In Rafa's opening match against Philip Kohlscreiber, he had to take on the windy as well as his opponent, and it wasn't altogether a breeze ...
I'm just watching my recording now, and Rafa is moving towards winning the first set and is looking well, moving well, and hitting some nice winners. He only made one break of serve, but it was enough for him to take the opener 6-3 and he was not at any point threatened on his own serve.
And whilst I've yet to watch what happened thereafter, what I've gleaned from reports and Twitter comments is that we spoke to soon regarding Rafa not facing any break points, as he was broken early in the second and Kohlscreiber raced ahead to lead it. Rafa obviously made a break back, because it ended up in a tie-breaker, and he must have played a bit of a shocker as Kohlischreiber was 6-1 ahead, and then won it by 7-2.
Rafa again faced a break point early in the third set, but survived ... and he then went on to achieve a break himself which enabled him to run out with the match by 6-3 in the final set.
I glean that the overall view is that Rafa played fairly well, and he seemed to enjoy and celebrate his victory. As he states that he's using this tournament for practice, he may well have been out there longer than he wanted, but he seems OK thus far.
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