“I try to practise more with my forehand,” admitted Nadal. “With my forehand I’m not as steady and consistent as in the past. Of course I can still impart some spin, but I’m not smooth enough with my forehand. I’m suffering from a lack of stability with my shots. That’s the way in tennis. You go through difficult moments. I’m still a solid player. I don’t think that my forehand is bad. It’s still good. But I need to reach better targets. I’ll try to better deliver my shots at Roland-Garros. And if I don’t win the French Open, my career will still go on. Life will continue.”

• Forget the Calls. Players Challenge the People Who Make Them. (via New York Times)

Nadal, in a particularly frank mood in Paris this year, then acknowledged after his first-round victory here that he had indeed asked that Bernardes not be assigned to his matches. Two of Nadal’s chief rivals, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, said they had never made such a request. “I don’t think that’s fair to them,” Djokovic said. “They do their job as best they can.” … But Cédric Pioline, the former French star who played in Courier’s era in the 1990s and early 2000s, said that the situation “doesn’t surprise me at all.” Pioline said he had requested not to be assigned to a specific chair umpire during his career. “What surprises me in the case of Nadal is that the word got out,” Pioline said. The rules do not prohibit requests like Nadal’s and, despite Courier’s surprise, such requests are not without precedent. Nor are they guaranteed to succeed.

• Nadal calls it great news if arrested FIFA officials do corrupt (via china.org.cn)

“I don’t have 100% information, and maybe nobody have the 100% information today yet. So it’s difficult to talk about,” the defending champion responded to Xinhua at a post-match press conference after making the men’s singles last 32 with a straight sets win over compatriot Nicolas Almagro at Roland Garros. “But it’s obvious that, I mean, in the world of sport, in the world of football, in the world of tennis, politics, around the world, we need people who are fair and who are ready to work in a good way, being honest. “And if there is some people that are not being honest with the rest of the people, then they don’t deserve to be where they are,” he said.

• Rafael Nadal the youngest French Open winner? (via ESPN)

Rafael Nadal was only 18 when he won the first of his nine (to 2014) French Open titles in 2005. But actually he wasn’t the youngest men’s winner: that honour goes to Michael Chang, who was just 17 years three months old when he won what turned out to be his only Grand Slam title in 1989. The youngest women’s winner came the following year: Monica Seles was only 16 years six months old when she won the first of a hat-trick of titles at Roland Garros in 1990.

• 13 things that resemble Rafael Nadal’s all-blue French Open outfit (via USA Today)

Rafael Nadal is looking blue, literally. Likely feeling that way inside after a springtime of clay-court disappointments, Nadal is showing it on the outside too, wearing blue shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, headband and wristbands at his French Open debut on Tuesday against French qualifier Quentin Halys.