rafa Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Indian Wells Men's Draw Is One Big Clusterfuck
Today, out in the Coachella Valley, the Indian Wells Masters will begin. It’s the highest-profile tennis tournament in the world after the four Grand Slams, dropping a fat bounty of 1000 ranking points on its winners. Everyone in the tennis universe should be excited, except for Serena Williams and ...
Is Uncle Toni, Rafael Nadal's Longtime Coach, Really Cool With Stepping Down?<em></em>
Rafael Nadal will split ways with his longtime coach, Uncle Toni, at the end of the 2017 season, according to an interview Toni Nadal gave to the website Il Tennis Italiano over the weekend. Instead of traveling with his nephew, Toni Nadal said he will spend next season overseeing the Nadals’ tenni...
Science! Shows That Roger Federer's Backhand In Fact Defeated Rafael Nadal
Yesterday we argued that Federer’s unusually strong backhand anchored his Australian Open win over Rafael Nadal, and today we found a startling statistical basis for that claim. It comes courtesy of the always helpful Jeff Sackmann at TennisAbstract. Relative to other sports, tennis remains fairly d...
Roger Federer Played Free And Gave His Archrival The Back Of His Hand<em></em>
“I’m a different player due to Rafa’s presence,” Roger Federer said in a 2015 press conference, and if you needed it, yesterday’s 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 Australian Open win offered the clearest possible evidence. When your defensive-genius nemesis applies crushing pressure on you for more than a de...
Roger Federer Wins Australian Open For First Grand Slam Title In Five Years
Thirty-five-year old Roger Federer took down old rival Rafael Nadal in five sets to win the Australian Open—his 18th Grand Slam title, but his first in five years. ...
Roger Federer And Rafael Nadal Will Face Off In A Throwback Australian Open Final
This photo’s from 2005—they were about to meet in a Grand Slam for the first time, the 2005 French Open, a semifinal match Rafael Nadal won before claiming the title, his first of many. They’d then spend about a decade at the top of the game, sucking up all the available oxygen, dominating all major...
Now It's Just Rafael Nadal And A Bunch Of Gorgeous One-Handers
Rafael Nadal dug around and exploited two glitches in the Milos Raonic serving machine—two successfully converted break points, that is—to win his Australian Open quarterfinal 6-4, 7-6 (7), 6-4. And now he’s surveying a field full of the prettiest one-handed backhands in all the land. Roger Federer’...
Rafael Nadal Turned Off The Gael Monfils Show
Rafael Nadal put up a sweat-saturated 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 performance to end Gael Monfils’s run at the fourth round of the Australian Open. Through the first two sets it looked like old-school Nadal dominance. Both sixth seed Monfils and ninth seed Nadal are rangy scramblers who cover every inch of t...
Just Rafael Nadal Holding A Koala
One of the under-looked perks of tennis stardom is that you’re often being handed marsupials. Rafael Nadal got to hold this koala at the start of the Brisbane International. His grin and the bear’s claws appear to be saying very different things....
Roger Federer And Rafael Nadal Are Not In The Top Four For The First Time Since 2003<em></em><em></em>
Scroll through the ranking histories of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, skim over the mind-numbing string of No. 1's during Federer’s untouchable 2004-2008 run, and you might notice that you need to dig back to June 2003 to find a moment when neither Fed nor Rafa was among the top four players in th...
Rafael Nadal Halts Play While Mother Seeks Her Lost, Weeping Child
When will parents learn the consequences of minding their children? First, the death of the handsome silverback Harambe. Now, the brief interruption of an obscure exhibition doubles match pitting Rafael Nadal and teen Simon Solbas against old guys Carlos Moyá and John McEnroe, out in Nadal’s home is...
Del Potro Holds Off Nadal Surge To Win Stunner, Reach Gold Medal Match
Juan Martin del Potro has missed most of the past two years due to injuries. The Rio Olympics have marked an incredible comeback for the Argentine, with him defeating world #1 Novak Djokovic and, now, Rafael Nadal in a 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) semi-final thriller today....
Get A Load Of This Spatially Ambitious Rafael Nadal Shot
Rafael Nadal is doing some doubles work at the BNP Paribas Open with Fernando Verdasco, and he hit one of the cooler shots I’ve seen in a while. The two Spaniards lost to Bob and Mike Bryan last night, but not before Nadal hit a series of increasingly difficult backwards lobs to eventually take this...
José Aldo Should Obviously Get An Immediate Rematch With Conor McGregor
A month and a half after getting flatlined by Conor McGregor with the first punch landed in the biggest fight of the year, former UFC featherweight titleholder José Aldo broke his silence last week, demanding that his next fight be for the featherweight strap and/or a rematch against McGregor. It’s ...
Niagara Falls Residents Terrorized By University Of Iowa Fight Song
The University of Iowa fight song has some rousing horns, gets the alumni on their feet and chanting, and is a perfectly acceptable—even good—fight song. But how much would you like it if you were forced to listen to it 500 times in a row, every single night, for the past six months?...
The UFC Is Putting Conor McGregor And Holly Holm On The Same Card And Oh My God
Here is some very good MMA news:...
Report: Nobody Told Rafa Benítez He'd Been Fired
In this new media environment, where sensitive information can be transmitted around the world and back mere seconds after it’s first released, many organizations struggle with how best to break the bad news to employees they plan to fire. The one rule of thumb should always be to first and foremost...
Rafa Benitez Couldn't Make Real Madrid What They Want To Be, So Now He's No More
It’s a pity that the wildly entertaining, back-and-forth, wide open 2-2 draw between Real Madrid and Valencia this weekend will be remembered more as Rafa Benítez’s Waterloo than as the thrilling spectacle it was in its own right. Real dominated the match for large stretches and, with a couple favor...
Report: Rafa Benítez Fired, Zinedine Zidane In As Real Madrid Manager
According to Marca, the rumors that have been swirling all day about Real Madrid manager Rafa Benítez’s job status were justified, as he indeed has been fired. Taking his place will be Real’s legendary player and heretofore coach of the reserve team, Zinedine Zidane....
So It Looks Like Rafa Benítez Is About To Get Fired Here Pretty Soon
Things are not going well for Real Madrid right now. Fresh off their humiliation at the hands of Barcelona last month, their humiliation at their own hands in the Copa del Rey a couple weeks ago, and their failure to keep pace with their two biggest rivals in the league by dropping points this past ...