Neil Harman conducts an interview with Tio Toni & some other articles below worth posting..Enjoy!

Rafael Nadal planning to lighten his workload
by Neil Harman (interview with Toni)

 It sounds strange to hear Toni Nadal use the word “prudence” when he reveals how the family is plotting the rest of his nephew Rafael’s career, because such a concept has rarely been in evidence as this great champion has gone about his business.

Pulsating, pulverizing, pitiless, perhaps, but prudent?

On the brink of the Spaniard’s sixth French Open — he won his first four and lost in the fourth round last year, when his mind was wandering and his physical powers were nowhere near their peak — his uncle and coach accepts that the future will involve much more discrimination when it comes to the tournaments to which he can commit. Nadal cannot be overplayed, whether his nature is to compete full-on each week or not.

“We must take care with the calendar and maybe it is better to prepare with prudence, so we shall stop more,” Toni said as the world No 2, who turns 24 on June 3, arrived in the French capital yesterday looking the epitome of rude health.
“We want to play a lot more years but we cannot play too hard all the years. When you see the Rafael of three, four years ago, he did a lot more running than he does now. His game is not as physical as it was before. This is what we have to accept.

“I don’t think about changing, I think about improving. Rafael’s serve is a little better, it is not as good as [Ernests] Gulbis [the 21-year-old Latvian] but it is better, his volley is a little better, his drive forehand is good and backhand better.

“But I know he can improve all the things and we think about that because I am his coach for ever and I say to him, ‘When you see something that happens to other people, you can think the same is going to happen to you.’

“I don’t want to say the names but good players, who have been at the top, they have gone down. It is the same because every year there are better ones coming, new ones, like Gulbis, [Marin] Cilic. [Andy] Murray arrived two years before, [Novak] Djokovic three years before. Rafael came to the top very young, which was good for us, but at the same time it is a problem because he was very high at 19-20 and you must get better because when you don’t improve, the new ones will make you bad and I know he can do all the things better. We are in this process.” Three consecutive clay-court titles would suggest that the process is at a defining stage and unless suffering under a surfeit of Brouilly, would anyone dare to suggest that he will lose three sets in a match on his beloved terre battue. Only two have gone by in three tournaments.

In 2009 it was different, for he was beset by domestic problems and physical doubts, and was rendered almost helpless in the face of Robin Söderling’s onslaught. Such concerns are banished. Nadal said yesterday: “The knees are very good at the moment.”

How much can change in six months. Nadal lost all three round-robin matches at the O2 arena in southeast London at last year’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and seemed bereft. “He played very bad there, but there were reasons,” Toni said.

Then Nadal had to retire from his quarter-final encounter at the Australian Open with Murray, when two sets down and well adrift, his joints aching. “In the critical moments he did not have the tranquillity to win against a player as good as Murray,” his uncle said.

That tranquillity has been restored, especially in the past month. Roger Federer may think that a clay-court season is determined solely by what a player does here; Nadal begs to differ. With the number of points he accumulates on the surface every year, he knows that his hay-making lasts two months, rather than two weeks.

His joy in Monte Carlo, Rome and Madrid has been unconfined. “He is used to playing every point, every game, the same when he plays in Paris and at home in Manacor [Majorca],” Toni said.

One assumes that carrying the mantle of overwhelming favourite is a great burden. Not so, says Toni. “For me, it is not difficult,” he said. “Rafael goes on every court with the same mentality, that he believes he will win, but he knows it is very difficult.”

Especially when the crowds at Roland Garros are so fickle. They greeted his loss last year with whistles, which was brutal, even for the French.

“Every person wants to have the public with him and I said it was not good for us when you have won this tournament four times, when you attempt every day to sign all the autographs, when you are behaving correctly in the club to hear this,” Toni said. “It is not correct, but every public can do what it wants.”


 His knees better, Nadal eyes a 5th French title
 By HOWARD FENDRICH

Rafa, Henin are favorites, and why not
By Greg Garber