Nadal News

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The Bryan Brothers have been blogging for The Age (they seem to be rather buddy, buddy with players this year) and have done an article on what players are like in the locker room: Locker room a great place to meet the stars. Rafa’s one of the players mentioned:

Rafa’s personality has really blossomed over the years. He used to be pretty shy, but now it kind of feels like he’s a leader on the tour. He’s a bit more relaxed and voicing his opinions more often. You don’t see any of that in the locker room though. He’s probably the most intense guy in there. He usually has his headphones on and he’s pretty deliberate about how he does his taping. He’s got his routine down, like they all do. He practises the hardest before his matches, too. You watch Federer and he’s so relaxed, he hits around for 20 minutes or so, whereas Rafa will be hitting groundstrokes for 40 minutes.

He’s a really nice and polite guy. You don’t see him hanging out at the courts - he does his thing and gets out of there - but he always says hello. A couple of years ago, we saw him on a flight from Madrid to Rome, after he won the final there. We were on some budget airline, there was no first-class on this flight, so we were surprised to see him on it. There were all these kids on the flight, on spring break, and they couldn’t believe it when Rafa walked on. For the whole two- hour flight there was a steady stream of people wanting to get his autograph, and he signed one for pretty much everyone. Even the pilot came back. It’s probably the last time he’s flown that airline, but he came on with a bag of McDonald’s. He’s an incredible athlete. You see him at breakfast eating chocolate doughnuts. He must just be an amazing genetic specimen.

Articles:

• Facing Facts And Feeling Fine - a very nice blog entry about the semifinal match from a Federer fan.
• The Better Man - by Gerard Whateley (The Drum)
• Federer/Nadal: The Rapture, Once Again - by Brian Phillips (grantland.com - thanks to mafie for posting the link)
• Editors’ Picks: Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal - from tennis.com
• Tennis.com Digizine preview of the finals.

Video/Audio:

• iB3 report on the semifinal.

Photos:

• Patrick McEnroe tweeted a photo of Rafa practicing today.
• Flickr photoset from Brett Marlow.

Random:

• Martina Navratilova’s letter to Margaret Court
• Swiss master under fire for ‘neutrality’ - by James Paterson (backpagelead.com.au). An interesting read about the politics of the tour.

Original Article