Nadal Looking Past Knee Ailment as Monte Carlo Masters Begins
April 17, 2012 | By Long Island Tennis Magazine Staff
Photo credit: Kenneth B. Goldberg
World number two-ranked Rafael Nadal of Spain heads into this week’s Monte Carlo Masters nursing a left knee injury and is looking to capture his first championship title in over 10 months, dating back to last year’s French Open. Nadal has a 231-18 career record (.928 winning percentage) on clay courts, including 32 titles. Last month, Nadal’s knee injury forced him out of the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami against Great Britain’s Andy Murray.
Getting a bye in the first round of the Monte Carlo Masters, Nadal has a 39-1 overall record at the Monte-Carlo Country Club, and will face Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen, currently ranked 48th in the world, in the second round. Nieminen was a 6-3, 7-6(3) winner over Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic in round one action.
”The worst surface for the players is the hard,” Nadal said. ”I believe we are wrong in the tournament(s) to play more and more on hard (courts), and less and less on clay and grass.”
