What next for Rafa Nadal? In the shock of the tournament and possibly season so far, the former world number one
crashed out in his first round match against the unseeded and unfancied Belgian, Steve Darcis in three straight-forward sets, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4. Fifth seed Rafa Nadal came
back to the scene of his last performance before he succumbed to the dreaded tendinitis knee injury which side-lined the Spaniard for much of last season. It is a complete contrast to Nadal's last appearance on the tour, where he added a record breaking
eighth French Open title to his already impressive haul of silverware. It will be the manner of this defeat that will be the biggest worry for the former world number one, the 27 year-old simply never looked capable of winning against his lowly ranked opponent. Let's not take too much away from the 29 year old Darcis, but with all due respect, (a healthy) Nadal should be expected to get through first round match without breaking a sweat. That was never the case; the Mallorcan didn't seem comfortable on the court at all and was far from his usual all action, never say die self, quite the opposite in fact. By the time the third the third set came around, the 27 year old Nadal had thrown in the towel and resigned himself to the hammering he was taking from the world number 135. Speaking after the match Nadal was quick to avoid the inevitable
questions about his knee, instead opting to praise his opponent, "Sometimes you lose, that's sport. Not a lot of good things happened for me today.
"I just want to congratulate Darcis, I think he played well and that's all," the world number five told the media after the match.
Perhaps Nadal knew his knees were not up to the test; after all he didn't play in a warm up tournament on grass at all and opted to rest until the grass court showpiece. Why else would you not prepare yourself to the maximum level possible for one of the biggest tournaments of the year? An extra element to the story is the imminently arriving hard court season, if Rafa found the grass courts tough, how will he cope on the hard courts? It doesn't bode well for the likeable Islander. If the knees are troubling the Spaniard as much as they appear to be, how much longer can he continue playing? Will he just compete at clay-court tournaments? Lots of questions yet to be answered. Maybe we're reading too much in to it and Nadal just had a bad, albeit horrendously bad day at the office, he is human after all. I for one hope it's the latter of the possible reasons. It would be a great shame to lose one of the greatest players to have even picked up a racket. Anims Rafa, Get well soon. See you on the hard courts.