Agree with 100% with MuckRaker96. More than rooting for any individual player these days, I'm simply rooting for there to be more parity at the top of men's tennis. I am in awe of how great Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray are/were, but over the last couple of years, I've grown incredibly bored with the fact that those four are the only ones with any realistic shot of winning.

Concerning Rafa- it seems every time he loses it is because of some injury...I don't know whether to believe it and he is simply unbeatable when he is 100%, or does he try to blame every loss on an existing injury? Maybe it's somewhere in between. Makes me appreciate players like Fed even more since he has been so healthy and injuries have rarely played a part in his losses

That, or injuries have played a part in feds losses or at least the lulls in his career and if you ever hear about them it's months later with references to injuries in generic terms. This what I respect. No doubt rafa is an all time great and he plays with extreme tension on his body and gets a he can. That being said, he also is very quick to throw a wrench in a match he doesn't feel control of and will bring out a trainer.

[This message has been edited by Bunk Moreland (edited 1/26/2014 9:21p).]

I no not follow the minor tournaments but I do not understand what Nadal was trying to do. He is getting crushed, down a set and a break then tweaks his back. He all but mails in the 2nd set then comes out guns blazing in the 3rd. Then in the 4th is fighting like mad and was in that set to the very end.

Only Nadal knows if he was injured but the way he acted was pretty chicken crap and takes away from what his opponent accomplished. I don't care what he said at the end of the match.

nadal has perfected the art of getting injured when he is getting hammered on the court. stan was in total control of the first set and already up a break in the 2nd set when nadal got "hurt". I don't blame the fans for booing nadal either. this must be the 7-8 times he has done this.

he rarely loses a match w/o having some sort of medical reason.

Injuries don't just magically go away once a set one is losing badly is over. He tanked the second set and played up an injury (even pretending to be only able to serve at 1/2 pace), in an effort to change the momentum of the match. It is chicken crap.