So he is playing Bangkok, Tokyo and then Shanghai? Three consecutive weeks on the hard courts? What's he thinking? So his knees won't suffer anymore after the special knee treatments he had undergone? I thought he had learned his lesson well? Well maybe not!

Easy, luckystar. Maybe these treatments have left Rafa very optimistic.

(And perhaps it's a regular treatment. I have chronic knees - though I don't suffer from what Rafa has - and I get them.)

Are you sure Tokyo is on the schedule?

Yes Mara, he will be in Tokyo instead of Beijing this year. It's a 500 event, Bangkok is a 250 event. In fact he has done only one 500 event so far, ie Monte Carlo, so he is short of three. Even after Tokyo, he is still short of two, so why Bangkok? Unless ATP allow him to take that as a 500 event, if not why doesn't he consider Valencia, a 500 event? Well unless he has to fulfill his promise to the Bangkok tournament, or maybe they are paying him handsome appearance fees.

Nadal's commitment to play Bangkok this year after having to cancel twice in the last three years is testament to the character of the man. He obviously feels he has let the tournament down in the past and wants to do the right thing by them. Congratulations to him for that.

Remember also that while Bangkok is a hard court, it's indoor so it's on a wood base not a concrete court. Also he'll have a bye in the first round so maximum number of matches he'll play is four.

Re. tournaments counting towards ranking, I think if he doesn't play the full complement of 500 events he can count points from a 250 instead.

I hope you are right, ie they count it as a 500 event. Still three tournaments in three weeks, and not on clay? Fingers crossed that he'll be fine, as don't forget, two weeks after all these, he still has the Paris Masters and the WTF after one week's break. All in all eight hard court events from Aug to Nov.

i'm with luckystar...a little too many for my liking. but he's a different person from last year in that if he feels unfit/fatigued to go into a tourney, i think he'll pull out (i.e. barca)...so let's hope he takes care of those knees first and foremost!

Also, he is one player that complains about too many hard court mandatory events during the season and yet he keeps appearing at these hard court events, mandatory or not. Why complain in the first place and invites controversies and criticisms later on? He is not doing himself any favor should he get injured and definitely not helping his course in the fight against too many hard court events. For whatever reasons he is playing the hard court events now, I 'm one who
thinks it's unwise. I'll remain critical of it even though I'm his fan, and will not support him blindly.

@luckystar--MONTE CARLO is not a 500 pt event!!

rafa has played no 500 pt events this year....he is obliged to play 4 every year i think...according to atp guidelines

vrael, even though MC is a 1000 event, it is not mandatory, hence you see players skipping it. However, those who played can take it as a 500 event obligation, though they get the normal points awarded for a masters 1000 tournament. So technically, Rafa has three more 500 events to play. The points awarded for DC ties live matches won can also be used to make up for one 500 event obligation. Rafa has none this year, the 70 points he had was from last year and will be dropped by end of the year. So, Rafa is still short of 3; even if he can't fulfilled his obligations, at most he gets zero points for these and would not be penalized further.

MC can go for a 500 pt event.....thts new to me!!

regarding the 3 "500" tourny's left for rafa....id rather see him play only 2 out of these....uso and london must be the priority for rafa....

Yes vrael, since MC becomes non mandatory, it can be taken as a 500 point event, even though points awarded are the same as a masters event.

Rafa can just play one more 500 event, and forget about the other two, as he'll only get zero point for that; it won't affect him much as I think he has enough points to let him end the year as no.1. If I were him, I'll either play Bangkok, then Shanghai (skip Tokyo) and then Valencia, followed by Paris and finally WTF; OR I'll forget Bangkok, go for Tokyo,Shanghai, Paris, WTF (then go to Bangkok next year to fulfill his obligations to the tournament directors there). Why try to do so many things at one time, run the risk of tiring himself and costing him the chance of winning the bigger tournaments like the masters and the WTF? Worst still, why risk injuring himself again? I can never understand how he and his team think, never will, I'm afraid! Let's hope nothing goes wrong for him. Whatever happens, he bears his own responsibilities, and I hope he doesn't complain about the hard courts anymore, so as not to run into any contention.

@luckystar , 7/23/10 9:08 AM
Rafa has 70 points from Davis Cup of THIS year (09.07). Probably because of being included in the team.
So, he has to play in two more 500-point tournaments, one of which must be after the US Open.

No Augustinea, that 70 points are from last year's final, remember he played and won one live rubber against Tomas Berdych? If you didn't play any live rubber, you won't have any point, and you must win a live rubber to get points. Also the points awarded depend on which stage of the DC tie you are at. Rafa had played in the first round against Serbia last year, won two live rubber matches, against Nole and against Tipsy, so he had 80 points (40 each live match), so last year he had 150 points from DC. This year, that 80 points had dropped off as he did not play any DC match so far, and since Spain was knocked out by France, Rafa won't have any chance of playing any DC match this year, so his remaining 70 points will be dropped off by end of the year.

@luckystar , 7/23/10 1:14 PM
Yes, I was wrong. I read the ATP-points rules. The ranking table of ATP shows the points accumulated for all Davis Cup events during 52 weeks and only the date of the LAST Davis Cup event (no matter a player played or not this last one). Rafa earned his 70 points in December (04 - 06) last year and he will lose them at the same stage this year.

luckystar,
I knew that MC counted as a 500 point event last year, but I thought they fixed that and starting this year it counted as a non-mandatory 1000 event.

