"Rafa will play in Montreal. It is good news for us," Toni Nadal told Radio Marca.
"It's another thing to know what standard he will be at. I imagine he won't be in very good condition.
"He has been training but without really pushing it very much."To see what form he's in, we'll have to see how he copes in a proper match."
He added: "There is no particular objective at present.
"The challenge is to get back into form and to be in good shape for the US Open."
(Sky Sports)
Sounds about right to me.
I'm glad he took as long as he did, though remain convinced it shouldn't have taken an injury as acute as this to impress upon him the need to revise his clay court schedule.
There's a school of thought out there that says this injury and the existence of a couple of bambinos will mean Messrs Federer and Nadal will find their usual levels of uber-intensity slightly diminished. And that this situation will likely prove propitious for a band of players headed up by Murray, del Potro and Andy Roddick.
There's also a school of thought out there that believes the earth is flat.
It's not inconceivable that Nadal's knees fail to hold up. My only point is that tendinitis is not always the career killer it's sometimes made out to be. And though there's some truth in the observation that Nadal's physical style of play might prove to be his undoing, I'm beginning to feel that this too is becoming more of a conversation filler than an accurate statement grounded in reality.
It's true that playing that way has adversely affected his knees, but it's also true that there's not another player out there as physically well equipped to cope with that grind.
And as to the theory on Federer's bambinos, I say 'Pesh-Tosh and a bottle of Pinosh'.
Not because it means anything, but because that theory sounds like something I should respond in that way to.
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