The Spaniard retreated into broken English when it was put to him that players were 'contemplating' strike action
"Red Rafa" Nadal, the rebel leader of Flushing Meadows, retreated into broken English when it was put to him that players were again "contemplating" strike action.
For the second time in a few months there is ferment on the tennis circuit.
Perhaps.
It was a thin story to start with, inspired by a couple of Alex Bogomolov Jr blogs after the players' meeting on Saturday night and fuelled by speculation that the proles who slave away from the headlines and the big money were growing restless enough to target the French Open as an appropriate place to launch their revolution.
Nadal and his lieutenant, Andy Murray, led the insurrection at the US Open, with Andy Roddick a confused maverick and Roger Federer invoking Swiss neutrality. Here ? there is nobody stepping up.
This is how Nadal batted away tricky questions on Sunday: "I don't have any thoughts about that. I am here to support what most of the players think. But I am not going to be the one who going to talk about these things, especially because I am always the one and I am tired."
And, when pressed later: "Nothing of strikes. I never take any initiative. I never say anything about strike. I never did ? No. I gived to the rest of the tennis player, like another guys did, my opinion, and that's it. I don't know what's decided."
Was he embarrassed by the reaction in New York, then?
"I'm the one who in the past talk a lot about the calendar, talk a lot about the Davis Cup, talk a lot about the problem with the US Open. Now I not going to be the one who keep talking about a lot of things because finally if we have the right guys there to fight for us, maybe, but today we don't have that."
The Spaniard also said on Sunday that it was time for Roger Federer to speak up. "I disagree with him. His [position] is easy: do not say anything, all positive, I am a 'gentleman', others get burned," Nadal said. "To finish your career with pain in all areas of your body is not positive. He finishes his career as fresh as a daisy because he is physically privileged, but neither Murray nor [Novak] Djokovic and I are fresh as a daisy."
So Federer isn't speaking on the issue ? and we got nothing out of the normally loquacious Lleyton Hewitt, either. Was he at the meeting? Could he enlighten us?
"Yeah, I was there for a bit. Yeah, I'm not going to go into it right now, though. Right at the moment I'm here to focus on the Australian Open. For me it's not a big deal right at the moment."
Bottom line: no strike here ? and highly unlikely anywhere else. How can you have an uprising if nobody is prepared to rise up?
Ten years after ?
It's a decade since Hewitt came to his home tournament as a defending grand slam champion. Now he needs a wildcard. But the South Australian who has upset as many people as he has entertained is not ready to stop yet.
"When I come to grand slams, or big tournaments anyway, you're sort of in your own bubble a little bit," he said. "You're not worried about the outside talk or what it's really about. You're doing everything in your power just to be as ready as possible. This week has been no different. [Tony Roche] and I and my team behind me, we've done everything we can to obviously get my body and ball-striking and everything in as good a nick as possible, and it would have been the same 10 years ago."
Well, not quite the same. Hewitt had a fully functioning set of legs then.
He has done remarkably well to patch himself up and carry on.
Cheers
Visitors to Melbourne might like to peruse this handy guide to eating and drinking compiled by the new website tennisspace.com. Your correspondent naturally will be road-testing one or two venues.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/jan/15/rafa-nadal-striking-australian-open
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