Nadal’s knee injury hampered the end of his 2017 season and forced him to skip last week’s Brisbane International.
Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer thrashed their French opponents, giving Spain a 2-0 lead over France in the opening rubber of the Davis Cup semifinal.
Andy Murray served up a royal treat for Prince William and Catherine as the British fourth seed crushed Richard Gasquet.
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/ 11 January 2010
Marcos Baghdatis beat Nick Lindhal on Monday to reach the second round of the Sydney International, a key warmup tournamant in the tennis calendar.
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/ 18 December 2009
After his nightmare 2009 season, French tennis player Richard Gasquet insists he now wants to turn the page and get back to winning titles.
Gael Monfils has found himself with the hopes of a nation on his shoulders after he blasted his way into the quarterfinals of the French Open on Monday with a four-set win over Ivan Ljubicic. No Frenchman has won at Roland Garros since Yannick Noah’s emotional triumph in 1983.
Roger Federer cruised into the French Open second round on Monday while rival and triple champion Rafael Nadal was left kicking his heels in the locker room as torrential rain swamped Roland Garros. The world number one then had the unexpected bonus of seeing potential quarterfinal danger man Richard Gasquet pull out of the tournament.
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/ 10 February 2008
Defending champions America and France, two of the most successful countries in Davis Cup history, will clash in this year’s quarterfinals after cruising through their World Group first-round ties. The United States, the 31-time champions, saw off Austria 3-0 while nine-time winners France also opened up a 3-0 lead over Romania.
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/ 24 January 2008
Unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga stunned second seed Rafael Nadal with an unbelievable display of tennis to storm into the final of the Australian Open on Thursday. In an astonishing performance of clean winners and aces, the 38th-ranked Tsonga claimed his fourth seeded scalp of the tournament, winning 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.
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/ 14 January 2008
Andy Murray crashed and burned at the first obstacle but Andy Roddick and Nikolay Davydenko made stress-free starts in the men’s singles on the first day of the Australian Open on Monday. Murray, the world number nine, has plenty of free time on his hands after coming off second-best to flamboyant Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a centre-court showpiece.
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/ 29 December 2007
It will be the year of the Golden Slam for tennis in 2008 and realistically only two names are in the running. Both Roger Federer and Justine Henin finished this year as clear number ones in their sport and they are set to dominate again. But from there to winning all four Grand Slams events plus Olympic gold in Beijing in the same calendar year is a huge step.
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/ 10 November 2007
World number one Roger Federer will aim to put an unusually patchy tennis season behind him with victory number four at the elite Masters Cup starting on Sunday. The defending champion, smarting from two rare defeats in the past month, signalled his determination by arriving nearly a week early for the year-ending showpiece.
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/ 9 November 2007
Rafael Nadal hit the practice court with 48 hours to go before his start at the year-end Masters Cup in Shanghai, determined to fulfil the goal of ending this season on a high note. Nadal, losing finalist last weekend in the Paris final to David Nalbandian, said he wants to put a winning stamp on this season.
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/ 3 November 2007
Argentine David Nalbandian extended his brilliant run of form by crushing local favourite Richard Gasquet 6-2 6-4 on Saturday to set up a Paris Masters final against world number two Rafael Nadal. The unseeded Nalbandian needed just over an hour to take his record against the Frenchman to a perfect 5-0.
Maria Sharapova produced another display of fearsome big hitting to roll into the US Open third round on Thursday, while top American hopes Andy Roddick and James Blake struggled to stay on course. The 20-year-old Russian glamour girl opened her shoulders to blast past overmatched Australian Casey Dellaqua 6-1, 6-0 in just 51 minutes.