Maria Sharapova took to Twitter today to give Rafael Nadal and his fans a boost. Sharapova showed compassion for Nadal and, like many of his fans, is apparently growing weary of reading negative things about the Spaniard as he struggles to find his game in 2015. Here’s Sharapova’s tweet, which came as a reply to a headline the tournament had posted about Nadal’s loss to Fabio Fognini on Friday night.
Nadal did a fine job of speaking for himself, as well. Here’s what he told press when they asked what not winning a Grand Slam title for the first time in 11 years means to him:
“The only thing that means is I played worse than the last 10 years,” he said. “That's the real thing. By the way, for me was amazing win 10 years in a row Grand Slam. I think nobody did. You can imagine how difficult it is to make that happen. Accept that was not my year and keep fighting till the end of the season to finish in a positive way for me. Finish the season with the feeling that I improved something from the beginning of the season. That's something that I think I am doing. I think I have a good base now. As I said, good thing is I am not playing terrible matches like I did at the beginning of the season. When I am losing, I am losing because the opponents beat me, not because I lose the match, as I did a lot of times at the beginning of the season. That's an improvement for me, so I have a base now. That is a start. I know what I have to do and I going to work on it.”