IT says a lot about the attitude of Rafael Nadal that even on a day when he was beaten in the first round of the singles, he should postpone a few days of his beloved fishing in Mallorca to help out a mate.
A few hours after his title bid at the Aegon Championships was ended by the unorthodox Alexandr Dolgopolov, the Spaniard was back on court, partnering Marc Lopez to a victory that will mean much more to his compatriot than to himself.
His 6-3 6-7 (6-8) 6-4 defeat by Dolgopolov ensured a premature end to his singles preparations but having won at Stuttgart last week, he was happy with his efforts, if not the result.
"Today I lost," he said. "I accept. I keep going. I'm going to keep practising hard. I hope to be ready to play well in Wimbledon."
Nadal saved a match point in the second set and looked on course for victory when he led 4-2 in the decider, but Dolgopolov stormed back for the upset.
"I think I didn't play bad at all," Nadal said. "I fought until the end. Had a great comeback. "Games on grass are like this. I had break-up in the third, and then he played some good points. I missed a few balls. And that's it.
"I won a tournament in Stuttgart, I have never played more than five matches before Wimbledon in the past, so nothing negative."
However he does with Lopez, Nadal said he will definitely be going home to rest and recover before getting ready for Wimbledon.
"Since the beginning of the season I have been playing some more tournaments than usual [which is] normal when you don't win that much," he said.
"But at the same time I need my periods of rest. It will be great if I can be here for a few more days and can practice a little bit more and then have a period of three days at home - then come back. That's my idea. I'm going to try my best in the doubles."
French Open champion Stan Wawrinka crushed Australia's Nick Kyrgios 6-3 6-4 while the defending champion, Grigor Dimitrov, completed a 4-6 6-3 6-4 win over 2010 champion Sam Querrey in a match held over from the previous night.
Britain's Laura Robson is set to play at Wimbledon after it was confirmed last night that she will make her much-anticipated comeback from injury this weekend in the Aegon International in Eastbourne.
17 months after her last tournament and just over a year on from surgery on her left wrist, the 21-year-old will test the waters by playing in the qualifying event on Saturday.
A hamstring injury which prevented her from playing at the French Open has healed, sources inside the Robson camp said yesterday, while the wrist "is great" and the left-hander is reportedly in excellent shape after months of training in Florida and two weeks of grass-court preparation in London.
Robson is expected be named among the wildcards for Wimbledon today, having chosen not to use her protected ranking of 58 for direct entry.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article