That will do ...

Absolutely lovely match today from Rafa.

Nico Almagro has had his own ranking issues due to injury and surgery and he's spending this year working to get back to his best - but he played a real high quality match. This wasn't your usual standard, second round stuff - that match was right up there.

The only blip today from Rafa was losing his serve when serving for the first set. And yes, he faced a number of break points, but as much as Rafa can craft a point whilst playing on clay, equally his opponents can craft points against him. But other than that game, he survived them.

Some things I enjoyed from the match today. Rafa's movement - it was excellent. His feet were moving quickly to get himself into position and run round his shots. It was lovely. His forehand was nice and there was even a lovely cross court backhand winner and a backhand down the line winner to enjoy too. His defence was outstanding. Fabrice Santoro said in commentary that you can't win the French Open without having fantastic defence, which is the reason why someone like Tomas Berdych is never going to win it. And speaking of defence, whilst many of the commies still like to spin this myth that Rafa runs down every ball and chases after every lost cause - which he probably hasn't since 1986, but hey ho - I did feel today that Rafa really did try to reach for everything. Whether it's because he has the space to do it on Philippe Chatrier so he's more able to slide into those shots, I don't know. But that was noticeable to me. Rafa was so good in the second set that even Nico had to smile when he lost it, and then went into a bit of a free fall. There was no coming back for him on Rafa's performance today.

There's still too much emphasis on Rafa of old vs. the Rafa of now. Comparisons aren't worth anything any more, just enjoy what we're able to watch and today was one of the much better ones and a lovely match. More steady progress, and I think Rafa will be thrilled with that performance today. Damn good show Rafa. Onwards to the next round!