Rafael Nadal showed lack of big match practice as he succumbed rather tamely to Tomas Berdych in three sets in the quarter finals of the Australian Open 2015. Few days back it was Roger Federer who got the taste of a bitter defeat in the hands of Andrea Seppi. This time his on-court rival’s time to get a feel of that.
Till the quarterfinals Nadal had looked good for the wins that he had over the lowly placed opponents. However he failed to cross the first major hurdle that he faced for which one thing is very clear that you always need 
match practice to win big matches like the quarters and the semis. Berdych blazed through the quarterfinal against Nadal and emerged winner with a scoreline of 6-2, 6-0, 7-6.
It was an all-round performance from the world number 7 as he simply toyed with the former champion on his way to his first victory over his Spanish opponent for the first time in nine years. After the win Berdych said, “ I was definitely ready for it” which showed there were obvious plans made between the Czech and his newly appointed coach Dani Vallverdu the implications of which made it really hard for the Spaniard to go past him. After the defeat Nadal said, “It was just not my day. I didn’t play with the right intensity, the right rhythm; I made it easy for him. So you cannot expect to win matches in quarterfinals of Grand Slams helping the opponent playing well. That’s what I did.”
Berdych will now face Andy Murray in the semi final of the year’s first Grand Slam who had an easy win over local talent Nick Kyrgios. The scoreline read 6-3, 7-6(5), 6-3 in favour of the British as he came over a tricky challenge of the Australian who had had a great run in the last year’s Wimbledon.
Tags: Australian Open Australian Open 2015 Rafael Nadal Tomas Berdych
