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Injury, withdrawal, hope: The familiar and brave life of Rafael Nadal
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Just three matches and seven sets into the season, Rafael Nadal withdrew from the Australian Open. Injury had felled him again.
PHOTO: AFP
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Finding Nemo wins an Oscar and something called Facebook begins. A cheat on a bicycle wins the Tour de France. A Gauff named Coco is born in Florida. It’s 2004 and Lleyton Hewitt doesn’t know that he’s going to be connected to a little piece of tennis history.
At the Australian Open, Hewitt manhandles a debutant in the third round. It’s a 17-year-old Spanish kid who says “towards the end I started to feel a bit tired” and then makes a career of never getting tired. His name is Rafael Nadal. The very next round Hewitt is dissected by the eventual champion, a dude named Roger whose rackets are strung with silk.
