Going over the block ...

Regardless of how the victory came to Rafa on Sunday, he seemed to enjoy it. And I was delighted to see it, however its worth was judged elsewhere in the Rafacamp.

I have to say that I have found Rafa's press conferences tedious of late, and that's because of some of the totally inane and utterly nauseous and repetitive, lazy questions he's asked.  And Sunday's seemed to be going in the same vein with Rafa being asked of Kei's credentials for becoming No. 1.  God, I ask you!  Considering that Rafa has more than twice the points of the #No. 3 and 2014's Next Big Thing and current favourite for Roland Garros - Wawrinka, if you haven't work that out by now - just how exactly is Nishikori going to do it?

Pah!

Anyway, when Rafa was able to speak sensibly about himself and the match, I actually welcomed his explanation of it.  I mean, rarely have I seen Rafa so flummoxed in a set.  He's always going to have those matches where his opponent is too good, but I've always admired the way that he works his opponents out.  So Sunday totally shocked me.  But Rafa talked about not being able to find himself, that he mentally blocked, that he some chances in the second set but just couldn't get over it.  That he just needed a spark, but then somehow he found a way to compete in that set.  And if I think back to the match and how I was feeling watching it, I was grimacing that Rafa was 0-40 down on Kei's serves, but got it back to deuce and yet somehow couldn't get past that.  And then when he played a great service game, I thought great stuff! but that he'd perhaps left it too late.  But he did compete in the next game, and by keeping with Kei and making him move and work, the strain of Rafa's competitiveness came to bear on his injury and he went.

What did Brad Gilbert write about once?  Winning Ugly?  Well yes, sometimes you need to, and however it came, Rafa needed that victory and had played pretty damn well enough in the tournament overall to get it.  I'm glad he also had no qualms about the circumstances in which it came to him because yes, you've have to lose out in big matches yourself because of your body Rafa - and received precious little sympathy because of it.

Here's Rafa's full presser if you haven't already read it.

So we've barely even caught our breath from Madrid when Rafa will be ready to play Gilles Simon in la bella Roma tomorrow.  I feel a little more vigour now having read what Rafa has said and I'm glad that for once, the break came his way.  Here's hoping for a good tournament for him ... and let's get ready to strap ourselves into the Rafa rollercoaster once more.

VAMOS!!