Rafa sets off today to the Far East where he will make a stop off in Taiwan to play an exhibition match with David Ferrer, before moving on to Tokyo where the Rakuten Japan Open starts on 3rd October.
Rafa is defending champion ... and this time, will he actually manage to retain a hardcourt title? Hehe ... ;)
Of course there's a war of words erupting about Rafa and his participation in exhos, bearing in mind that he was central to the player outburst at the US Open and one assumes, will remain so when the players re-convene at the Shanghai Masters where the tennis schedule is high on the agenda. I accept, that he doesn't help his cause somewhat with his participation in these events, but I have no qualms about the Taiwan one (no pun intended), as he needs to head off and acclimatise to that region anyway and frankly, an exhibition will be a walk in the park as compared to his usual, rigorous training sessions.
The trouble is though, it doesn't end with this one. During the summer, it was announced that Rafa and the Prince of Darkness would be playing an exho in Mexico, some time in October/November, although an actual date was never announced. However, subsequent to the PoD's sacking of Benito and the fact that Rafa can barely now even look at him, never mind play in some chummy exho with him, the PoD announced via Twitter that he wouldn't be participating. However, its now been confirmed that this exho will still go ahead - against David Ferrer (again) - in December, and following the Davis Cup final.
You do actually wonder just how easy/difficult it really is to pull out of these things when Rafa's management have obviously made commitments. And once again whilst the other top 6 players finish their season at the WTF, Rafa will have to soldier on and lead Spain in the DC, following which, there will be a journey to another continent to play a fruitless tennis match. And your rest time Rafa? and preparation for the start of the season? I don't think exhos exert him at all, but travelling and being away from home does ... so I just don't get why he does it. Equally, he complained last year of only actually having 4 days off at the end of the season will his charity exhos with Feds, sponsor commitments and the like. And yet here we go again. Exhos have and always will be part of tennis, but in his down-time at the end of the year? I'm struggling to support him on that one.
And the Shanghai Summit will more than likely render fruitless as Federer has already pulled out and the Prince of Darkness with his glass back, has now pulled out of Beijing. Shanghai will be next, just you wait and see ... playing charity football matches and bending down to pick up poor unfortunate kids for the publicity shoots, excepting. So with 2 of the top 4 missing, what "player power" will come from that? It will be toothless. Federer has managed his schedule fantastically well over the years citing fatigue and "nagging" injuries along the way and not giving a single stuff about letting down the tournament and fans alike. And the PoD is following suit. He didn't show at Monte Carlo and his Oscar winning performance at the Davis Cup the other weekend has bought him time off from the US Open with a lovely little rest up until Paris and the WTF ... mark my words.
Trouble is ... Rafa should follow suit (but its not within his make up to do so), and the exhos just leave him wide open for criticism. I wish he would be more ruthless in both regards.
Buy hey ... he's Rafa. Would we have any other way? Just saying ...
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