Rafa marches on towards an unprecedented Quintuple

The Quintuple ... a term coined by footballistas to describe the unique trophy hunting that Manchester United were working towards this year (World Champions - Carling Cup Champions - and potential Premier League, FA Cup and Champion's League Champions) before we were cruelly robbed by an all too familiar refereeing error by the erudite Mike Riley. Said Mr Riley - who once had a reputation of ALWAYS giving Manchester United penalties - took heed of his afore-mentioned reputation and cruelly waved away an obvious penalty shout in the semi-final of the FA Cup, thereby denying the Mighty Reds their chance of making even more history. But I digress ...

Anyhow, the lovely Rafa has the opportunity this year to succeed where his favourite English team failed in winning his own Quintuple on the red clay of Europe:-

Monte Carlo

Barcelona

and now we can add to this ... Rome

only (the yet to be confirmed) Madrid Open and French Open remain.

Yesterday's match saw a surprisingly nervy Rafa twice fail to serve it out at 5-4 and 6-5 in the first set, resulting in a tie-breaker to which Rafa prevailed 7-2. The gargantuan efforts of Nole in the first set eventually caught up with him, and even though he held a break point in Rafa's opening service game, Rafa prevailed to run out the easy winner at 6-2 in the second.

Full match report attached.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article6216995.ece

The trophy ceremony was a fun affair as both competitors were treated to the 9min13sec version of "Chariots of Fire" and the Mistress of Ceremonies encouraged a slightly embarrassed Nole to do his much lauded impersonation of Rafa - the latter graciously agreeing to have the "mickey" taken out of him.

So ... its "Vamos a Madrid" ... and a week of tortuous slow Rafa news.