Rafael Nadal

Can a single point, or series of points, have a career-shaping influence on a player? Guillermo Coria might say so, for he'll forever wonder what might have been had he converted either of those two match points he held against Gaston Gaudio in the 2004 French Open final. You'll remember that the loss appeared to have a devastating effect on Coria, and played a role in driving him into a premature retirement.

You're Rafael Nadal and you're in hell. Your hell is knowing that Novak Djokovic, the man in front of you, the man who took your No. 1 ranking from you, has now beaten you seven straight times, all of them in finals, the last three in Grand Slams. Your hell is knowing that the old conventions, which were good enough to beat back Roger Federer and Andy Murray, and won you 10 major titles, do not work against this one opponent. Your hell is knowing that today Novak Djokovic is a better tennis player than you.

Rafa Nadal issued a statement on Thursday saying he had met all his fiscal obligations after a Spanish website published details about several companies linked to the world No 2 it said had been set up to drastically trim his tax bill.

The website Primeran (www.primeran.com) said the companies had been created with their domicile in the Basque region to take advantage of special tax rules designed to help local firms and had been used to radically cut the amount of tax paid on income from Nadal's image rights.

One of the ranking theories of superiority, especially in head-to-head results, generates from a fundamental disbelief that player A can and should regularly beat player B.

Then, when player B whups up on player A in what some—mostly rabid fans of, and apologists for, player A—insist is an extra-athletic or meta-strategic way, player B is said to "be in player A's head."

Head of the Universe

Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic will not play for Serbia in the first round of this year's Davis Cup.

When Serbia announced their team ahead of Tuesday's deadline, the world number one, who also missed last year's first round, was not on their list.

The 2010 winners will instead by led against Sweden in Nis by world number nine Janko Tipsarevic. Viktor Troicki, Ilija Bozoljac and Nenad Zimonjic make up the side.

While half the planet was commenting one of the most riveting tennis matches ever, Rafael Nadal was sound asleep in his hotel room in hot and humid Melbourne.

Well after midday, the world's No 2 in tennis was finally able to rest after experiencing a paradoxical defeat, which smacked of victory at the same time.

Here we thought two classic semifinal matchups at the Australian Open were enough. Those were mere appetizers.

Nothing could have prepared us for Sunday's final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

What They Said

Submitted by dgec on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 20:02.

TAGS:

• Australian Open
• Bethanie Mattek-Sands
• Novak Djokovic
• Rafael Nadal

Author:

espn.co.uk

An emotional Novak Djokovic rated his his Australian Open win as one of the greatest victories of his career, battling for nearly six hours before triumphing 5-7 6-4 6-2 6-7(5) 7-5. It was 1:30am local time when the match finished, but Rod Laver Arena was still packed as the crowd witnessed the longest grand slam final of the Open era.

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Murray can end season as No. 1 - Nadal

Submitted by dgec on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 12:06.

TAGS:

• Rafael Nadal
• Andy Murray

Author:

espn.co.uk

Rafael Nadal feels Andy Murray could end 2012 as the world's top-ranked player, despite the Scot suffering another grand-slam heartbreak at the Australian Open on Friday.

Murray lost at the semi-final stage to Novak Djokovic, coming off second best following a five-set battle that lasted ten minutes short of five hours. The British No. 1 has now reached at least the semi of each of the last five slams, yet is still to lift any of the trophies.

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