By Cynthia Lum
Wow, it was a tough first round match when big serving John Isner took the Spanish clay court wonder Rafael Nadal to five sets before folding to a blizzard of relentless ground strokes by the world’s No. 1. The last time Nadal lost a set in Paris was 2009 when he lost to Robin Soderling in the fourth round, so Isner taking two tiebreak sets was astounding.
Throughout the match you could see that Rafa was out of sorts. He actually looked cranky and at one point turned to a photographer in the pit at the end of the court and ask him not to shoot when he was hitting. This is COMPLETELY out of character for him. He is one of the nicest guys that has ever been on tour, never complaining, never giving the photographers grief.
There was a lot of speculation in the photographer’s area that Nadal may not like the new Babolat balls that reputedly are faster than the Dunlops that Rafa is used to and likes and that this could be contributing to his displeasure.
Isner serving 13 aces kept Nadal on the defensive for a good part of the first three sets, and that doesn’t count the serves that the Spanish champion got his racquet on but wasn’t able to make a decent return.
Rafa was standing 10 feet behind the baseline on Big John’s first serve and even at that had to dive for several wide fast balls. Disgruntled and nervy Nadal lost both the second and third sets in a tiebreak. With the American up two sets to one, photogs came running from other courts smelling the possibility of a huge upset and not wanting to miss the action.
Sucking up an energy jell, changing his shirt and probably giving himself a talking to on the change before the fourth, he came out looking like “Rafa the Confident” again and won that set pretty easily. Holding serve and racking up the only break in the fifth gave him the 6-4 win.
In the end, the stats really told the story with Isner posting a whopping 58 unforced errors to Nadals 27. Of course I’d be willing to bet that Nadal’s superior fitness had a lot to do with it, John was dragging after serving two tough tiebreakers
So the man from Majorca improved his record on Roland Garros clay to 39-1, gave a huge victory shout, and is still on track to try to match Borg’s record of six wins at Roland Garros.
Stay tuned, this promises to be an interesting two-week on the beautiful red clay at Roland Garros.
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