Madrid - Second Round - Post-Match Analysis Wednesday, October 19, 2005 Nadal def. Victor Hanescu 7-6(5), 6-3 Rafa was cautious, and looking a bit rusty at the beginning of the match. But once he won the first set, his tennis went up a notch, and he played much better. In fact, he was playing very well at the end of the match. He was imposing his game more on Hanescu, who started making more errors to compensate, and that made things easier for Rafa. That's what he typically does on clay, but before then, Hanescu was holding fairly easily on his service games. But if you didn't know about Rafa's knee issues, and see the bands on his knees, you wouldn't really know he had tendonitis in his knees. His movement seemed very good; he was even running down Hanescu's dropshots (I couldn't figure out why he kept going to that shot.) Moya or Robredo will be much more of a test for Rafa, certainly. If he plays the way he did at the end of today's match, and if his knees aren't an issue, he has a shot. Oh, as for the piratas, the commentators were saying they thought he wasn't wearing them because of the knee bands, as they would get caught in the pants. They obviously hadn't heard that Nike had decided a while back that he was going to wear regular shorts for the rest of the year. My speculation is that there is a shortage of piratas available for supply (Tennis Warehouse can't get them), and that they are now using Rafa to market regular shorts now. I do hope he pulls out of Basel, though. (Sorry to any Swiss fans out there.) The knee tendonitis is still a concern. Vamos, Rafa! posted by Susan @ 10:34 AM