This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/sports/tennis/nadal-loses-in-the-first-round-to-steve-darcis.html

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Nadal Loses to Steve Darcis in the First Round of Wimbledon Nadal Loses to Steve Darcis in the First Round of Wimbledon
(about 2 hours later)
Wimbledon, England — Just weeks after winning the French Open, Rafael Nadal was stunned in his opening match at Wimbeldon on Monday, losing, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 6-4, to Steve Darcis of Belgium, the world’s 135th-ranked player. It was the first time in 34 Grand Slam appearances that Nadal lost in the first round. WIMBLEDON, England — Relentlessly competitive and ultimately unbeatable on the red clay at the French Open, Rafael Nadal could not win so much as a set on the grass at Wimbledon this year.
Nadal, seeded fifth, had been 43-2 this year, with seven titles, including the French Open. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the heavy schedule he has played this year and that he cited fatigue when pulling out of a warm-up tournament in Halle, Germany, Nadal seemed listless against Darcis. It was the first time Nadal, the great Spanish champion, had lost in the first round in singles in a Grand Slam event, and his unlikely tormentor on Court 1 on Monday was Steve Darcis, a Belgian veteran ranked just 135th who spent part of this season competing in the minor leagues of professional tennis, the challenger circuit.
Nadal lost in the second round at Wimbledon last year, in five sets to 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol. After that match, Nadal would miss the next seven months of competition because of a knee injury that kept him out of the Olympics, the United States Open and the Australian Open. But against the fifth-seeded Nadal, the flashy Darcis was too much to handle, producing winners with his forehand, timely first serves and defense off the full stretch that often appeared to catch Nadal by surprise on the slick grass that is part of the equation on opening day at Wimbledon.
But while Rosol played booming, nearly untouchable tennis a year ago, Darcis was able to take advantage of a poor performance from Nadal, a 12-time Grand Slam champion. Nadal was often exposed during the match when trying to run around his misfiring backhand to strike a forehand. It is a tactic he often uses with great success on clay but the quicker grass courts proved less forgiving. In the end, Darcis’s 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 6-4 victory seemed surprisingly straightforward, almost shockingly so for what was one of the biggest Grand Slam upsets in Wimbledon history. It was also the second year in a row that Nadal had given an aggressive outsider a chance to make a bigger name for himself.
Darcis, 29, reached a career-high ranking of No. 44 in 2008, and has won two titles on the A.T.P. Tour. “Nobody was expecting me to win today,” Darcis said.
After failing to convert a set point in the second-set tiebreak, Nadal was broken to open the third set, and eventually lost the match on a Darcis ace up the middle of the court. A year ago, Nadal was beaten in the second round by the 100th-ranked Czech Lukas Rosol on Centre Court, with the fifth set being played under the closed roof. Nadal, because of knee problems, did not play another match for seven months before returning in February.
It has been a remarkably successful comeback, with Nadal winning seven of the nine tournaments he had played before Wimbledon, including his eighth French Open little more than two weeks ago. But in an attempt to protect his left knee, he played all but one of those nine tournaments on clay.
Though he had originally planned to play a warmup tournament in Halle, Germany, on grass, he withdrew from that event and elected to spend the week resting in Majorca instead. He arrived at Wimbledon last Tuesday and was unable to make up for missed grass-court matches.
“Obviously I wanted to play,” Nadal said of Halle. “But today, yes, we cannot come back. We cannot come two weeks before. That’s what happened. I didn’t have that chance. I tried my best. Was not possible. That’s all I can say, just congratulate the opponent. At the end, it’s not a tragedy. That is sport.”
It was an inadvertent echo of a long-ago quote from Boris Becker when he was stunned in the second round of Wimbledon by the Australian journeyman Peter Doohan in 1987: “No one died out there,” Becker said. “I just lost a tennis match.”
Indeed, but the surprise factor certainly magnified the significance of this one, bringing into sharp relief details that included Nadal’s uncharacteristic errors and, perhaps most importantly, his struggles to move without pain in the final set.
Though he showed no sign of difficulty in the early stages of the match, he was clearly hampered by the end: struggling to reach balls normally within his range and limping noticeably after some exchanges.
Nadal, who turned 27 this month, declined to use his left knee as an excuse. “I think it is not the day to talk about these kind of things,” he said. “I am confident that I will have a good recover and be ready for the next tournaments. I played much more than what I dreamed before here after the injury. So that’s a fantastic and very positive thing for me. I know the grass is a difficult surface for the way that I need to play to play well here. Was not possible this year. I’m going to try my best for the next couple years.”
Pressed on when he might return, considering that last year he missed seven months after losing at Wimbledon, Nadal said he was fully expecting to play the United States Open, in August.
But for now, Wimbledon will have to do without Nadal, and the bottom half of the draw now seems a much less dangerous place. Seeded just fifth here despite his remarkable recent form and his two previous titles at Wimbledon, he ended up in the same half of the draw with Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Murray, Federer and Tsonga all advanced Monday with relative ease. “So much for that Roger versus Rafa,” said John Isner, shaking his head, about the prospective quarterfinal match between Federer and Nadal that will no longer take place.