Scary tennis from Rafa

On his 22nd Birthday Nadal gave himself and the rest of the tennis
world a present - a demonstration of near perfect, ruthless and brutal
tennis.

He crushed Almagro 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 a stunning result and an incredible
scoreline. No, a frightening scoreline.

This wasn't a case of a champion playing a hopelessly outclassed wild
card in the first round.

It was a Grand Slam quarter final against the in-form clay court
player. Almagro has won more games on clay this year than anyone else
on the tour.

And yet he was completely overwhelmed. It wasn't as if Almagro played
that badly. Sure, there were too many mistakes, but even when he
conjured up what should have been outright winners, Rafa got them back.

I've felt for some time this could be Fed's year but on the basis of
the past few days the Swiss maestro must be hoping that Nadal is going
to have another outbreak of blisters.

Play of the week

Mercedes ATP Play of the week. Youzhny V Almagro. More crowd pleasing action from Mikhail Youzhny, this time without the head smashing. A full stretch diving return from Youzhny at the end of a rally that proves the old adage about going for every shot. Watch it here.

Racket abuse of the week

There can't be many people who play tennis - whether they're pro's or Sunday morning park players - who at some point haven't wanted to smash their racket into the court out of pure frustration.

Thankfully most of us are able to keep it together - after all rackets don't come cheap. On the pro circuit, however, not a week goes by without someone taking it out on their racket. But last week Mikhail Youzny took it to another level during his third round tie at the Miami Open.

Youzny was 5-4 down against Nicolas Almagro in the final set, and had forced a vital break point. But after blowing his chance of breaking back Youzny lost it and proceded to whack his forehead with the edge of his racket frame 3 or 4 times, drawing blood.

The wound was so bad that he had to take a time out for the trainer to patch him up. Amazingly he then got back on court and broke Almagro and went onto wrap up the match in a tie break. Seriously kids, don't do this at home.