Truly, the four-hour-twenty-three-minute finals between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal was a match full of drama. It is full of emotions, especially that Roger is chasing to equal Pete Sampras' record of 14 Grand Slam titles (currently, Roger has 13), and Rafa was wanting to be the first Spanish to win the Australian Open Title on his best ever performance at a hardcourt Grand Slam - yet!
As the clock approaches dawn, the match became increasingly tense, and perhaps, the mental pressure that Nadal has inflicted on the mighty FedEx's psyche is getting through. With a series of unforced errors from the world No. 2, he gave Nadal his first Australian Open title in… Continue reading
Figuratively, yes, I did surive a heart attack. This is after the semi-final match between my Rafa and Fernando Verdasco of Spain (Rafa's friend and team mate at the Davis Cup). The match lasted 5 hours and 14 minutes! And every minute of it was nerve-racking, heart-pounding and jaw-dropping!
In all fairness to Verdasco, he did everything he could. He had almost 100 winning shots, compared to Rafa's 52! In the end, experience really mattered. In the 5th set, at 4-5 (Verdasco serving), he double faulted, and Rafa broke him and win the match!
The match came down as one of the historic matches in the Australian Open. It was the… Continue reading
Rafa - from a kid to a grown up Continue reading
It pains me to see that Rafael Nadal, World No. 1, had to lose to the ranked 16 Simon Gilles during the semi-finals of the Madrid Masters Series. It was a battle for dear life, no doubt. To say that Nadal did nothing would be unfair. He gave it his all. In all fairness to Simon, he played well too. What made the little difference was luck.
Nadal lost by merely two points. The final score in the 3rd set tie-breaker was 6-8, in favor of Simon. To top it all, the last point was really controversial. The big passing forehand of Nadal was called in but Simon challenged it. Heavens was really on Simon's side as the… Continue reading
