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  • Rafael Nadal vs. Carlos Moya

    5/16/08 1:43 AM | Cheryl Murray
    - Good friends and Davis Cup teammates Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya play each other for the eighth time on Friday in the quarterfinals.

    Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya have a long history together. They are both from the small island of Mallorca; Nadal essentially grew up under the tutelage of Moya. It is fitting somehow that they meet again at the very tournament where the student first beat the master. In 2003, Rafael Nadal was sixteen years old, a relative unknown and ranked eighty-seven in the world; Carlos Moya was ranked four and was a former Roland Garros champion. Nadal beat him in straight sets.

    Now, of course, it is Nadal who is the master. He is considered one of the great clay courters of all time at not quite twenty-two years of age. He already has two clay titles to his name this year, winning in Monte Carlo and Barcelona. Juan Carlos Ferrero gave him an early round exit in Rome last week, but he proved in his match against Andy Murray on Thursday that his form is as good as ever. He beat the Scotsman 6-3, 6-2 in a superb display of tennis.

    Carlos Moya reaches his first quarterfinal since Costa do Sauipe in February. Before this week, Moya suffered a string of first and second round losses. He comes into the match with Nadal as the heavy favorite. The veteran has only managed to beat Nadal once on clay, and that was also in 2003. They played an epic match against each other in the Chennai semi-finals, in which Nadal just squeaked the win in a third set tie-breaker.

    Nadal is the better mover of the two, even with a partially healed blister on his foot, and his forehand is deadly on clay. For Moya to have any chance in the match, he will need to tighten up his game considerably and eliminate the unforced errors that tend to creep into his game. Nadal in two.

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