No King In Queen's!

Ay, no. Rafa is out of Queen's Club! He won't be able to defend his title. I was afraid this might happen. Not that I ever mentioned it before, or thought to mention it, but in my heart there was that fear. It's those effing knees! He plays such a hard game. The precautionary tape he stabilizes them with every time he plays cannot work miracles. I'm sure Rafa is very very disappointed in this, following a disappointment in Paris and before that in Madrid. It's far more disappointment than Rafa deserves! Plus it's gonna mess up his points on the ATP leaderboard muchly. Let's all hope for Rafa's sake, and for the sake of quality tennis, that this is enough rest to get him in shape for Wimbledon. I don't want to see him miss his favorite tournament.

Rafa's quote:

"I am very disappointed to not be able to come this year to Queen's, defend the title I won last year and enjoy playing in front of their magnificent crowd. To play in London has always been special to me, to play at the Queen's Club is an honour and the fans in the UK are among the best I have ever seen, always supporting me since the first time I played there.

It's no secret to anyone that I have been having some problems in the past months with my knees, which did not allow me to compete at 100%.

I need to work with my team to recover well, work on my physical condition to be at my top form and get ready to play on grass at Wimbledon. I hope I will be ready to compete by then.

I am really sorry and I hope that the people at the Club will still want me to come next year." - Rafa