Lukas Rosol: Want to know how I knocked out Rafael Nadal? Sorry, but it’s a secret

 
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David Smith29 June 2012

Before this year’s Wimbledon, Lukas Rosol did not have the first clue as to how to beat Rafa Nadal on a tennis court. But he knew a man who did.

Today, the Czech sensation identified part-time actor Slava Dosedel as the architect of a five-set victory over the second seed that will go down as one of the biggest upsets in history.

But here is the news every other player on the men’s tennis circuit will not want to hear. The secret to neutralising Nadal’s awesome spin-laden groundstrokes, and reducing the dashing Spaniard’s touch and volley to weapons of least destruction, is going to remain just that — a secret.

Dosedel once played a role in a Czech film Life Water charting the career of Vincenz Priessnitz, considered to be the founder of modern hydrotherapy. More crucially, however, he was also a journeyman tennis pro who in retirement has become Rosol’s coach.

“He gave me very good tactics,” said the 26-year-old, ranked 100 in the world and who, incredibly, had failed at the first-round stage in his last five attempts to even qualify for the main draw at Wimbledon.

“My coach was watching so many videos of Nadal and he told me everything he was going to do. It was good teamwork. But I can’t tell it to no one, because then Rafa will change everything.”

So it is left to the evidence of our own eyes to assess how this 2,500-1 outsider audaciously ended Nadal’s challenge for back-to-back Grand Slam victories 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 less than three weeks after the two-times Wimbledon champion had won a record seventh French Open.

For a start, Rosol’s serve was a revelation. In his four-set, first-round win over Ivan Dodig he produced just 12 aces. Last night, he slammed down 22 untouchable serves including seven in the deciding set played after a half-hour delay while the floodlit roof was closed over Centre Court in answer to the gathering gloom in south London.

Then there were his whipping returns, leaving Nadal rooted to the grass, and stunning 99mph backhand winners that drew gasps from a crowd who could hardy believe the drama they were witnessing.

Of course, Rosol may just have struck lucky. Maybe his was simply a once-in-a-lifetime performance never to be repeated, leaving the player ranked only third in his country to disappear back into the nether regions of his sport.

For all his praise for Dosedel’s research and advice, Rosol offered a clue that good fortune was a more valuable partner. “Sometimes I can wake up and I can beat anyone,” he said. “But some days I know I can lose to a player ranked 500. In the final set I was in a trance a little bit, I had my adrenaline so high.”

Nadal, still a tennis legend in the making despite this humiliating mark on his career CV, was doomed from the moment he was broken by Rosol upon the resumption of play at the start of the fifth set. His assessment of his conqueror? “If he plays the way he did in the fifth set, he can win against everybody,” he said. But Nadal, also 26, added: “I think everybody who follows tennis knows that it is difficult to do that every day.”

He was admirably philosophical in assessing his own mood, admitting: “It’s painful, because it is always tough to lose. That’s sport. You win, you lose.

“The last four months were great for me, probably one of the best periods of my career, playing unbelievable in the clay-court season. Here I play against an inspired opponent and I am out. It is not a tragedy, it is only a tennis match. At the end, that’s life. There are much more important things. Sure, I wanted to win, but I lost. That’s it.”

Nadal had not been so phlegmatic during a match which lasted three hours, 18 minutes. Rosol claimed his pumped-up opponent had deliberately bumped into him during a second-set changeover in a bid to break his concentration, saying: “I was surprised he can do it on the Centre Court, Wimbledon. It was something wrong.”

But that is in the past. Now he is looking forward to an unexpected extended stay in SW19. He said: “I think that if I can beat Rafa then I can beat anyone. It’s just tennis, and everybody is human.”

He will next take on 27th seed Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany who, intriguingly, beat Nadal in the quarter-finals of the warm-up tournament at Halle. As for Nadal, he is packing his racket away before returning to Wimbledon for the Olympics.

He said: “Mentally I feel very well but, physically, I need to rest. In the last six months I played almost every match possible in the tournaments I played, and I need to stop a bit.”

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