No, last year MC was already a non-mandatory event, and was counted as a 500 event. ATP not changing that, you can do a check on those players, esp those Spanish ones who played at MC, you'll notice that under the countable 500 events category, there are only three items maximum if they participate in MC.

I can appreciate the concern about Rafa not overdoing it with too many tournaments in the hardcourt season. However, I think that he and his team have shown that they are willing to pull out of a tournament if necessary, or adjust his schedule to protect his knees. I don't know if any of this is set in stone. Rafa does have certain obligations and mandatory tournaments. He and his team will have to figure it out, but in no way do I think that they will not make his knees a priority. Let's give them some credit for pulling out of Barcelona and dropping 500 points, Rafa's home tournament. That must have been hard, but it was exactly the right strategy to get him through the clay court season.

The key is to avoid the back-to-back tournaments without any rest in between, the relentless pounding without any rest for his knees. I believe that Rafa will do the right thing when it comes down to it. If his knees are bothering him at some point or start to act up, then he will not push it. He certainly doesn't want to get into the same situation that he was in last year.

For now I will give Rafa and his people the benefit of the doubt to schedule wisely and with his precious knees uppermost in their minds.

This is the last time I'll comment on this issue. If I'm not wrong, he had committed to play in Tokyo instead of Beijing this year. Now he commit himself to Bangkok, which is one week earlier than the Tokyo tournament, and this is a 250 event (he had already fulfilled his obligation to 250 events- at Doha and at Queens this year). Immediately after these two tournaments, he has to play Shanghai, a mandatory Masters event.

He'll be playing for consecutive three weeks, ie back to back, so where is the one week break in between tournaments? If he has the intention to pull out from tournaments, why commit in the first place, knowing that playing for consecutive weeks on the hard courts may cause problems to his knees? Why not plan properly and avoid pulling out from tournaments, so that paying fans won't be disappointed?

BTW, I think he pulled out from Barcelona because he was undergoing the knee treatment on his left knee then. Who knows if not for that treatment, he might end up playing Barcelona and that meant playing for three consecutive weeks. It seems he is placing all his hopes on this special knee treatment and expect it to perform miracles on his knees. I certainly hope that he'll not be disappointed and miracles do happen for him and his knees. Still, why take chances and take things, specifically his knees, for granted and put them to the weekly grind unnecessarily? God bless the boy!

luckystar: i agree with everything you say. it's a bit of a roller coaster ride with rafa and his team. somethimes you feel relieved they learnt their lesson, than next minute you think WTF...didn't they learn anything? i also wondered at the time if not for the knee treatment if he would really have pulled out of barca but he cited fatigued too (which surprised me given the short time he spent on court and straight sets wins he had) and wanting to rest before rome so i took it to be both. but unnecessarily playing so many HCs after complaining about it doesn't make sense. even if miracle knee treatment works, he could still end up fatigued by the time USO and WTF come around. if it does happen, he better not complain as he'll have no one to blame but himself. however, i'm going to take solace from the fact that he had all the clay tournies on his shcedule leading up to FO but did pull out of barca last minute so i hope he takes the same approach and pulls out of a tourney if he comes to think it's vital.

homos: it's all very interesting. He's only just had more knee treatment hasn't he, it's why he didn't play Davis cup? He must be VERY confident in it, that's all I can say!

that's right deuce, he skipped DC for more treatment! or perhaps he skipped DC in favour of this swing..?? who knows what goes on in the boy's head :P

Early articles regarding Rafa's treatment indicated that he had his left knee treated between Miami and MC. He then skipped Barca to give the knees a rest and to see if the treatment was being effective.

rafa had treatment to his left knee AFTER monte carlo not before, that's why he skipped MC. and it was not enough time to treat his right knee as well so he only did his left but an assessment of his right knee was carried out.


Nadal said he received treatment on his left knee after winning the title on clay at Monte Carlo later in April, but said he did not have time to have the same procedure done on his right knee.
http://blog.taragana.com/sports/2010/06/27/rafael-nadal-says-his-rig ht-knee-feels-good-good-not-bad-after-practice-session-sunday-116067/



After Monte Carlo, I didn't play Barcelona because I had to do a treatment, new treatment.?
http://www.daviscup.com/news/newsarticle.asp?articleid=17 056

I will make my last comment on this issue. It would be nice if people would address me directly, instead of disagreeing without giving me the courtesy of doing it to me by name.

We are all entitled to our opinions. If some want to think that Rafa is deliberately out to destroy his knees and feel the need to incessantly repeat the same things over and over, then so be it.

For what it's worth, I don't feel that I follow Rafa blindly, nor do I appreciate the implication that this is the case. I cannot think of one reason why Rafa would endanger the health of his knees. He wants to play and be able to keep on winning.

If some think they know Rafa and what is in his mind, that good for them. I am just going to wait and see if he actually plays for three straight weeks. If it comes to pass, then I will have something to say about it.

Maybe some here should send Rafa a message telling him how to schedule his hard court season, since they know so much about it. For now, I am done with this discussion, too.

I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that Rafa won't play Tokyo this year. Can't remember where though. Tokyo and Beijing out, and he'll be playing Bangkok and Shanghai. I think that's what will eventually happen although we'll have to wait and see.

I think this year Rafa is very sensitive to his knee issues. I think it's finally sunk in that he cannot continue to play through his pain barrier all the time, he has to rest them as often as he can get away with. I'm confident he'll schedule himself properly, current tournament listings notwithstanding.