Unlike their contentious encounter one week earlier in Basel, Rafael Nadal’s 6-2, 6-2 beatdown of Lukas Rosol in round two of the BNP Paribas Masters on Wednesday offered little drama either inside or outside the lines.
Whereas Rosol served for a straight-set upset in Basel and pushed Nadal to a third-set tiebreaker even after collapsing in the second set, the Czech had no chance in this one. Nadal broke twice in each set, won 23 of 25 first-serve points, and rolled into the last 16 after just one hour and one minute.
The Paris’ contest featured no kind of drama related to accusations of taking too much time before points or deliberately making noise hindrances. Nonetheless, at the handshake Rosol looked as if Nadal had kicked his dog.
[tweet http://twitter.com/BloodDimon/status/661949820853186560]
“I didn’t prepare differently,” Nadal said of his second date with Rosol in the span of 10 days. “It was just another match–a tough match against a difficult player. He’s always tough, but I was playing much better than I did last week in the first round. I played a solid match; not many mistakes. I served well and went for the points with my forehand.”
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Rosololololol
That’s funny! Rosol just barely had a handshake at all! He couldn’t get his hand away fast enough! Sore loser!
Rosol – don’t go away mad, just go away. 🙁
Reminiscent of Federer vs Henman Wimbledon 2001QF, Federer gave Henman a very unfriendly handshake at the end of the match.
#TapTap
Rosol’s team should impose on him some basic manners to use on court. Professional players are public figures and they do have to pay attention to these sort of things as part of their job.
It’s so disrespectful and frightfully immature to give a handshake like that. It clearly shows the dark place that Rosol’s head is. If he were to grow up a bit it would probably have an effect in his game too but, as they say in Spain, you can’t ask an Elm tree for pears.
that!
Rosol has had a swagger in the locker room since that win at Wimbledon over Rafa; he’s been able to sustain it because even though Rafa had beaten him 3 times since then he hadn’t managed to wallop him. This Rafa did yesterday and it made Rosol feel like 5″ nothing hence the grudge handshake. He’s now had his wings clipped and brought down to earth.
After a period of six months from the date of the match there should be an embargo on all players (outside the top 10) preventing them from discussing in public the so-called ‘shock’ defeats they have inflicted. Secondly there should be a rule that radio and TV match commentators should discuss the h2h record rather than using emotive language to single out one particular match from the past. ???
Fat chance.
I remember the time when sports journalists and commentators were under strict orders not to reveal any favouritsm. Their reporting had to remain impartial or they risked being suspended.