Nadal scores a scorcher
Not-to-be-messed-with-Rafa destroys big-hitting Russian
SPIELBERG: Formula One title contender Lewis Hamilton will have a five-place grid penalty for tomorrow’s Austrian Grand Prix after his car required an unscheduled gearbox change.
The drop means he cannot equal Michael Schumacher’s all-time pole position record of 68 at his home British Grand Prix next week.
Hamilton is currently on 66 and had been favourite to take the top slot in Austria.
A Mercedes team spokesman said the gearbox problem resulted from the previous race in Azerbaijan.
The Formula One technical delegate said Mercedes had informed him about the change last Tuesday.
Hamilton started on pole in Baku but finished fifth after having to pit to fix a loose headrest.
The Briton is 14 points behind Ferrari’s championship leader Sebastian Vettel in the standings after eight of 20 races. Both have won three races each.
The pair clashed in Baku when Vettel drove into the back of the Mercedes while they were behind the safety car and then banged wheels angrily after pulling alongside.
Vettel, who finished fifth in Baku, apologised for the incident of “road rage” after a hearing in Paris on Monday. It was not known whether the damage to Hamilton’s gearbox resulted from the collision.
Hamilton smashed his lap record twice in practice yesterday, with Vettel close behind his Mercedes rival.
Hamilton, the only driver on the current grid to have won in Austria following the retirement of 2016 champion and team-mate Nico Rosberg, swiftly demolished the lap record he set last year.
The Briton then lowered his morning time by another half second in the afternoon to end the day with a best time of one minute 05.483 seconds.
In changeable conditions in the scenic Styrian hills, with bright sunshine mixed in with the occasional rain shower, four-time world champion Vettel was second on the timesheets with a lap 0.147sec slower than Hamilton’s.
Red Bull’s Dutch teenager Max Verstappen had been second in the morning, when Vettel was only fourth and half a second off the pace.
Mercedes have won every year since Austria returned to the calendar in 2014, after being absent for a decade, with Hamilton triumphant in 2016.
Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas was third fastest in both sessions, with Verstappen dropping back to fourth in the afternoon after being sidelined early in the session with a brake problem.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen were fifth and sixth in both. – Reuters
A NOMINOUS-LOOKING Rafa Nadal kept up his bid for a third Wimbledon and French Open double in style yesterday, serving notice he is not be to messed with in his 6-1 6-4 7-6 (3) defeat of big-serving Karen Khachanov to reach the last 16.
The Spanish fourth seed scorched his way through the first set, threatening to sizzle the parched Centre Court grass with the pace of some of his shots.
He committed only four unforced errors in that set and visibly berated himself when he dropped even a point. So rare were his slip-ups, that the crowd greeted them with gasps.
“I think for a while, I played fantastic. The first set and a half I think was a great, great level. I am very happy with the way I played,” Nadal said as he came off court.
The 30th-seeded Russian put it more bluntly: “At the beginning he started really fast. He was destroying me.”
Khachanov, 21, regrouped in the second set as Nadal’s level dipped from ferocious to merely fearsome. He stopped the slide after Nadal broke in the third game by booming down four aces to hold in the fifth.
He reached a set point in the third, but Nadal was too strong and too accurate to let him back into the match and ruin his straight-sets run.
Nadal, 31, won this year’s French Open, his 10th title there, without dropping a set. He has kept up the pace at Wimbledon as he aims to convert that red-hot clay form to claim his first grass court slam title since 2010.
With yesterday’s win, he has now bagged 28 consecutive sets at the grand slams this year – laying down a marker to his rivals in his quest for a 16th major title.
Nadal now has two days to rest up before facing a grass court specialist in Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller, seeded 16, in the fourth round on Monday. And like all those who have had a good week in the office, Nadal was planning a relaxing weekend.
“Just practice and ... relax at home with my family, maybe watch some golf maybe, some films with my cousins. My small cousins are here. Maybe play some football with them. That’s all,” he said.
Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka wasn’t even born when Venus Williams made her debut at the All England Club, but it was the 37-year-old who triumphed yesterday to book her place in the last 16 at Wimbledon.
It was by no means easy though for five-time Wimbledon winner Williams to turn that 20 years of experience on the grass at SW19 into a win against the 59th ranked 19-year-old.
The 7-6 (3) 6-4 result does not truly reflect the powerful attacking and spectacular winners from Osaka, who did enough in this encounter to suggest that longer runs at Wimbledon could be in her future. Indeed, despite her tender age, Osaka, whose mother is Japanese and father Haitian, has reached the third round in each of the grand slams.
Osaka, who moved to the US as a young child, has made no secret of being a fan of the Williams sisters, but she was far from over-awed by the occasion or her opponent.
“I think I started tennis because of them ... (but) going into the match, I tried not to think of her that much of how I normally do. I tried to think of her as a normal opponent so that I didn’t hold her on that high of a pedestal, that would make me too nervous, I think, to play her,” she said.
After fighting back from 4-1 down in the opening set, Osaka could easily have won it – she was 3-0 up in the tie-break before Venus, showing her characteristic grit and calm, took the next seven points.
It was tight in the second until Venus took advantage of some wayward shots from Osaka to grab a break in the seventh and she held firm to secure a place against Croatian Ana Konjuh in the fourth round.
“She played an amazing match today,” said Williams, “She really played a match that was worth – she deserved to win. But these sort of matches are always so close.
“The first set I had a break. She played some great tennis. She had some luck and some great tennis. Also the second was just about trying to get a break or two, if possible. I wasn’t successful in the two, but one thankfully was enough,” she added.
Osaka reacted like a teenage fan when told of Williams’ praise, smiling without restraint, but she showed enough maturity to know where she had fallen short.
“Game-wise I feel like I’m, like, as good as anyone else. But I just feel like maybe mentality-wise there’s certain things to do in certain situations that I’m not that aware of,” she said. – Reuters