Lovely Article! It is an amazing sight to see him up close and playing his game. He is a gentle a soul as anyone off the court, but on court he truly is the complete opposite. I love hearing that his performance in the doubles match went from rusty to flashes of Nadal like brilliance! He has won over the tennis fans in our home and we hope someday the French Open crowd will be able to see what you stated so well in your article, a TRUE CHAMPION! VAMOS RAFA!

After the *-----* in Paris, Nadal deserves the cheers. Nice to know he revisited the sleeveless too- it's a classic look. I'll be interested to see how you will call the singles match. :)

Well said Cheryl!

Cheryl, fantastic post!

It's really late over here, I want to get some sleep so that I can give Rafa my undivided and unwavering support during his match tomorrow against his buddy David.

I very much want to elaborate on my "fantastic post" comment. Will indeed do so later.

Keep up your writing, you're doing a wonderful job and your articles are very much welcome and needed.

Take care :)

Thank you, MiniArbre and the other well-wishers also. Rafa is going to need all the help he can get tomorrow, I think. Ferrer is no easy 2nd round opponent.

Kelli, I posted my Nadal/Ferrer preview. See what you think :)

Spot on. Rafa is a brute player with reasonable skill. If he can maintain his speed throughout his career, than he would probably be able to achieve what Fed has already achieved now.

However, a human is human. You do what Nadal did, your body will suffer. It's almost like Rafa sold his soul to the devil just to beat Fed, surely the greatest player that ever lived.

I read it Love- you are forever the most excellent optimist rah-rah-type with a laptop. ;) I sure wish it wasn't going to be such a trial by fire with Ferrer, but I will trust you and your bird's eye view in Montreal. :)

Their H2H is 13-7 for goodness sake! It should be the other way around; Roger sold his soul to the devil just to beat Rafa!

phoenix don't be silly, roger has no soul.

Amazing! I love your articles Ms. Murray. So lush epithets.. are making the reader laughing and cryeing concurrently. Nadal is a wonderful guy. I am sure he will cope with everything :)

Ah, Kelli. I know I'm hopelessly optimistic. It's a curse. :D Tennis needs Rafa, so I'm thinking positive thoughts. LOL

INNA, thank you for the delightful comments.

torres, your post is out of step with the subject matter of this thread, you can diss Rafa if you like but not on his thread where his fans are rooting for him, have you got not soul...............of course you haven't.

Rafa will treat this match like any other.

Cheryl, your sarcasm is amusing!

leave it to Torres9 to give aback handed compliment "Rafa is a brute player"

and leave it to Torres to show up on a thread about Rafa...

Haha... Now who's complaining about a Fedfan commenting on Rafa thread.

I'll use your lines then carrie, Rafans think TT is all about Rafa and only Rafans can post comments

Fed has the kindest soul ever in tennis. Imagine someone who beats everybody and still is liked by everybody including Rafa himself. ^^

Cheryl, wonderful article. Rafa IS sorely missed and he IS a great champion and tennis needs him to remain competitive, exciting and wonderful. :)

I hope he gets past Daveeeed Ferrer and all subsequent opponents to at least make it to the finals. I'm itching for a Roger v Rafa final at Montreal but I honestly don't think Tennis Gods are this kind :D I love Roger and he's an amazing, wonderful player, but I honestly want Rafa to shine for this tourney. He more than deserves it.

Rafa and his knees looked to be in fine form today. Very good movement and killer forehand from the Spaniard against Petzschner.

Fantastic blog Cheryl!!!! Loved every word of it!! Keep it going Rafa the "Nadal way!"

thanks, f4t. He really does look fit to me. Maybe a tad on the skinny side, but otherwise, healthy and happy.

I've seen some of the pictures on Rafa fan sites and he does look great! Am not surprised he looks thinner, but at least he is smiling and looking healthy. Your blog seems to be required reading on some of the Rafa fan sites and I'm sure it will spread even further. You also seem to have coined a new phrase... "the Nadal way" because everyone is using it on those sites--lol. You made many more new fans with this blog!!!

Well, that's unexpected. LOL. thanks again, f4t

yup..i second that...greatblog cheryl..u rock...and cant wait for rafa to win his qtr final! i am confident he wil win !

Lovely words CM. Some of that 'vulnerability' showing last night ... still a little soft-boiled I imagine. Flashes of brilliance though ... he'll be back.

Cmurray ,were you the reporter that told Rafa that glad to have you back in the interview room?:)

Rafael Nadal has equaled or set various records in tennis history.

