Sports Thread #3 for 5/31/09: It Just Had To Happen One Day- The Aftermath Of Nadal's Stunning Exit At The French
Photo from FFTThe press was still in disbelief, representing an entire sporting community in what they couldn't believe they've witness.
They must be a legit reason why the unthinkable became more than just thinkable. It happened! So the press had to ask the questions to try and make sense of it all.
"Where you tired? Did you play too much in the run up to the tournament? Did the crowd affect you in all way? Was the pressure of winning again too much?
But try as they might, Rafael Nadal just cut all of that unnecessary speculation out.
"When you lose, always everybody starts to analyze if I play too much. If I'mtired. The true, I won four years in arow playing the same. That's the true. This year I play the same and I lost. What happen? I lost. That's it."
The quotes of a true champion, even when he's dethroned.
The waves of the tennis ocean are still on high tide after Robin Soderling delivered one of the biggest upsets in tennis history by stopping Nadal's bid for a record fifth straight at Roland Garros. The Swedish number one was relentless in his assailment against the world number one, as the 6-2, 6-7(2), 6-4, 7-6(2) result may fans in the stands say "Did we just see what we just saw" in French, and tennis fanatic across the world reload their web pages to make sure their computer screen didn't feature a glitch.
However, if there was one guy that could do this feat against Nadal, Soderling would be a rational choice at the end of the day, even though you would be far from rational to even select Soderling to upset the Spaniard. From their contentious match at Wimbledon two years, Soderling had the temperament to not be intimidated of Nadal, despite getting thrashed by the same player just last month 6-1, 6-0 in Rome. And based off his dispatching of the industrious David Ferrer, his confidence was clearly there from the incipient stages of the match.
Soderling's thumping serve and massive forehand were in full precision today, running Nadal ragged and doing the unthinkable: completely making the four time champion actually look pedestrian on the surface that has made him already a legend at age 23. The number 24th ranked player in the world had 61 winners to 59 unforced errors, the type of numbers you could only dream of having at the French Open against any opponent, let alone the one he was facing across the net today. But besides his dominance around the service line of the court today (also dropping down 9 aces and not a single double fault), what was just as impressive for Soderling was his net play on clay against Nadal.
27 for 35? Ridiculous!
Cognizant for his peculiar, unlikeable ways as much as his explosive talent, Soderling displayed a sense of normal, captivating emotion after the match. The man was certainly overwhelmed with the biggest win of his career (the audio isn't good in this video unless you understand French, tough you can hear the English in the back.)
But with no offense to the brilliance of Soderling, the story is clearly on Nadal. As he stated earlier, Nadal didn't make any excuses for having a busy clay court schedule, because he has that time of itinerary going into eventually winning the tournament.
Did it catch up to him this time? Apparently so. Still, he showed that it was no excuse, and it was NO EXCUSE.
He just had his first off day after going 31-0 on this surface without ever losing two sets in a match on this court before. It's just the fact that it actually happened now, when all of us (and probably including Soderling with how he reacted in that video above) never thought in our right minds that it would go down now.
But that's just sports, and life in general. Nothing is guaranteed, and nothing is given. Thankfully, the gracious and benevolent Nadal understands just that.
"All of us athletes, we know that when we walk on the court we can either win or lose. I know it for a fact anything can happen, and I have to accept them bothin the same way."
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