Australian Open: Rafael Nadal

By Haruka




Alright. I spent a long time thinking about Rafael Nadal's match against Fernando Gonzalez. There were several things that just struck me wrong as I watched the match and the longer I thought about it the more the several things bothered me. First off I want to say Gonzalez simply outplayed Nadal. He knew what shots to hit, when to hit them how to hit them, and when and where to crush Nadal's confidence.

Nadal and Coaching

The thing that immediately struck me as odd was the body language of Nadal. From the first point, he looked almost shocked. It was almost as if he ignored all of Gonzalez's results and instead thought he would have to play his normal brand of tennis to beat him.


What was even more shocking was Toni Nadal's reaction to the match. He seemed completely indifferent to the match. He did not seem remotely interested in how is nephew was playing or why Nadal was being completely outclassed. It was almost like he himself did not remotely have an idea on how to take out Gonzalez or whatever plan he might have had Nadal was perhaps too arrogent to take it.


Whatever the reason, Rafael Nadal lost his very good chance to win the Australian. With Roger losing to Andy Roddick in an exhibition and his streaky match play, he could have made it to the final. He has the rest of his year cut out for him and even though he gained points in the Australian Open he has a tough clay court season ahead of him and has to defend his Wimbledon points. And after all of that, he somehow has to learn to do a better job of performing at the US Open. Though he is 2000 points ahead of his closest rival, Federer's gap is only widening. And as the only real point threatening player, Nadal needs to step it up. And a nice place to start is his confidence.