Rafa Wins Doubles in Doha!!

(Double Double Your Enjoyment!)

I almost didn't notice this item, because tennis.com can be rather lame about reporting Double's Tennis news. Wake up, tennis.com! It turns out Our Hero, Rafael Nadal, actually won the Qatar Open Doubles Title this weekend with fellow Spaniard Marc Lopez! They beat Daniele Bracciali and Andreas Seppi 6-3, 7-6(4) in the championship match. I was really surprised by this, because Rafa had been battling a fever all week and lost in his singles semifinal match on Friday to Nikolay Davydenko 6-3, 6-2. The poor result in singles was clearly due to illness, and I just assumed following that match he'd withdrawn from the doubles as well. Turns out he was okay enough to play the less intense pace of doubles and hung in there to claim the title. That's because Rafa is a fighter and a champion!!

Rafa stayed in Doha for several days to get treatment and rest up before heading to Australia. It's not always great to sit in the confined airplane breathing in the same air for a long flight when you're sick. But now he's Down Under and hopefully feeling 100% going into the Aussie Open, where he has a chance to complete the Rafa Slam and hold all 4 Grand Slam titles at once. That hasn't happened since Rod Laver did it in 1969!! That would be really incredible but he's got a chance to do it. We'll wait and see!

On a side note, can we look at that "trophy" they gave Rafa and Marc, pictured above? What is it? A golden clam? A bronzed replica of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors? Did they give it to them in cardboard Chinese food take-out boxes? This pic is so strange to me. Anyway a win is a win. Vamos Rafa!