Super Bowl Update

Congrats to Rafa on a very hard fought victory against Gilles Muller on Friday/Saturday in the 3rd round of Wimby. The first two sets of his 7-6 (8/6) 7-6 (7/5) 6-0 win were insane. Muller was serving with unbelievable speed and accuracy throughout both those sets. Rafa was certainly no slouch either, and he came through in both tie-breaks when he needed to. As you can imagine, playing the best he possibly could for two sets and still having nothing to show for it on the scoreboard, really broke Muller down mentally. The third set was no contest. It's too bad, because his play in the first two sets was exceptional. Rafa just converted on the big points. That's just what we can expect from Rafa!

Up next in the Round of 16, Our Hero faces the always dangerous Juan Martin Del Potro. This match up always makes me nervous. Del Potro totally crushed Nadal in the 2009 US Open Semis. The sting of that lost remains etched in my memory. A lot has happened since then so you can't really compare that match to now. First, this is grass, not hard courts, so the game is different. Second, Del Po is still coming back from serious injury in 2010, though he is in increasingly better shape. And third, Nadal still has a winning record against him (5-3), and won their last match at Indian Wells earlier this year. So we'll just have to watch and see. It should be a very exciting match on a big day of tennis at WImby! Week 2 of the tournament starts tomorrow! Vamos!