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Welcome to a new season of professional tennis and welcome to the brand new Tennis Diary! We're all looking forward to reconnecting with our regular readers and hopefully engaging in some lively discussion with new ones as well. 2010 represents a fresh start not only for our website but also for several players on the ATP tour. Let's take a quick look at a few players who are most looking forward to the clean slate.
Rafael Nadal:
Rafael Nadal is looking to bounce back after an up and mostly down 2009 on tour. He started last year by winning his very first hard-court Grand Slam at the Australian Open over a teary-eyed Roger Federer. At the time we all wondered how Roger would be able to recover after losing to Nadal at another Slam, and this time on a hard-court as well. What followed nobody could have predicted.
Nadal suffered his first loss ever at Roland Garros and subsequent injuries kept him out of Wimbledon all-together. Nadal would return during the summer swing after nearly three months off, but never really got his rhythm back.
The Spaniard says he is completely healthy now and we can only hope that is true. He has indicated that a lighter schedule will be adhered to this season and one wonders what took him so long to come to that conclusion. For years Nadal has played such a heavy schedule that by the time the U.S. Open arrived he looked like a shell of his usual self on court.
Is a repeat in Australia possible? Certainly. Despite being the defending champion, there will not be as much pressure on Nadal due the nearly nine months since he last held a trophy on tour. If he stays healthy, a win at the French Open is almost a guarantee and another year of frustrating Roger Federer and the rest of the tour should follow as well.
Andy Murray:
One player who will have enormous pressure on him is 5th ranked Andy Murray. What do all the players ahead of Murray in the rankings have in common? They have all won a major. Last season was supposed to be Murray's breakthrough year where he would make-good on all of his talent and win his first Grand Slam tournament. Instead he reached the 4th round on hard-courts in Melbourne and New York, the quarters in Paris and a respectable semi-final showing at Wimbledon where he lost to Andy Roddick. It was not Murray's breakthrough year after all and he is undoubtedly looking to put 2009 behind him.
Murray will likely win a Grand Slam title at some point in his career and perhaps even several. Until that time comes though, the pressure will remain. Murray's quest for a Slam reminds me somewhat of the pressure that existed on a young Andre Agassi. Murray, like Agassi, has enormous talent and has proven with regular wins over Federer, Nadal and Del Potro that he is able to dominate the big guns. He has made a Slam final, in 2008 losing to Federer, but must find a way to mentally focus long enough to get that seventh win over a two week period.
Richard Gasquet:
There is one more player who especially needs a fresh start in 2010 and you'll have to look a bit lower down the rankings to find Richard Gasquet. Currently the 53rd best player in the world, Gasquet will be looking to re-establish himself as a top-twenty tennis player this season.
It was last year that Gasquet was suspended by the International Tennis Federation for doping violations. Traces of cocaine were discovered in one of his samples and he was immediately banned from playing on tour. Gasquet could have faced up to two years away from the game, but had his suspension lifted after a mere two-and-a-half months. The Court of Arbitration of Sport accepted Gasquet's claim that he ingested a small amount of the drug from kissing someone at a Miami nightclub.
It was definitely one of the strangest explanations I have ever heard of and one that was surprisingly accepted. I'm not saying the explanation isn't true - only Gasquet would know - but the fact that it was used as the basis for overturning the ban is a real head-scratcher.
Either way, Gasquet is fortunate to be back on tour and at the tender age of twenty-three (doesn't it feel like he has been around for ages?) he still has ample time to make it back to the upper echelon of the sport. With all the depth in the men's game right now it might be difficult for him to best his career-high ranking of seventh in the world, but nobody will question he has the natural talent to do it.
What player do you think most needs a fresh start in 2010? While you're thinking of that, make sure you wipe the slate clean for your own game as well. It's a new year for players of all calibers - right Zach?
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