The crowd at this week's Barcelona Open were treated to a shock on Friday as eight time Champion, Rafael Nadal, crashed out of tournament for the first time in eleven years.The 'King of Clay' had won each of his last 41 matches in Barcelona, only previously losing to Alex Corretja in his debut tournament of 2003. As well as that, the Spaniard had previously lost just two sets in all 41 of those victories.
But his three set loss to fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro doubled this tally as he was defeated 2-6 7-6 6-4 in the quarter-finals. This was also the first time that Almagro had ever managed to beat Nadal in ten previous meetings.
The match started in routine fashion as Nadal broke his fellow countryman twice to claim the first set 6-2/ However, from there the tide began to turn as Almagro made less sloppy errors, finding much more epth in the court than Nadal.
A tight second set was decided by a tie-break and it was Almagro who emerged victorious, taking only his second set off the 13 time Grand Slam Champion to force a decider.
With momentum firmly behind him, Almagro pushed on, capitalising on some wayward serving from his opponent to get the vital break and eventually serve out the match to book a place in the semi-finals against the Columbian Santiago Giraldo.
This is by no means the first shock of the year for Nadal who, after enduring a phenomenal 2013, has suffered a number of uncharacteristic losses already. His third round loss to Alexandr Dolgopolov in Indian Wells and his defeat last week in Monte Carlo to David Ferrer suggest he is not as his best as he prepares for the French Open.
And with significant ranking points to defend in recent weeks, Nadal will have to look much sharper on the clay courts of Madrid in two weeks time if he is to fend off the challenge of Novak Djokovic for his world number one position.
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