The king of clay is back with a bang!

ricky was spot on..nadal slaughtered tomas !! and that is what i ws thinking too..vamos rafa u are the king of clay and get to ur absolute best now :D

it was a great win, but nothing rafa does will ever justify his loss to soderling at the french.
it was the most disgusting and disgraceful show by one of the greats going for an alltime record against a journeyman .
to lose to soderling whatever the reason is just absolutely unacceptable.
soderling is a talentless, mindless ballbashing mug.

nadal at 50% should beat soderling on roland garros center court clay anyday.

no matter whatever happens to rafas career from now on, that loss to soderling will be a stain on rafas career forever, he will be reminded of it and it has damaged his reputation of being the greatest ever claycourter.

the way he played that day, it was not how champions perform when they are pushed to the limit, it was a gutless and listless performance.

when federer had mono and was pushed to the limit by tipsarevic at the aussie open 2008, fed never gave up, he fought and found a way to win even when he was playing poorly and tipsarevic was playing unbelievable tennis.

thats the difference between all time greats and very good players.

and it was not like he was injured, because he thrashed hewitt in the round before he faced soderling. so nothing was wrong with him, and hewitt was playing very well.

these davis cup clay wins and masters series clay wins are irrelevant when u cant win roland garros. rafas clay season is determined whether he likes it or not by whether he wins or loses the french open.

so my summary of rafas season, is that he failed, regardless of the aussie open win.

atr: seriously? why should he have to justify his loss to soderling at the french? he was injured. the sod was on fire. simple. get over it

attacking, you remind me of some other posters on other tennis sites...always aggressively nasty about Rafa, as if you were secretly afraid of him. I suspect, indeed, you're wearing your heart on your sleeve here.

Don't worry about a thing: it's perfectly OK that Roger lost a Slam to Rafa last year (and lost another one to Del Potro). We still love Roger. He's still amazing! And so, dear attacking, is Rafa.

Nadal was not injured.. He was just outplayed by a very good Sodeling..

@torres....thats an extremely invalid statement mate...nadal was BADLY injured...then what made him skip queens and wimb after that mtch??? i mean if he was fine in that mtch then what happened suddenly???!! he was injured after madrid but wws reluctant to reveal it as he knws that wud have made headlines...the guy ws badly injured ,ws playing in pain as explained by medical reports afterwards...his doctor said that nadal wasnot able to make agressive lunges and i dnt remember the exact words ..they are to hilite that rafa'a agression was missing .....plus now u can see LOADS of JOURNALISTS simply stating NADAL lost at RG due to injury....but u r rite when u say a very good soderling..indeed he was...even an injured rafa was a gigantic force there...weldun robin...so there are always multiple reasons involved....soderling's xcellent play...nadal's injury( a main reason)...and may b loss of concentration (not sure abt this tho) parents seperating and family maters..so on.....

Attacking....dude steffi graffe lost to a player in the first rnd of wimb !!! dnt remember the year but does that put any stain on her career?? NO !!!
and abt making an analogy to federer and saying he didnt give up thats riduculous..nadal is the best fighter out there with that never-say-die attitude! roger is totally great in that thing but rafa is rafa there...and yes he was affected by mono BUT remember injures weaken ur play in TWO WAYS
1. their physical and external effects on the player that affect his movement and everythng
2.When a player knws he is injured he can lose concentration and becum very negative when facing crucial moments in the match.."may b i m nt gona win this time becoz m nt 100% ..bla bla " and when u dont knw abt an injury its a bit of an adv which roger had with that mono...it had weakened him by eating away energy but atleast roger was not aware that he was injured! he came to know later on that he had mono!!!

Old news guys. Let sleeping dogs lie. Let's see what next year brings.

I wouldnt wish to reply to ATRs comment. every now and then he gets sadist pleasure in irritating Rafa and tennis fans. IT's SICK!

@atul

what is so irritating about stating facts?
that performace against soderling at the french was a gutless and spineless performance, and no sugar coating can save that disgrace.

i dont get pleasure in irritating anyone, its just that anytime i or anyone even remotely critisizes ur god rafa, we get abused.

its like rafa is not allowed to be critisized by anyone.

and im not backing down from what i said, he should NEVER EVER have lost to soderling at the french, no excuses at all.

And Rafa definitely, no matter what, will never ever lose to Soderling on clay again! Atr: I see why you get irritated at Rafa for losing to Soderling, I do feel the same! I am sure he will never let it happen again, not on clay for sure! He is far better than Sod on clay and he should never let himself be humiliated in the way he was at the French! It should all be behind him now...I expect Rafa to run over his opponents at French 2010! Anything less than that will be considered a failure...

Well Rafa has to lose at the French Open someday. I think many of us felt irritated that Rafa lost to Soderling, of all people; had he lost to Fed, I think many of us still can accept it. In fact I blame Rafa and his team for the lost and I initially find it hard to swallow as well, so I can understand where attacking is coming from. However, after I've read some of his interviews, I begin to accept his lost. From one of his interviews, he mentioned that in arriving at the clay court season, starting from Monte Carlo, he felt sick of life in general, as 1) he has to deal with his family issue, 2) he has his knee issues & 3) he felt overwhelmed at the beginning of the clay court season as he had so many points to defend. Credit to him, even having to deal with so many problems, he still manage to fight hard, at least 3 times against Nole, and manage to win MC, Barcelona and Rome. I felt that that match against Nole at Madrid is the one that had led to his downfall at RG. Also Soderling did come with and played a perfect game plan and he was determined to beat Rafa. Rafa did fight, but that was not enough. Compared to Fed's match against Tipsy last year at the AO, Rafa has more complicated issues to deal with at the RG this year, while Fed had only health issue.

