Peculiar season so far for Spanish legend Rafael Nadal. His 20-5 match record leaves him without a single title to display as the half of 2019 draws quickly to a close.
The World No. 2, whose favourite court surface has apparently not brought him luck yet, was outed of three Master 1000 semifinals out of three: in Indian Wells by walk over before facing Roger Federer, in Monte Carlo by Fognini in a straight 4-6 4-6, and in Madrid by Stefanos Tsitsipas in a contended 4-6 6-2 3-6 match.
For the Spaniard, who is used to have some major victory to celebrate at this time of the year, statistics do not look too good. However, Nadal remained positive in his interview to L’Equipe,
“I feel good. This year, I’ve missed some tournaments and when I’ve played, I wasn’t far from winning. I didn’t play good enough to win, but I didn’t play bad. Since Indian Wells, I reached four consecutive semifinals. The matches I’ve lost, I deserved to lose. In my opinion, the only one I deserved to win was the one against Kyrgios in Acapulco.”
About his upcoming debut at the 2019 Rome Open, he added, “Here, I have another occasion to do my best. [...] I am glad to be back to Rome, a special place for me. [...] Let’s see if I am ready to play at the level I wish to.”
Regarding a possible semifinal match against Roger Federer, Nadal remained quite vague, “I know that I will first play against Gasquet or Chardy. The rest doesn’t matter to me for now.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/30sX5EC
No comments:
Post a Comment