Rafa routs Rog ...

Hola peeps!! *wave*

I've been feeling a leetle beet under the weather, hence no posts until now. I mean, if nothing is a sure fine sign that I'm poorly, it's the total lack of any mention of how Rafa totally dismantled Smugly the other night. :D

Rafa - of course - was totally dignified in defeat, understanding sometimes that's it tough to play such a match in conditions when you're anything but 100%  (Madrid 2009 and the WTF 2011 spring to mind). However, I'm not Rafa, I'm a fan ... and therefore I summoned up the energy from my sick-bed to laugh for a hearty 10 minutes ...

So what does this do to that clay-centric H2H now? 29 times they have met - Rafa being the premier clay court player, Rog being the premier hard and grass court player (yes, I am going to lump those two together seeing as most times there's only one chance of them ever playing on that surface per year and Rog is the 7-time Wimbers champion)- and what does that give us? 14 matches on clay and 15 matches on hard/grass (very clay centric) with Rafa now leading 19-10. 12 victories on clay and 7 victories on hard/grass. Oh ... now I'm seeing the pattern. Because Rafa has had 5 more victories on his best surface it's dismissed as an irrelevant statistic. Why? Shouldn't the real question be about why the GOAT can't boast a similar stat or even an closer stat considering they've met the same number of times on his best surface?  Or maybe Rafa has some talent after all.

Can't stop myself. It's the sickness. ;)

And back to Rafa. When he lost in that final against Zeballos in Chile, I would never have believed he could possibly have defended his Indian Wells points and got to the semi-final. As good as he undoubtedly was against Ferrer in that Acapulco final, I still felt he had every chance of being a bit vulnerable once he got back on hard. There's still questions to be answered in every match he plays on hard and Rolf (Tomas Berdych) presents another one to him today. Sure, he's also got a stellar H2H against Berdych (who hasn't beaten him since 2006), but we've seen that Rolf can push him even on clay, and he had a good match against him in Australia last year.  And again, we who just sit and watch him don't know what it takes for him to get through a match; we don't know just how much he has to manage the pain that his knee may still bring.  I just think that whatever the scoreline turns out to be tonight, Rafa's winning his battles regardless.