Nadal Must Hate the Locker Room

Apparently Rafa missed the memo that you're allowed to win a match in less than five sets. In an apparent effort to make up for his lost time on court the last week, he's labored for the maximum sets in his last two encounters. This time, he looked to be on the ropes against Mikhail Youhzny, then sorta just ran him over after Youhzny's back stiffened up. The first two sets took 81 minutes; the final three 104. Maybe the Spaniard forgot to warm up and used the first two sets to take care of that for him.

Nadal now faces a tough challenge from Tomas Berdych, who had only a little trouble in ending Bjorkman's tournament. The highlight of that match? Bjorkman giving the chair umpire the business in Swedish. Bjorn Borg would be ashamed.

Novak Djokovic, a potential semifinal opponent, gave only slightly less effort in defeating Lleyton Hewitt in four tight sets, including three tiebreaks. He'll take on Marco Baghdatis, another fantastic match that won't be shown in the US because nobody at the TV networks has any idea what fans want to see. The Cypriot took out Davydenko, who played surprisingly well at SW 19 after only winning one match in his career there before this year.

Also, I couldn't help but notice that in the men's invitational doubles, Ilie Nastase and Stan Smith were paired together. Can you imagine a more disparate team? That's the oddest pairing since Dennis Rodman and Jean Claude Van Dam.

Finally, it's about time Roger Federer caught a bad break from the weather. The dude doesn't need any more help in winning this thing. He now needs to win three matches in three days, just like everyone else.