Larry Brown Sports

Rafael Nadal has been out with a knee injury since losing in the second round of Wimbledon in July, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be returning to competition this year.

Nadal’s unle and coach, Toni, indicated earlier this month that Rafa might be able to play again this year at either the ATP World Tour Finals or the Davis Cup. That doesn’t sound like it will happen.

“My biggest goal is to compete at Australian Open,” Nadal told CNN Espanol.

“About the Davis Cup final, of course I would love to take part in it, but first I have to see if I will be ready technically and physically.”

Nadal has won the Davis Cup with Spain three times, but he was not on the 2008 winning team because of another injury. He isn’t even sure if the country would have him on the team given his absence from the sport the past few months, but he’s not trying to push himself to be ready for the competition next month.

“I’d rather be cautious especially after trying to recover for the London Olympics and for the US Open with no success.

“I prefer to go day-by-day without setting objectives or time frames, work hard on my recovery and make sure I keep on getting better little by little,” he told CNN.

Nadal’s absence from men’s tennis has allowed Andy Murray an opportunity to emerge. The Scotsman won the US Open — his first grand slam — and the gold medal at the Olympics. Hard courts are Nadal’s weakest surface, but had he been in New York, he might have had a big say in stopping Murray. He also likely would have been a major factor at Wimbledon and the Olympics had he been healthy.

Rafael Nadal may have won his seventh career French Open on Monday, but he had to deal with a couple of complications along the way. For starters, there was the shiner he got when he accidentally dinged himself in the cheek with the tournament trophy. That was nothing. According to Reuters, a watch worth $370,000 went missing from Nadal’s hotel room in the hours after his victory.

The Spaniard was wearing the Richard Mille watch after he defeated Novak Djokovic in the grand slam final on Monday but found it missing when he woke up on Tuesday, the player’s relatives told the police.

“Nobody broke into the hotel room,” the police source said. Richard Mille had lent Nadal the watch for the tournament. ($1 = 0.8028 euros)

Believe it or not, this is not the first time this has happened to Nadal. As Busted Racquet mentioned, Nadal endorses luxury watchmaker Richard Mille and had a timepiece go missing during a tournament in Toronto in 2010. He often wears the RM 027 Tourbillion during matches. The watches are lent to him, which could help explain why he doesn’t watch them like a hawk.

There are few things that are worth $370,000 that are easier to steal than a wristwatch. You could try to take a Lamborghini if you were looking for a six-figure possession, but you can’t exactly stuff a Gallardo in your pocket and make off with it. If Rafa isn’t going to keep a close eye on his watches, perhaps the people who lend them to him should hire someone to do so.

UPDATE: The watch has been recovered and police arrested a hotel employee who has believed to have stolen it.

Photo credit: Susan Mullane-US PRESSWIRE

Good thing Rafael Nadal doesn’t play hockey. If he did and he won a Stanley Cup, I would hate to see what type of damage he could do with that massive piece of hardware. Nadal defeated world No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Monday to win the French Open for the seventh time in his career. He continued his dominance on clay surfaces but seemed a bit out of synch after the match when he was celebrating with the Coupe des Mousquetaires (the French Open trophy). Check out this video that Busted Racquet shared with us. Skip ahead to the 1:40 mark for the good stuff:

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One French radio show crossed the boundaries of reasonable etiquette when they prank called world No. 2 tennis player Rafael Nadal the morning of his first-round match at the French Open on Tuesday.

Virgin Radio radio hout Cyril Hanouna called up the hotel where the Spanish star was staying and managed to get connected to Nadal’s room by pretending to be famous hair stylist Jean Walter. Nadal picked up the phone and Hanouna began talking in a manner that would make Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Bruno” cringe.

Nadal realized it was a prank call, but he still managed to treat the host incredibly politely before hanging up after about a minute.

Thankfully the rude awakening didn’t affect Nadal who went on to beat Simone Bolelli 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.

We give Rafa tremendous credit for his comportment; the last time we saw a media member act that inappropriately was when Maria Sharapova complained about a stalker.

In the audio file below, you can hear the entire call beginning with hotel clerk:

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One man went a bit overboard trying to catch a tennis ball Rafael Nadal threw into the crowd after beating Marcel Granollers at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Ca. Tuesday. And we say he went a bit overboard, we mean that literally. Dude was sporting a Rafael Nadal jacket and standing next to a group of people holding a Spanish flag, so we’re assuming he’s a big fan. Such a fan that he forgot about the little barrier between himself and the court, and he took a nosedive straight into the hardcourt going after the ball. I hope it was autographed to at least make the spill worthwhile. Sheesh, that was embarrassing.

Fist pound to The Big Lead

Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal battled for 5:53 in a memorable final at the Australian Open before Nole got a break to win the match in five sets, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7, 7-5. The match began Sunday night and ended Monday morning at 1:37am in Melbourne. It was the longest final at a grand slam in history and the longest match ever at the Australian Open. The players were so drained they could barely stand for the trophy ceremony and needed to be seated.

What was impressive about the match is the way both players kept coming back. Novak lost the first set but came back to win the next two. Then Nadal was down 5-3 in the fourth set and facing defeat, but he came back to win it in a tiebreak. Nadal was also up 4-2 after getting a break in the final set, but Novak broke him back and then won 7-5.

Djokovic has now won five majors and has won three in a row. His three straight finals wins have come over Rafael Nadal, who will be looking for his 7th career French Open title. Nole’s five grand slam titles are behind Nadal’s 10 and Roger Federer’s 16.

There’s nothing quite like a story about one of the most dynamic topics in the sporting world: the bathroom break. The phrase we have all come to know over the course of our lives, “You gotta go when you gotta go,” doesn’t always apply in sports. If Drew Brees had to go with two minutes remaining in a playoff game, could he go? I suppose he could, but he’d be uncomfortable for the remainder of the game. Fortunately for Rafael Nadal, he was granted permission to go during his match at ATP World Tour Finals on Sunday.

As Busted Racquet shared with us, Nadal needed to use the restroom when he was leading 2-0 in the third set against Mardy Fish. Chair umpire Mohamad Lahyani allowed the break, which appeared to upset Fish and got the television announcers talking about how “ridiculous” it was.  Nadal supposedly explained himself to Fish when he returned, and then went on to lose three straight games before winning the match in a third-set tiebreaker.

Come to find out, Nadal claims he had a stomach bug and was throwing up in the locker room the whole time he was in there.  If that’s the case he obviously had no choice, but as Busted Racquet’s Chris Chase points out this situation sets a strange precedent.  What’s to stop someone from pretending they’re extremely ill and taking a bathroom break in order to break the momentum of their opponent?

Maybe the chair umpires need to start issuing Jack McKeon-style bathroom passes to players only when they feel it is warranted.  Otherwise it’s going to get to the point where a set is about to begin and we have players missing like our friend Angel Pagan.