Australian Open: Nadal, Venus Williams knocked out

Verdasco, who lost an epic five-set encounter to Nadal in the semi-finals of the 2009 Australian Open, triumphed 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 to hand the fifth seed his earliest loss at Melbourne Park.

Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco had one of the more famous matches in Australian Open history in 2009 when they played a then-record 5 hours, 14 minutes in the men’s semifinals.

Verdasco hit a total of 90 winners in the match to Nadal’s 37. But in the third and fourth sets, Verdasco was suddenly ferocious.

Verdasco now plays Israel’s Dudi Sela in the next round, with the draw opening up possibilities for deep runs for the likes of Jeremy Chardy and the inconsistent Gael Monfils. “I don’t have any news because I’ve just come off the court”.

Keys, who reached her first Grand Slam semifinal a year ago at the Australian Open, fended off two set points in the ninth game before coming back to win the first in a tiebreaker. “He just hits everything and misses”, he added.

“It was something I’ve never experienced in a match, so it was very unfortunate”, Tomic said.

Milos Raonic followed up his victory at the Brisbane International with a clinical, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 first-round win over Lucas Pouille on the second day of the season’s first major.

“I was practicing a little bit different, trying to be more aggressive”.

Nadal has been working on playing further forward and asserting more authority in matches but he was unable to dictate as much as he would have liked.

“Is tough, but at the same time, I know I did everything that I can to be ready for it”, Nadal said. “I have just to take it like it is and go ahead”. The Chinese is ranked at 133rd and this win takes her to the second round of a grandslam tournament, which is now her best performance in women’s singles at any grandslam. “I didn’t want to make the match longer than that – to win against Rafa when you’re sets down is unbelievable”. You play against a player that has a good potential and he’s able to hit the ball so hard and take risk, then you are under pressure the rest of the match. That would be the Spaniards’ last Grand Slam championship round appearance in 2014 and 2015 as he struggled with various injuries and even admitted that he also struggled with the mental aspect of the game.

The two-time major victor and former world No. 1 overcame Duckworth 7-6 (7/5), 6-2, 6-4 and will next face Spanish eighth seed David Ferrer.

“It’s tough when you work so much and a very important event arrives and you go out too early”.

The governing bodies for tennis presented a unified front in rejecting the claims, and highlighted the fact five players and an official had received life bans after investigations from the Tennis Integrity Unit which was set up in 2008. “You have to be proactive with things like this and go and speak to the players rather than them reading about it in the newspapers or listening to it on the TV or the radio”. “The game has become a little bit insane in this aspect”, Nadal told the press. I closed my eyes and everything started dropping in, so I kept doing it!