Miami blues ...

Oh Rafa, Rafa, Rafa. What are we to do with you? Before I go on and its 24 hours after the result, let's draw some perspective. Rafa's been out for about 6 weeks with injury. Prior to that, he was on the comeback trail in January, had a couple of expo matches, 5 matches in Doha and an Australian Open quarter-final which he didn't complete. He hadn't got himself match-tight before the January injury and he's feeling his way back. So Miami is only his second competition after Indian Wells, and his results are two semis and a win in the doubles.

So before this comeback, would we have taken that? Of course we would. But I guess what causes the disappointment and concern is that both these tournaments were his for the taking. In both cases he was the top seed left in the final four and facing opponents who you would ordinarily expect him to beat. And the pattern of the losses was both the same. Rafa playing a fantastic first set of tennis, holding his own in the second, but then his opponents with nothing to lose, just went for broke, hitting outrageous winners which went in. Rafa then gets tight, goes back into his shell, stands 6 feet behind the baseline, hits short and the nerves get more and more shattered as the balls whizz past him.

And so after having a comfortable first set chalk up of 6-4, he goes 0-30 down at 3-3 in the third and his serve and then the set is gone. He suffered a break in his second service game of the third set to fall behind, and then a remarkable thing happened. At the change over, Rafa was beating himself up about it ... literally. Smacking his leg and cursing in anger. Its as if he just cannot get over this frustration. He again lost his serve to present the match to Roddick and he ran out the 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 winner.

So what now for Rafa? The clay court season and hopefully some respite. We keep thinking he's getting closer ... so will Monte Carlo be it??

Keep colm and carry on Rafa. After 8 months on those blasted hardcourts ... its time to come home. Vamos!