Rafael Nadal on US Open title mission
After taking all before him on clay and grass this year, Rafael Nadal arrives at the US Open as a man on a mission: to claim the one Grand Slam title that has so far escaped his clutches.
It’s the same objective the world No. 1 had when he arrived at Flushing Meadows last year, having claimed the 2009 Australian Open title to go with the Wimbledon crown he’d won the year before and his growing collection of Roland Garros silverware.
This year though, Nadal has to have a better chance of completing the set, as he arrives in New York fully fit and in good form, if not the near unstoppable form he was in heading into the two European Grand Slams.
It’s a stark contrast to last year, where the Spaniard had in the months previous suffered his first loss at Roland Garros and missed his Wimbledon title defence as a recurrence of the troublesome knee tendinitis that kept him away from the All England Club.
Lacking conditioning, and carrying an abdominal injury, Nadal still managed to reach the semi-finals, where eventual champion Juan Martin del Potro finally ended his hopes with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 win.
If that version of the 24-year-old can come within one match of reaching the final, what’s to stop this year’s model going all the way?
Certainly not Del Potro, whose long recovery from a wrist injury continues as the Argentinian has been forced to make the tough decision not to defend his title this year.
Roger Federer, Nadal’s greatest rival and a 16-time Grand Slam champion, is one who has proved capable of doing so at the majors in the past, though this is the one Grand Slam where the two are yet to cross paths.
The speculation about whether Federer’s star is on the wane after quarter-final losses at Roland Garros and Wimbledon will follow him to Flushing Meadows, but this is a tournament where the world No. 2 is supremely comfortable, having reached the final every year since 2004 and winning five consecutive US Open titles in the past six years.
Where the faster US Open courts have a habit of bringing Nadal back to the field, they have routinely assisted Federer to rise above it. Should that final eventuate, and as the top two seeds the draw would accommodate such an outcome, it should be an intriguing match.
It’s not just Federer that Nadal will have to worry about either. Andy Murray enjoys the courts at the US Open as much as anyone out there. Indeed, this is the one major where the Scot can say he’s got a better record than Nadal, having reached the final in 2008. In seven attempts, Nadal has twice been a semi-finalist but is yet to go that one step further.
And on hard courts this summer, Murray has already recorded one win over the US Open top seed, defeating Nadal in the Cincinnati semis on his way to defending his title. That’s not to say, however, Nadal can’t reverse that result should the two meet the US Open.
Instead, the tale it tells is perhaps this: it will take one of the world’s best, playing at his best, to have any chance of thwarting Nadal’s plans to become the US Open champion in 2010.
In light of the world No. 1’s stellar season even that may not be enough.
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