Match report

Rafael Nadal © Tennistalk.com
ATP Masters Series Madrid
2nd round
10/14/08 1 2 3 Tot
es  Rafael Nadal 7 3 6 2
lv  Ernests Gulbis 5 6 3 1
Ernests Gulbis © Tennistalk.com

  • Madrid - Nadal shakes off the rust, gets past Gulbis

    10/15/08 4:44 AM | Cheryl Murray
    Rafael Nadal faced a difficult opening round opponent in Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis. Coming back from several weeks’ rest, the Spaniard is rarely at his best.

    Ernests Gulbis played this second round match with moments of brilliance interrupted by periods of shockingly bad tennis. Rafael Nadal was indeed rusty. The world number one has not played a full tournament since the US Open a month ago, and his play on Tuesday reflected this. Nadal’s game was riddled with errors, 27 in total, and the Spaniard hit just 11 winners.

    At times in the match, Gulbis looked as if he might pull a huge upset and take out Nadal. The young Latvian smacked a whopping 49 winners over the course of the three sets played. He also donated 62 unforced errors. The first set was quite closely contested. The break of serve that gave Nadal the set came in the last moments of the set.

    A focused Gulbis came out strong in the second set. He kept Nadal on his heels and capitalized on the unusual number of unforced errors that came off the Spaniard’s racquet. A single break of serve early in the set was enough for Gulbis to take the second set and level the match.

    Nadal called the trainer at the start of the third set, to have treatment on his thigh, but the injury did not appear severe. Gulbis had a break point chance that he was unable to convert. Perhaps still struggling mentally from the missed opportunity, he lost focus in his own service game. Nadal charged out to a 0-40 lead, and got the match-winning break of serve.

    The Spaniard will face the tough Frenchman Richard Gasquet in the third round.

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Comments

It is just a matter of time before Gulbis beats Nadal. He always troubles him but plays far to erratic on big points. He has exactly the game to beat Nadal, and I think he will... maybe sometime around May next year.

kaitepai , 10/15/08 11:27 PM


It's just a matter of time before Gulbis starts winning, not specifically against Nadal.

It's impossible to know when - if ever - he will beat Nadal or even play against him again. All depends on the draw. It certainly won't be May, though, since Nadal will be back on clay at that point.

RickyDimon , 10/16/08 2:05 AM


With apologies for being pedantic, Ricky, if Gulbis improves to the point where he beats every other opponent, and Nadal similarly loses to no-one else, they will inevitably meet in every tournament they both play in, regardless of the draw.

Now to a question. Cheryl, you provided the Winner and UE stats for both players. As these statistics are not shown on the ATP scoreboard, where did you get them from ? I'd like to know how to get hold of exhaustive statistics for matches as I'm working on the idea of generating bar chars on a web page showing match overviews and also game by game breakdowns of each set. Even a casual glance at such charts would then make it glaringly obvious when, and the circumstances in which Gulbis goes into meltdown.

lwalters , 10/16/08 11:05 AM


Lloyd, that will never happen.

Gulbis and Nadal played twice this year, both in second-round matches. The chances of them playing a lot of times next year are extremely slim and when they occur - if ever - is impossible to predict. Hence it is impossible to predict when Gulbis will beat Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, or anyone else.

RickyDimon , 10/16/08 2:39 PM


Also I don't think you can get those kinds of stats anywhere. TennisChannel shows them on the screen after the match, but that's it. I haven't seen any other stats than the ones ATP Tennis provides, which are just serve statistics.

RickyDimon , 10/16/08 3:03 PM


Ricky, I apologise for not making myself absolutely clear.

I was referring to the improbability of your "If ever", and not making any predictions as to what will happen. My qualified statement is irrefutably true.

So here's a qualified guess: IF Gulbis has reached the top twenty by the end of 2009, he will probably have played Nadal at least two or three more times by then.

lwalters , 10/16/08 7:15 PM


Lloyd, that makes sense.

What would not make sense is if someone said, for example, "I think Robredo will finally get over the hump against Roddick and beat him in September of 2010."

RickyDimon , 10/16/08 7:52 PM


Maybe not May exactly, could be first week of June. Just have a feeling. I'm a pretty good guesser.

kaitepai , 10/16/08 11:44 PM


lwalters - You are correct that the ATP site doesn't give winners/errors. I don't understand for the life of me why they would not include those statistics, but they don't. I get the data from the match statistics that are shown on the Tennis Channel after a match is played.

cherylmurray , 10/17/08 2:10 AM



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