rafael-nadal Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Nick Kyrgios's Tantrum Was Rafael Nadal's Cue To Dominate
How was your weekend? I got myself a nice bowl of pasta but some new mosquito bites. Nick Kyrgios, too, had both good and bad times....
The Tennis Will Be Good As Hell This Weekend, If You're Awake For It
Frankly this chunk of the tennis calendar, known as the “Asian swing” because it passes through China and Japan, is the easiest to tune out, especially for a viewer in a U.S. time zone. The year’s last major just wrapped up, the year-end finals are still months away, and the time difference makes it...
The Laver Cup Is What You Get When Tennis Tries To Be More Like Pro Wrestling, And That's A Good Thing
The worst-case scenario for the Laver Cup—a first attempt to construct an all-star game for men’s tennis, pitting the best players from Europe against the best players from everywhere else—was that it’d end up an elaborate, expensive excuse to smush nemeses Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal onto the sa...
How Can Anyone Say Rafael Nadal Is Playing The Best Tennis Of His Life?
This much is true: Rafael Nadal won the U.S. Open, and he’s playing exemplary tennis. In the present, soft field, the tennis is so good that it brought Nadal back to world No. 1 for the first time in four years, with two slams, two masters, and a 56-9 record. But all the hyperbole does make one wond...
Rafa Is Supreme, And Everyone Else Is Allowed To Wake Up Now
Perfect symmetry has been achieved: Rafael Nadal won the U.S. Open. Before that, Roger Federer won Wimbledon. Before that, Nadal won the French Open. Before that, Federer beat Nadal to win the Australian Open. The two greatest players in men’s tennis returned from long injury hiatus to split 2017’s ...
The U.S. Open Men's Draw Is A Joke
If you’re a man who can stand upright without anything hurting, you’ve got as good a shot as anyone to win the 2017 U.S. Open. Gone are the elites usually clotting the late rounds of majors. Of the top 11 players in men’s tennis, five of them are too hurt to play: No. 11 Milos Raonic, No. 10 Kei Nis...
All The Top Men In Tennis Are Broken And Calling It A Day
First it was Novak Djokovic, sitting out the rest of the season to just, uh, generally debug....
On The Busiest Day In Tennis, Rafael Nadal Fell In Five Hours
At Wimbledon, per tradition, the first Sunday is a day of rest. By design there are never any matches scheduled. (Unless rain has derailed the first week of play, in which case, they play out of necessity.) Still, on that day the practice courts are abuzz. Here is how the New York Times describes t...
Poor Bastard Whiffs On Rafael Nadal's Second Serve
World No. 34 Karen Khachanov fought his way through two tough matches in Wimbledon’s early rounds (a total of nine sets, three of which were tiebreaks) only to earn himself a third-round date with Rafael Nadal....
And Now, Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Federer-Nadal Show<em></em>
Rewind the tape all the way back to—sheesh—April 2, the date of Roger Federer’s last professional tennis match, a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Rafael Nadal to win the Miami Open. Afterwards he reportedly told his rival that he, Nadal, would “destroy” the clay court season, and Rafa delivered, piling up a 2...
No One Will Ever Do What Rafael Nadal Has Done
Predictions about whether a feat can or cannot be replicated have always struck me as naive. Earth will be around for a while and, at least until we write ourselves out of its story, will host billions and billions more humans, shaped and sized in novel ways, some of which make them particularly sui...
Rafael Nadal Cruises To Record 10th French Open Title
Rafael Nadal won a record 10th French Open title today by making quick work of Stan Wawrinka, 6-2, 6-3, 6-1. Nadal faced one break point all day, and saved it. It was a brutal, dominating performance, and of a guy who just took out world number one Andy Murray, and notched a title of his own at Rola...
Rafael Nadal Took A Gifted Youth's Lunch Money, And His Will To Live
Towards the tail end of the clay season, even this skeptic had cast aside old doubts: 23-year-old Dominic Thiem is the future. Particularly on the dirt. But as of right now, the future still feels impossibly far away. Rafael Nadal, 31 years old and the best clay court tennis player past and present,...
Rafael Nadal Is Two Wins From The French Open
Pablo Carreño Busta offered the only blip of diversity in a quarterfinals that was otherwise purely chalk: seeds No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 were all still in play. As nice as it was to see one of those three-name clay courters edge past No. 5 Milos Raonic in five sets and make his way into this rar...
Rafael Nadal Removed A Man's Soul From His Body
This may surprise the casual tennis observer: Even after a straight-sets win that, on paper, resembles a blowout, the loser has often won almost as many points as the winner. The loser just didn’t win them in the right sequence. That’s a quirk of tennis’s scoring system, which bundles points into ga...
Rafael Nadal's Second-Round Opponent Didn't Stand A Chance
Robin Haase, a Dutch professional tennis player ranked No. 46 in the world, drew Rafael Nadal in the second round of the French Open on Tuesday, ending things at 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. He was 30....
Rafael Nadal Notched His First Kill
Shortly before his first-round match against Rafael Nadal at the French Open, Benoit Paire took a photo of his supper. It was the post of a man totally at peace with what was about to happen to him....
These Players Will Not Beat Rafael Nadal: A Largely Pointless French Open Preview
We’re going to proceed on the assumption that Rafael Nadal will (literally) sink his teeth into the French Open trophy, as he has nine times since 2005. ...
How Dominic Thiem Broke Rafael Nadal's 17-Match Winning Streak <em></em>
“One tournament he can win is Roland Garros. So we’ll see. Hopefully not this year,” Rafael Nadal recently said of today’s opponent, Dominic Thiem, with a wink. It now feels like he willed that version of Thiem—the genuine French Open threat, the hardest-hitting guy on clay—into existence....
Roger Federer Pulls Out Of The French Open, And Rafael Nadal's Practically A Lock To Win It
Good news for Rafael Nadal: Roger Federer isn’t going to the French Open....