Save Three More, Get a Blue Peter Badge
Posted by gauloises1 on November 12, 2009
Nadal is saving them up for something. He saved five match points (!) against Nicolas Almagro (!) to win 36 76(2) 75 (!) on a day when he was, to put it mildly, not playing his best.
I thought Almagro was solid but unspectacular. Rafa, however, was not good. There seemed to be nothing – no length, no bite – on his groundstrokes and time and time again the ball dropped short and soft for Almagro to tee off on. Still, it’s Rafa and suddenly in the game when Almagro was serving for the match, his forehand made an appearance. He did brilliantly to make it into a third and then Almagro cramped mid-way through and barely staggered to the end.
Still an impressive display of tenacity from Nadal. He’ll get both a wake-up call and a boost from this match, and his next opponent (Robredo) should be a nice match for him.
AmyLu said
The match was simply putrid. I felt like Rafa’s FH made a momentary appearance when he went down match points through the tiebreak…and then went AWOL again. And, I thought Nico had a few patches where he played well, but I actually thought he was more impressive during their USO match. All I know is the three hours I spent watch this match are ones I would like back — I couldn’t turn it off (although I did end up watching portions of a Gilmore Girls re-run when I got overwhelmingly frustrated).
While I feel like it’s really hard to comment on Rafa’s play, due to the poor quality, I do think Rafa has difficulty hitting through this court. Hitting with depth/length are always a bugaboo of sorts for Rafa on a hardcourt, but even when he’s hitting the ball short, I feel like it goes through the court more than his shots were today (I hope that makes sense). Anyway, all timing and rhythm seemed to be off today on his groundstrokes so that may be more of the issue than the court.
irefusetotellyou said
Am I evil enough to laugh at those last 2 pictures of Almgags?
… why yes, yes I am.