Rafael Nadal’s ability to make a quick recovery from multiple ailments was thrown into doubt on Tuesday as he lost 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 to Michael Berrer in Qatar.
This first-round match was Nadal’s first of this year’s ATP World Tour and he appeared to have had insufficient time to recover from an appendectomy, as well as far too little match practice over the past two months.
Nevertheless, it was a humiliating outcome for one of the most successful players of all time, who had won the first set at a canter before his game crumbled.
Photo: AFP
Berrer is a 34-year-old qualifier ranked outside the top 100 who is playing the last season of his career.
Nadal has also been suffering from back and wrist injuries, which reduced his service speed greatly. His performance appeared to cast doubt on his ability to take part, let alone be a contender at the Australian Open, which begins in less than two weeks.
“This is the third comeback of my career after injury, so we will see how it goes in a couple of months. I wanted to start well, but it was not the case today,” Nadal said.
“I also want to play in the Australian Open, which is a tournament I like a lot. I don’t know if that will be the case either, but I am going to work for it. If not I will be playing at Rio and Buenos Aires,” he said.
Berrer had taken just four games in four sets off Nadal in their previous two meetings, but recognized a career opportunity and in patches responded by raising his standards to new heights. He was also admirably frank in his assessment.
“It’s one of the matches which will stay in my memory forever, but let’s be honest it was the first match for Rafa after injury,” he said.
“In the first set it felt like the other matches against him,” the German added. “Then it became easy to attack because it was the only chance I had. It’s also my last season and I had nothing to lose, and I’m enjoying it here so why not?”
Berrer broke early in the final set and led 3-1. He slipped to 15-40 in the last game, before attacking the net on each of the last three points and finding Nadal unable to come up with the rasping passing shots for which he is so renowned.
Earlier, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic made a satisfactory start with a 6-1, 6-4 win over his Serbian compatriot Dusan Lajovic.
“I didn’t know during the last couple of days whether I would be able to play,” Djokovic said, referring to a fever he has had.
Djokovic next plays Sergiy Stakhovsky, the world No. 57 from Ukraine, and Berrer faces Ivan Dodi, the world No. 89 from Croatia.
Two seeds went out: No. 5 Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany was beaten by his 58th-ranked compatriot, Jan-Lennart Struff, and No. 8 Leonardo Mayer of Argentina was ousted 5-7, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4) by Italian world No. 45 Andreas Seppi.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with