Nadal crashes out of Australian Open

Nadal, who let slip a two-sets-to-one lead, went 2-0 up in the decider before Verdasco went for broke, hitting some huge forehand winners.

Verdasco advances to the second round while Nadal now has two losses already in 2016, his first being in the finals at Qatar to Novak Djokovic, the men’s No. 1 seed. While he made 91 unforced erros, Verdasco managed a colossal 90 winners.

Halep, the 2014 French Open finalist, lost 6-4, 6-3 to Zhang Shuai, giving the No. 133-ranked Chinese qualifier her first win at a Grand Slam after 14 losses. “But I will definitely have a little bit more information closer to the match”.

Furthermore, as impressive as Verdasco’s record of having reached two last-16s and a semi-final at the Aussie Open in the last six seasons has been, Nadal has reached two finals, three quarter-finals and won the event in his last six appearances in Melbourne, winning 83% of his Australian Open matches compared to Verdasco’s 62%.

After a tough first nine month of 2015 culminating with that awful collapse to Fabio Fognini from up two sets at the US Open, Nadal started to play better again in the fall. “I don’t have any news because I’ve just come off the court”.

Olympic champion Andy Murray, the second seed and a four-time Australian Open runner up, cruised through in straight sets against Germany’s Alexander Zverev, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3.

Nadal, ranked No. 1 in the world at the time, went on to win the title in five sets against Roger Federer.

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. I closed my eyes and everything started dropping in, so I kept doing it! “He was not playing that well in the first set”, he said. And Verdasco is a tricky customer and has all the tools to upset the best of players.

It is only the second time in Nadal’s career that he has exited the first round in a Grand Slam. He took more risks than me, and he won. “Everybody now tries to hit all the balls”, he said. “Rafa knows how hard it will be, so I expect it’s going to be a long match”.

Halep’s was not the only surprising exit in the women’s draw, with eighth seed Venus Williams knocked out by Johanna Konta.

“Well I think 2009 was maybe the only day in my life that I hit 4, 5 hours”, Verdasco said, looking at the clock beside the court to compare it with their semifinal meeting.

“I know I did everything that I can to be ready for it”, he said in his post-match press conference.

“I think it’s irrelevant how old she is because she’s such a champion with so much experience and so much knowledge about the game”. “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 win advanced the 32-year-old Verdasco to a second-round match against Dudi Sela of Israel.

Kerber had to save a match point to stave off a fourth shock, rallying to beat Japan’s Misaki Doi 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (8-6), 6-3, while Muguruza beat Estonian Anett Kontaveit 6-0, 6-4 and immediately set her sights on dethroning Serena Williams in the final.