wins 15 Masters and USO matches in a row on the dreaded hard courts without any obvious issues whatsoever with his knees. At the USO his performance to date is so dominant that he hasn't lost his serve once in 16 sets of tennis. Against Robredo in the QF it was painful to watch how he utterly destroyed a very good player without, it would appear, any physical issues with his knees whatsoever in week 2 of the tournament.

So you take 8 months out of the game due to dodgy knees caused by hardcourts. You then return and reach 9 finals in a row, going deep in tournaments week after week on these same dodgy knees. After a short break those same knees collapse immediately and spectacularly at Wimbledon. Then you win 15 matches in a row on the hardcourts which are the root cause of the knee problem with apparently no issue.

I just don't get it. Either he has a chronic problem or he doesn't.

PaulM wrote:

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I'm going with "he doesn't".

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Me too!! I don't think he's got much wrong beyond the usual wear and tear on the knees which many players suffer from. 8 months is a long time out of the game for something like that.

There certainly are rumours, though I'm not brave enough to repeat them here.  They do seem to be talked about a great deal, I'm sure many people who post here have heard them.  The rumours don't quite make sense to me, but then again nor does Rafa's recent playing activity.

steve

I have enormous difficulty believing that Nadal would be allowed to serve a secret drug ban ( at least someone said the word for better or for worse ), although the Cilic situation seems a bit strange. Nor, maybe more particularly, that it would / could remain secret.

I have no idea the facts re Nadal's knee, and yes I raise my eyes about some elements of his last year or so. But whilst playing hard courts might be stressful, I certainly understood the same as Phil, that it is grass courts, in particular bending down for low balls, that is the big problem.