I think we shouldn't be too harsh on Rafa, for emotional issues can be hard to deal with at times, and Rafa is still a young guy. We can only hope that he's back to his normal self now and that team Rafa will plan his next year's schedule properly so that he will not be so stressed up during the year.

i think we should all try and give our favourite players more credit. They are grown men,they (more than anyone else) will know whether they are fit enough to enter a tournament and I am talking about physically fit,mentally fit, emotionally fit. They are all used to travelling, the stresses and strains that brings, with being away from family and friends. Rafa has never made excuses for losing tournaments before, and so I dont think his fans should do it for him. It is simple. He lost to soderling on that day, he was outplayed at that moment. He is still the best on clay and no one can deny that,just every now and again, he will be beaten.Fed fought for the trophy,it wasnt handed to him,go watch the FO all over again and see how he got through to the final. He worked hard for it. Rafa did not bring his A game that day.that was all.stop wrapping rafa up in cotton wool.he wont thank you for it.he is a warrior of the game.

you guys are still talking about the same old thing.why can't you just analysis Rafa's match against berdych?

what's all of this old stuff got to do with what's happen now.
People can't even be happy here for rafa's victory over berd without someone bringing up something that has nothing to do with the DC Final.

are some of you forever going to bring up when rafa got beat on clay.He knows it,his fans know it,he**,the whole tennis world knows it! I just don't understand some of you some times:(

all players have been beaten before, but no one keeps bringing it back up forever.Are people still talking about fed crying and cilic beating murray at the US Open or Novak retiring from the heat in AO,..NO! cause people move on and let things gooooo!

Let rafa have his time of happiness.He deserves it.Great job rafa !

?You have to be sure to enjoy these moments when they happen because you don't know when the next victory will come.'' quote from Rafa?s interview after the DC win. Alik: nobody loves and honors Rafa more than us, his real fans! It is not that we are dragging old issues; it is just that in retrospective of his 2009 season we try to analyze and justify events, matches and their outcomes, all in our wisdom to provoke if not even possible to influence at least some of his future decisions. You see, I do not like Rafa making statements where he seems insecure of the future victories as he did in this interview. He is young, he is one of the best players ever and he should not underestimate himself; he has to be determined and self-confident as he has been before! He is the King of Clay! Most of the experts count him to be the best ever on clay! And if we say that losing French Open in 2010 is out of question we do it for reason! We have arguments and we believe in Rafa! He can and he will win it! Let us just wish him good rest, enjoyable time with his family and friends, valuable practice time and to stay healthy and strong! Love you, Rafa!

ATR: have copy pasted what you said about Soderling in one of your earlier post.
"to lose to soderling whatever the reason is just absolutely unacceptable.
soderling is a talentless, mindless ballbashing mug".

you claim to be the most knowledgable tennis fan at TT and this is what you have to say about a top 10 player - "a talentless, mindless ballbashing mug"?
Thats really an insult to tennis. You only have to have a hidden agenda of irritaing tennis fans by writing such ridiculous stuff.

Rafa at 50% should beat Soderling? I am no fan of Soderling but I believe that nobody playing presently can do that on any surface. Anybody playing at 50% will lose in straight sets to Soderling even if that person in Federer.

maxi, I'm not sure if you are referring to my post or to others. When I say Rafa has both emotional and physical problems, that should not be seen as excuses but those are valid reasons. Of course those reasons plus Soderling playing with a perfect game plan have contributed to Rafa's loss at the FO this year. As you have mentioned, Rafa when he is playing his A game, is clearly the best clay court player out there, not even Fed the 2nd best clay court player can beat Rafa's 'A' game. I think not even Soderling's perfect game plan with perfect execution can beat Rafa's 'A' game.

I was responding to attacking's post, which seems rather harsh on Rafa, so I gave my take on the situation by offering some thoughts after reading about Rafa's interviews. Rafa was having his bad patches of his life during that period and it was not surprising that he couldn't bring his 'A' game to the FO. I think that shouldn't be taken as excuses, rather more like finding out why Rafa lost.

Anyway, professional athletes are also human beings, so they are also subjected to the same kind of emotional issues that many of us have to face. Furthermore, many of them are still young, in their early twenties, so they need time to learn and adjust. The most important thing is that they learn to overcome the problems and move ahead.

Soderling is not a talntlss ballbashing mug. The guy beat Rafa convincingly twice already. And he also has beaten Djoker and some notable names this year.

The guy went far in Slams and ran into the Fed so many times.

He wasnt lucky beating Rafa in RG becoz after that he went on to beat some other guys and went to the final.

luckystar, i wasnt referring to your post,i was giving my opinion.

OK maxi noted & thanks.