mtenis.com.pl

Rafael Nadal may know his way around grass and clay courts, but the Spanish tennis ace struggled when confronted with a supermarket self-service checkout machine.
The former Wimbledon champion, now world No 2, was spotted shopping for groceries in a local Tesco Express by a fan, who offered to lend a hand.
He bought six cans of Diet Coke, though did not purchase a carrier bag, according to fellow shopper Nick Roberts, who shared his excitement on Twitter.
“Just done Rafa Nadal’s shopping for him on the self service tills on the tesco express in Wimbledon village. Surreal,” he wrote.
He added: “It was very exciting. He bought a 6 pack of Diet Coke. Didn’t need a bag. Environmentally conscious and awesome at tennis.”
“Oh, and he was lovely with everyone in there. I hope he doesn’t mind that I’ve tweeted about this. I was just really excited!”
BBC presenter Clare Balding said on Today at Wimbledon that a colleague had also seen Dustin Brown, who faces Andy Murray on Wednesday, in a local branch of Marks and Spencer.

It was a perfect script, a script that Nadal has flourished on all through his playing career. 2 sets to love down against a big server, Nadal fought his way back through, hitting those delicious passing shots and coming up with the goods whenever pegged back to the wall.

The fifth set was meant to be Nadal’s, it was just all to familiar. But Muller wasn’t going away, he had lost 26 times to top 5 players, and was desperate to break the deadlock.

Muller though refused to win, and Nadal refused to lose. The deadlock was kind of funny, but exhilarating. Finally Muller found that killer instinct in him, and pushed aside Rafa to reach the last 8 of Wimbledon. Rafa looked devastated but was gracious in defeat, up until the press conference.

The post match press-conference brought out the grumpy side of Rafa Nadal. He did look frustrated in the match as well, constantly questioning the umpire in the fifth set(when he had no challenges left).

But in the press conference, he let lose. He questioned the court allotment, as Federer and Murray hadn’t played even one match outside of Centre Court.

“Someone has to play on Centre, and it’s almost always the same players here. This is the reality. Here, there are many of us who have won a lot in our careers, who have a lot of important history behind us.

“A tournament that wants to be as traditional and as special as Wimbledon has to distribute the number of matches scheduled on Centre Court and that not always the same people play there, and when there are doubts, the others are sent to other courts.” Nadal said

Nadal then reflected on his defeat, saying that he couldn’t think of much positives from it, except that he was playing better than the previous few years.

“I lost in the fourth round. That’s not the result that I was expecting,” Nadal said.

“I didn’t want to lose that match. So it is tough to analyse that in a positive way right now.

“I played better than other years, true. At the same time I was ready for important things, so I lost an opportunity.” he added.

Federer, on the other hand was thankful for another showing at the Centre Court.

“Playing here on Monday on Centre Court I feel very privileged because I know they could have easily put Rafa or Novak or another women’s match on centre court today,” Federer said. “But they chose to put me instead as well so I’m very happy. It helps maybe to have played so well here over the years and I try to pay it back by trying to play good tennis and hopefully exciting the crowd.” he said.

Rafael Nadal’s injuries have forced him to miss large parts of the tour during the last few years, as he has had to come to terms with his ‘rigourous’ playing style.

The hectic ATP schedule also means that athletes have to carefully plan their tour calendar in order to avoid injuries and fatigue.

In the pre Rogers Cup press conference, Rafael Nadal was asked about how the current tennis schedule was affecting the players, and what changes could be brought to it in order to reduce injuries on tour.



While you can’t really reduce the number of tournaments happening around the world, Rafael Nadal came up with a novel suggestion of introducing a two-year ranking system, instead of the presently used one-year ranking system, in order to help players plan their schedule in a better manner.

A lot of young players are forced into playing a lot of tournaments, or into rushing back from injury, as there is this fear of losing out on their ‘current world ranking’.

Nadal also stressed on the fact that the current generation has played for much longer than the previous one, and thus has to manage their schedule even better.

“I repeat the same. Roger is 35, 36, I’m 31, Stan is 32 maybe, Novak is 30. We’re not 21 or 22 anymore. The generation before us, most of them at that age had already retired.” Nadal said.

“I said in the past it [the schedule] didn’t work but it will be better to manage the schedule — to have a better schedule — to have a ranking for two years. Two-year ranking, not one-year ranking. That’s going to protect the players and help the players to have periods to find windows for rest.

“Having a one-year ranking, it’s always that if you want to be in a good position in the ranking, you cannot rest much. If you are Federer, Novak or even myself and Andy, we are able to manage it that when we come back we have been winning lots of matches, then you can do it.

“But in general terms, with injuries and being older, it doesn’t help a lot. The schedule is the same, the only thing is that players are playing longer and when you are getting older, you need to find periods [of rest] because mentally, physically, you need it.” Nadal added.

In the two- year ranking system, a players gets ranking points on the basis of performances that span a two year period, thus allowing a player to plan his ‘rest period’ in a better manner. This could help reduce the number of injuries on tour and to increase the longevity of the athletes.