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LONDON: Rafa Nadal will use the Queen’s Club
championship as the springboard to success at Wimbledon when the
grasscourt season begins Monday.
Nadal’s ability to bludgeon
opponents into submission on every other surface has been honed to
perfection, but success on the lush lawns of west London still
eludes him.
Although the Spaniard knows his
power game will never be totally suited to grass, losing successive
Wimbledon finals to Roger Federer has only strengthened his desire
to conquer the surface.
With Wimbledon just three weeks
away, Nadal would love to tune up for the All-England club by
winning the traditional warm-up event at Queen’s for the first
time.
He arrives in England bolstered
by a glowing tribute from a man who knows better than most what it
takes to win on grass.
Bjorn Borg, a five-time Wimbledon
champion, believes the 22-year-old from Mallorca is ready to take
Federer’s crown.
“Nadal can play on any
surface,” Borg said. “If I would pick a winner for Wimbledon in
2008 I would pick Nadal. He knows he can play on grass now and he
knows he can win on it. He’s a great player and a great person.”
If world’s No. 2 Nadal is to
get the ideal preparation at Queen’s he will have to fight through
a field including four more of the world’s Top 10.
Federer will be absent as usual
but reigning champion Andy Roddick, Australian Open champion Novak
Djokovic and France’s Richard Gasquet, a Wimbledon semifinalist
last year, are all in town.
British No. 1 Andy Murray,
Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt and David Nalbandian, making his
Queen’s debut, add further depth to one of the tournament’s
strongest-ever lineups.
Roddick should start as the
favorite after winning the title four times in the last five years,
including 2007’s thrilling final set tiebreak success over
France’s Nicolas Mahut.
If he or Hewitt triumph in this
30th year of the competition they will set a new record for
Queen’s singles title victories.
Djokovic is well capable of
dominating on grass and the Serbian, fresh from a French Open
semifinal defeat to Nadal, would love to get a quick measure of
revenge.
“It would mean the world to me
if I was successful enough to win two huge tournaments such as these
[Queen’s and Wimbledon] but I don’t want to push myself too
much,” Djokovic said.
“I know I am the third player
of the world, I have a lot of expectations and I am one of the
favorites to win at the Queen’s Club, but I need to go
step-by-step.
“I am one of the best players
in the world now and with my recent results I showed my quality and
I think I deserve to be there. But, I don’t want to push myself
too far or have too high goals and say that I need to be number one
in the world this year or next year.”
--AFP
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