Despite losing his fourth round match to wildcard Nick Kyrgios at the Wimbledon 2014 Championships, world number one Rafael Nadal said that he’s still satisfied with how he’s performed at the grasscourt Slam event. The Spaniard won his 14th Grand Slam title last month at the French Open and was aiming to win the French Open – Wimbledon duo for the third time.
However, this was not meant to be after he was defeated by 19-year old Kyrgios with a 7-6, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3 loss on Centre Court. Nadal lost in the second round to Lukas Rosol in 2012 and was ousted in the opening round last year to Steve Darcis.
“I am satisfied the way that I played this Wimbledon,” said Nadal. “The surface here is dangerous and my draw was not easy. I have not played against easy players,” said the Spaniard. “Today my opponent decided to serve so big and play so aggressively from the baseline.
“This year I felt my knee was right to compete here. I think I competed well. [It] was not enough today, but that’s the sport,” said Nadal.
Nadal overcame first set deficits in his earlier rounds and seemed headed in that direction as well against Kyrgios. However, the latter was at his element that Nadal admitted that there’s nothing much he can do.
“I was not able to read [Kyrgios’] serve during the entire match,” said Nadal. “I was not able to put enough returns inside. In the tie-break he was able to serve better than me. That’s an advantage.
“Congratulations to him. For me, I’m going to go to the beach in Mallorca,” Nadal added. “[I’ll] have some weeks off with the great weather there, enjoying some holidays with family and friends.”
“I fought until the end on every single match. I was able to play some good tennis on this surface. That’s something that I was not able to do in the last two years.”
Nadal will be taking a much needed time off from tennis before preparing for the hardcourt season in North America. He will be defending a lot of ranking points during this stretch as he’s the defending champion at Montreal Masters, Cincinnati Masters and the US Open.
“After a few weeks I am going to start practice again to prepare another important part of the season.”
