Rafael Nadal become tennis player number one

Posted by bumeral

August 18, 2008

Beijing (China) .- In his first triumph in the ATP circuit, before the Paraguayan Delgado in Mallorca, with 15 years and 10 months, Rafael Nadal began writing one of the most beautiful pages in Spanish sport, which culminates today with his Officially ascent to the top of world rankings.

After 160 consecutive weeks following the footsteps of Roger Federer, the player Balearic succeeds Carlos Moyà, the first Spanish player to reach the top of tennis since the inception of the ranking officers (1973), for one week in 1999, and Juan Carlos Ferrero Eight weeks in 2003.

Step by step, year after year, has cut the enormous distance that separated him from tennis until now unattainable, in full professional depression. To consummate the baton, Nadal chained 32 consecutive wins between May and July 2008, including the achievement of the Hamburg titles (Ground), Roland Garros (land), Queen’s (grass), Wimbledon (grass) and Canada (hard) Five trophies on three different surfaces, in addition to reaching the semifinals at Cincinnati (hard).

There, exhausted, ceded to Novak Djokovic. He left to compete for 10 days, just time to go home, take oxygen and leaving the sauna in Beijing, where he joined six other triumphs, and as number one in informal settings of what a timetable, which does not coincide with that of Previous course, held in Olympic years, and not computed the results from this summer until today.

His victory in the Olympic Games, on the same course that has held its fourth his first Roland Garros and Wimbledon, spoke of the category, not only of tennis, but that some of the athlete and put the height or above Indurain .

A tennis player engaged in the struggle to reach number one in the world, undergo an exhausting schedule, has never been able to hang an Olympic gold. Since tennis returned to join the program at the Games (1988), not recorded any victory of any player (male) placed among the top five of the ATP. When Andre Agassi won in 1996, occupied the sixth step in the classification.

Nadal sum and a total of 70 victories in 2008, 323 along a brillantísima career that has provided 4.091.926.92 euros thanks, among other merits, his five Grand Slam titles (one more than Santana), their 12 Masters Series (as many as Federer), his, ultimately, 31 titles (two less than Orantes). It says that everything began when Moyà tomb to Roddick in the final in Seville and became the youngest player in winning the Davis Cup (18 years and six months).

The Salad Bowl calls his door again, because there are still juicy delicacies in the final stretch of the season. Spain will seek to end the United States from 19 to September 21 in Madrid as a clear favorite. The last weekend would expect, always at home, Argentina or Russia. The most immediate is the U.S. Open, a tournament where Nadal has never been beyond the quarter-finals. Circumstances have changed. The world number one, that privilege can defend at least until next spring because a player is solvent, also on cement, a man capable of winning whoever the opponent, whatever the surface. Also in Shanghai, which closed the season with the Masters Cup.
The new pulse between Nadal and Federer

Federer exercises now aspiring to wrest the scepter Mallorcan tennis world. On paper, the situation in the final stretch of the season favours Nadal, because its results in U.S., Madrid, Paris and Shanghai last year he will defend far fewer points than the Swiss, who also will have to maintain their status Tournament champion of his hometown, Basel, if you do not want to continue giving ground and being harassed by Djokovic.

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