Temperatures have been mild in Melbourne. Then Rafael Nadal stepped on court with flames on his back and an inferno of intensity firing from within.
You didn't need to see the swooping fire graphic on the back of Nadal's shirt to feel the heat he brought in extinguishing American qualifier Ryan Sweeting, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1. Rafa hit his hellacious topspin forehand with accuracy and ambition, racking up his 23rd consecutive victory at a major to roll into the third round Down Under. In the first two rounds, Nadal has won 29 of the 33 games he's played.
Granted, neither Marcos Daniel, who tapped out after a winless 11-game thrashing, nor Sweeting play at the level of 2010 Aussie finalist Andy Murray, or fourth-seeded Swede Robin Soderling, who Nadal may have to beat to return to the final. But Rafa's ruthlessness and resolve are already razor sharp just four days into the fortnight. The top-seeded Spaniard produced 36 winners, including 15 (of 16) victorious trips to net, raising his record to 109-1 when winning the opening set in Grand Slam play.
Sweeting swatted a running, down-the-line forehand winner in the final game of the second set, but would have needed to replicate that remarkable rip about 50 more times to truly trouble Nadal. When the muscular Mallorcan whipped a wicked top-spin forehand that dive-bombed on the center of the baseline, he walked to his sideline seat with a cushy two-set lead.
But even immortals aren't immune to mental holidays, as Nadal dumped a pair of double-faults to drop serve for the first time in the third set. Bouncing with renewed energy, a stubborn Sweeting fought hard and had game points to consolidate the break, but his inability to juice up a pedestrian serve that seldom reached triple digits (in mph) made holding serve as challenging as trying to snatch the world form Atlas' shoulders. Nadal broke back for 5-1 and fired a ferocious inside-out forehand to complete a one hour, 42-minute torch job.
Last September, Nadal became just the seventh man in history to complete the career Grand Slam when he captured his first U.S. Open. He also became the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to win Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in succession. Now, Rafa is bidding to join the Rocket in winning his fourth consecutive major title, but the nine-time Grand Slam champion continues to downplay his chances of completing the four-play.
"To win four in a row is almost impossible, I think," Nadal said tonight. "(It is) the last thing I am thinking about right now. I'm trying to find my best level and we'll see what's going on."
Next up for Nadal is either Australian wild card Bernard Tomic, the last Aussie man left in the field, or Davis Cup teammate Feliciano Lopez, who beat a weary (and distracted, by the World Cup) Nadal at Queen's Club last June.
Nadal had a late night on Wednesday, conceding he stayed up to watch second-ranked Roger Federer fight off Gilles Simon in five sets. While the world may be waiting for the latest installment of the Rafa-Roger rivalry in Melbourne, Nadal tends to chuckle at repeated media efforts to elicit any trace of self-promotion in that race, even calling the comparison "stupid."
"I think talk about if I am better or worse than Roger is stupid, because the titles say he's much better than me, so that's the true at that moment. I think will be the true all my life," Nadal said after winning the U.S. Open. "But, sure, for me, always, always Roger was an example, especially because he improved his tennis I think during all his career, and that's a good thing that you can copy, no?"
—Richard Pagliaro