MELBOURNE– Rafa Nadal’s dream of winning four grand slam titles in a row ended with a whimper yesterday when his body failed him at the quarter-final stage of the Australian Open for the second successive year.
The record books will show the 24-year-old lost 6-4 6-2 6-3 to fellow Spaniard David Ferrer on the Rod Laver Arena, but the injury the world No. 1 suffered in the third game rendered the match a no-contest for most of its 153-minute duration.
A rather apologetic Ferrer advanced to only his second grand slam semi-final where he will face British world No. 5 Andy Murray who ended the run of Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov, albeit not without some tricky moments.
Kim Clijsters remains favourite to win her first Australian Open after beating Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska 6-3, 7-6 although Russia’s Vera Zvonareva, hunting a first major, will provide a tough semi-final opponent after she beat Petra Kvitova 6-2, 6-4.
Clearly hampered by what looked like a hamstring injury and with tears welling in his eyes at one stage, top seed Nadal still displayed champion qualities by refusing to retire when he was cannon fodder for Ferrer.
“I hate retiring,” he told reporters – declining to go into detail about what had gone wrong.
“I can say nothing about the injury,” Nadal said. “First of all, I don’t know nothing. Second thing, for respect to the winner and to a friend, I prefer to talk about the match.
“It’s a difficult day for me. I lost in quarter-finals another time.
So I tried my best. I couldn’t do more.”
Nadal had not lost a grand slam match since hobbling out of Melbourne Park when his knees gave up on him in his last eight contest against Murray a year ago to the day.
The Mallorcan stormed back from that disappointment to win the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open titles and returned to Australia with an eye on matching Don Budge (1938) and Rod Laver (1962, 1969) in holding all four major titles at once.
“In a tennis career, you have higher moments and lower moments,” the nine-times grand slam champion said.
“I have had almost all the time very, very happy moments and very nice moments in my career.
“It’s part of the sport. Accept, keep working, try my best in the next tournament. That’s what I can do.”
Ferrer said he did not consider it a real victory.
“It was not easy because Rafa is a gentleman and he played with an injury as we are friendly,” said the seventh seed, who reached his second grand slam semi-final and the first since the 2007 US Open when he beat Nadal in the last 16. (AP)
