Rafael Nadal bends a knee to grass and finds his way at Wimbledon

RAFAEL Nadal felt many things after his win over Lukas Rosol: relief, exhilaration ... revenge.

Rafael Nadal shakes hands with Lukas Rosol after the Spaniard’s win at Wimbledon.

RAFAEL Nadal doesn’t like Lukas Rosol, nor does his uncle. Both have spoken openly of their loathing of the level of disrespect from a player who mutters just audibly enough and skips provocatively from side to side during the opponent’s service action. On his Centre Court victory yesterday, Nadal was asked if revenge had been a motive and said he did not quite understand what was meant. Inside, he was burning with satisfaction.

Not all the on-court antics of the champion of 2008 and 2010 are pleasing. The tics are legendary — indeed, he had to run through his “pull at pants, wipe nose, wipe hair away from side of face” regimen in double-quick time when Rosol was serving because, unlike Nadal, the Czech rushes through his action as if he has a pressing appointment to keep after the match.

And then there is the Spaniard’s remarkable attachment to towels, the only player on the men’s tour to need two of them, one for the ballkid on the left and one for the fetcher and carrier on the right, so that he doesn’t waste the kind of time between points that irritates a lot of people, can play tricks with the opponent’s rhythm and that umpires — after one, usually poorly timed, warning — then choose to overlook. I have heard it referred to as Irritable Towel Syndrome, a classic line.

Nadal has had a couple of dismal years on grass. Last year, he was not ready for Wimbledon and was beaten in the first round by Steve Darcis, the Belgian who spent much of the year trying to overcome a persistent shoulder problem.

Two weeks ago, in Halle, Germany, Nadal won only five games in a first-round match against Dustin “Dreddy” Brown, a performance that did not endear him to the tournament organisers for whom his three visits there since he chose that location rather than Queen’s Club for the AEGON Championships has led to him winning one match.

And then, having won his opening round this year, Nadal finds himself confronted by the man who sent him spinning from the tournament at the same stage two years ago. In 2012, having played a stunning fourth set and with the wind in his sails, Nadal went ballistic in the locker room when the decision was made to take the players off in decent playing light so that the roof could be closed.

Nadal lost the plot completely and was blown away in a final set that lasted 33 coruscating minutes. He went home to Majorca incensed by everything, and with Rosol especially.

As Nadal leapt through the air of SW19 at the conclusion of his 4-6 7-6 6-4 6-4 victory yesterday, there were many elements in his head: relief, exhilaration, comfort, and dare one say it, revenge. At the end of the second set, in which he had trailed 4-2 and had been a set point down in the tiebreak, Nadal’s uncle and closest confidant, Toni, leapt to his feet, punched the air, screaming “Vamos, Vamos”. One feared he might burst a blood vessel.

Toni knows how much this championship means to his nephew, the irrational levels of dedication and determination he brings to his profession every day and how much he did not want to see Rafa wrested from Wimbledon by the world No 52 for whom he has no time. It could easily have happened.

The player mentioned that forehand and how it has been perfect. “Even if I was losing, I was fighting for every ball, fighting mentally and physically, the positive thing about tennis is that I was able to find the solutions through the whole match,” Nadal said. “At the same time my physical performance was different today than a few years ago.”

On that subject, his coach not only concurred but offered a telling insight. “Rafael had many problems today in the first and second sets, but he understood how to react,” Toni said. “He is starting to move his legs with the same flexibility he had in 2011. To me it was his best match on grass in three years for that reason. It is not easy for him to bend the knees as much as he has to do on grass, he came from playing the ball in much higher positions and he has struggled with that.

“Today, on the backhand, you saw him almost touching the grass with his knees when he had to bend very low and that is why he was able to win — because he has been able to change to the way he was. He had stopped doing that because it hurt him too much.”

Rafa himself concluded that he needed to find a solution and he did. “I played with fantastic energy in the last three sets,” he added. “I was very positive, very quick with the legs, I was returning great in those sets. When I had the chance to touch the ball with the return, every return was a good one.”

Next, Nadal faces Mikhail Kukushkin, of Kazakhstan, a player who is coached — wonder of wonders — by a woman, in his case, his wife Anastasia. Kukushkin defeated Frank Dancevic, of Canada, for the loss of eight games.

Roger Federer, the seven-time champion, had to start his second-round match against Gilles Muller, the left-hander from Luxembourg twice, once in the open air and then with the roof closed, but did not lose his rhythm, or touch, winning 6-3 7-5 6-3 with barely a hair out of place.

The Times