1. Longest single-surface winning streak (clay): 81 matches (2005- 21 May 2007)
2. Winning the French Open at the first attempt. Tied with Mats Wilander (1982)
3. Only the third teenager in history (since 1973) to reach world no. 2
4. Most clay-court titles in a single year (eight in 2005)
5. Most consecutive clay court winning streak: 81
6. Most consecutive French Open titles: 4 tied with Björn Borg
7. Winning French Open and Wimbledon in the same year. Tied-three others in Open Era history.
8. Only male player to have won French Open, Wimbledon, and Olympic gold medal in the same year (2008)
9. Won most titles as a teenager: 16 tied with Björn Borg
10. Won 24 consecutive matches, the longest winning streak of any teenager in the open era, in 2005
11. Most consecutive French Open finals in the Open Era: 4 (tied with Borg, Lendl and Federer)
12. Tied with Boris Becker for the second-most Grand Slam titles in a period where the player was never ranked No.1 in the world (5); the record is seven, by Mats Wilander from the 1982 French Open through 1988 US Open

Alik, not that wasn't me. :) But fortunately, I was also not the person who asked him for the "200,000th time" about how hard courts are hard on the body. :D

It's sort of funny to see him....perturbed.

wow carrie:D you are starting to post like our friend Malt1:)good job!

carrie, that list is far shorter than Fed's list.. LOL

alik,
I found this on Rafa's website and as his fans are on a down at the moment I thought we need something to cheer us up. I hope this is the first and last time I am compared to malty, I can't think of anything worse.

As for you torres, this was not trying to have one up on Federer at all, what Federer has achieved has been well documented, and everyone knows he has achieved more than Rafa because he is much older than Rafa, and has been playing for longer.

Oh,Carrie i was only kidding ,comparing you to malt:) sorry.
thanks for posting those fact.
It is a hard time now for us but it is what it is.
it is not the end of the world.
Rafa will come back and thrill us with his brilliance again for sure... group hug:(

torres9, I notice that whenever Rafa is being praised by someone, you always try to say something negative about him and always bring up Fed as a comparison. Relax, nobody is questioning how good Fed is. This thread is about Rafa so naturually his fans will want to say all things nice about him. Will really appreciate that you refrain from posting negative things about Rafa so as not to upset the Rafa fans. Of course you may want to say that you have the freedom of posting whatever you want but please show some consideration for others. Thank you in advance!

Ok luckystar, I'll take your appreciation.

the wounded warrior is no. 3 now..........nd this stings me,hurts badly............murray is abt 600 pts ahead of rafael...........i hope rafa plays his best nd gets back to atleast his no. 2 position as of now

vamos!!!

You know, I don't think Rafa is quite as concerned about rankings as Roger is. He didn't seem at all put out at the prospect of being number 3. I think he knows that if he plays well, his ranking will follow suit.

cheryl,yes.i agree with you. he gave a recent interview on this. could you just clarify why you thought he was 'perturbed?' in your above post? did this relate to something else? Thanks.

Maxi - it was simply frustration at being asked a question which he has fielded probably every year since he has been playing tennis at the highest levels. Somebody asked him about whether hard courts were harder on his body than grass and clay. He said "I've answered this 200,000 times".

LOL. It's just funny to see him even mildly irritated. He's usually very patient.

It's also funny to look at the faces he makes as he listens for the questions. The way he raises his eyebrow, purses his lips, narrows his eyes or widens his eyes depending on the question and how much he understands what is asked--lol. He has the most expressive face of any of the players I think!

cheryl/ricky, what's going on with the livescores on this site? they haven't been working for 5 days now, so cant check any of the scores.

^^I noticed that too.I've came here several days now and no scores? what's up with that?

Here is part of a translation from a Brazilian press that speaks volumes about Rafa's confidence:
Quote:
"I think I am making a little more progress by day and today it was a very good match for me."
"Beating Tomas in this surface is such a victory to me, I am very happy for it. When I arrived here I really didn't expect to go this far but now I believe anything can happen"
"After a two months layoff playing matches like I did against PHM and Berdych in such high level tournaments is really good news. In normal conditions my goal coming here would be the title, but right now being in the semifinals is already perfecto to me because it is giving me confidence for USO"

http://www2.uol.com.br/tenisbrasil/diaa ... u41740.htm

rafa will need to do just 1 step better than blandy at the USO to regain his #2 ranking. i did the math, adding cincinnati points (equal) and removing USO 2008 points. there will be only 85 points separating them when USO 2009 points are added.

Blandy. LOL.

stu, there are also the Madrid points to come off on Oct 17th, when Andy's got 550 more points to lose than Rafa.

I watched Rafa/Djoko SF again and it's not as bad as it looked live when Djoko seemed to blast Rafa off the court, Rafa made some unusual UE with his bread and butter forehands, if he could iron those out and improve on his serve, anything is possible.

VAMOS RAFA!

I think the reason why Rafa and Djoker are so even in their matches is because Rafa's forehand doesn't do too much damage to DJokovic superb backhand. When they meet, it is always and intense battle

I almost missed this article. Fabulous work, Cheryl! I agree completely. I was happy to see Rafa make it far at the US open, losing to the champion, so soon after his injury. I'm confident that he will be as good as new by the 2010 clay and grass seasons. I find clay and grass court tennis far more spectacular and fun to watch with the sliding and long rallies the spectator gets a lot more out of it, so I look forward to that. Thanks again!