Match report

Andreas Beck © Tennistalk.com
Wimbledon
1st round
6/24/08 1 2 3 Tot
de  Andreas Beck 4 4 6 0
es  Rafael Nadal 6 6 7 7 3
Rafael Nadal © Tennistalk.com

  • Rafael Nadal serves his way into round two

    6/24/08 8:58 PM | Cheryl Murray
    Rafael Nadal's serve is rarely touted as a big weapon. He generally gets a large percentage of first serves in (often over 70%) and uses the serve to set up a point, not to win one staight out. Not so in his match on Tuesday against Andreas Beck of Germany.

    Nadal smacked seventeen aces, one less than his career high of 18 that he hit against Andre Agassi at Wimbledon in 2006.

    So dominant was the Spaniard on his own serve, that he never faced a break point. His return game was somewhat less impressive. Beck served smart, sending serve after serve into the body of Nadal. Until 3-3 in the first set, Nadal had made no in-roads at all on Beck's serve. He couldn't seem to get out of the way of the ball and ended up shanking returns instead of blocking them back in play as he is usually able to do. At 3-3, however Nadal got his first look on Beck's serve. A few loose points from the German set up a break point chance for Nadal. As he always does, Nadal kicked it up a notch for the break point. He played some incredible defense and secured the break.

    The fans and the Nadal camp alike had a bit of a scare at the end of the first set. Nadal put his hand down on the court to steady himself and seemed to jam his hand. He spent a few minutes shaking it, but ultimately decided not to call the trainer. The hand appeared to be fine for the rest of the match.

    The second set played similarly to the first. Nadal held his own serve with ease, and broke at 1-1 for the break lead, which he held to take the set at 6-4.

    Beck put in a good effort in the third. Nadal had a pair of break point chances at 1-1, but this time fails to convert. Some excellent serving got Beck out of trouble, though he still made no progress on Nadal's serve. The German was able to force a tie breaker, but Nadal was just too strong. Beck did not win a single point in the tie breaker.

    Nadal gets the tricky Latvian Ernests Gulbis in round two.

  • Thumbs up

    All credit to Andreas Beck for making the match at least somewhat competitive.

  • Thumbs down

    This was a good match - I have no complaints about it.

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