Rafa's knees...are bad!!!!

After watching Nadal's matches against David Ferrer, and Juan Martin Del Potro, I can say with 100% certainty that Rafa knees are in big trouble. I really didn't like what I saw in either match, especially against Ferrer.

Nadal, has made some major changes to his game, since he took time to recover, after the French Open. He's now trying to play a more aggressive game from the baseline, keeping his opponent on the run as much as possible while moving as little as he can and keeping the points shorter. Unfortunately, speed has always been something that he's relied on, it's a critical part of his game and it's the one thing he was definitely lacking in Montreal. Just from watching him, you can see he isn't trying to run down the balls anymore. But that's a problem for his game because his serve isn't good enough to constantly keep him on the attack. Even aggressive players like Roger, have to do some ball retrieving. I realize he's trying to save his knees but he's not going to be able to play offensively all the time against guys like Andy Murray and Roger Federer. If they sense a weakness like that, they'll keep him on the run, at least part of the time and at some point he'll have to take more time off from the tennis season to rest his knees. It sucks that his knees are in such poor condition. If he developed a better serve earlier in his career which could have saved him from having to do all the running, he probably wouldn't be in this situation. I don't know why Rafa never placed more importance on developing his serve, surely he didn't think his knees would hold up under that kind of abuse forever. Why didn't his Uncle work with him on this important part of his game? The serve is important on every surface except clay. And why was he over-booking himself during the clay court season. Just to maintain his ranking? Why not cut out a tournament during the clay court season and replace it with one in the US Open series. That way he would have been more warmed up for the US Open and less tired for Roland Garros. Some of his scheduling doesn't make sense to me.

I hope Nadal, does find a way to improve his serve and ball placement, his movement wasn't good in Montreal but he hasn't played a match in over two months, so I'll cut him some slack on that. I wish him the best of luck and I would love to see him find a way to deal with his tendinitis and still win majors. Rafa's probably the mentally strongest person on tour, so if anyone can find a way to deal with this injury, it'll be him.