Rafael Nadal needed little time to get past countryman David Ferrer in the first round of the 2018 US Open on Monday, as his opponent retired midway through the second set.
The world No. 1 won the first set 6-3 on Arthur Ashe Stadium, and his opponent called for a trainer afterward. Up a break at 4-3 in the second, Ferrer decided to pull the plug on his tournament (and also retire from Grand Slam tennis).
Rafa:
I’m very, very sorry for him. He’s one of the closest friends on tour.
We shared amazing moments together, playing French Open final (in 2013), playing a couple of finals of Davis Cup, winning a couple of titles. He’s one of the greatest tennis players we had in our country, so it’s sad for me to see him finish like this.
But he deserve everything because he’s a very hard worker, great person and fantastic player.
Our champ will play the big-serving Vasek Pospisil on Wednesday in the second round.
There is a press release on the ATP site: dated November 17, 2017.
Title of Release:
ATP and ATP Media Expand Partnership with Amazon Prime Video
Thanks for the reference. From the article:
Mark Webster, CEO ATP Media, commented: “To be able to bring a household name and global brand such as Amazon to the world of tennis is hugely exciting and the move from traditional linear TV to an OTT offering shows tennis remains at the cutting-edge of global sports media.”
Mark, mate: it’s not cutting edge if we can’t watch most of it! Amazon don’t do replays of matches: that’s about as blunt as an edge can get. It’s not even an edge, mate. It’s a long, flat, unending plane of depressing disappointment.
Hi Alex – ive been playing around with the tennis on amazon prime tonight. I paused a match in the middle for 5 mins and then pressed play and it carried on from where i stopped it. I know it’s not ideal but if you can wake up and pause rafas match at the start – it may be the case that when you get home from work you can play it all in one go. Unsure if it will work as it may just allow it for minutes rather than hours but thought you could give it a try whilst we dont have full replays at the mo. If you try it let us know how you get on. Hope it works
Hiya Susie: thanks for the idea – I will give that a go 🙂
Sad for David, clearly Rafa was too, for his good close friend 😥 – Get well soon Ferrer❣️🤗🍀
VAMOOS champ Rafa! 🎾💪🏼😍
Good luck and stay healthy 😘🍀
Glad Rafa is through – can’t pretend otherwise – but very sorry for David. On a lighter note – could anyone look more spectacular in sleeveless gear? Someone, somewhere, was saying they’d like to see Roger and Novak in sleeveless shirts – you have to laugh, don’t you?
I said he would be sleeveless. He looks spectacular.
RAFA ROCKS SLEEVELESS
I feel it for David Ferrer as he tried so hard to continue the match, but his body had other ideas. Yes, you could see that Rafa wasn’t happy to get the win against his good friend in such a sad way. What a trooper. What a fighter! David is planning to play in Auckland and South America before he finally ends his career in Spain, so I hope he lifts a trophy somewhere.
I did post here some months ago about Amazon Prime taking over a lot of tennis coverage in the UK.
Prime will also cover the nine ATP Masters starting in 2019.
The US Open it is being broadcast only on the Internet in Ireland and the UK, a five-year deal.
And as we all know, the BBC has rights to Wimbledon, etc.
Everything is just so fragmented. And I don’t want to watch tennis on a computer screen. Ggeezzzz!!!
Sad evening to see this great Warrior injured on his last appearance In New York. Rafa was upset for his friend, team mate, rival and compatriot. Emotional for all and I think we all share the sadness for David.
Rafa as usual showed his compassion, empathy , respect and affection for his friend.
Now Rafa moves ion to Round 2. Good wishes to him
To sad for David he have too retired vamosssssssssss champ stay healthy. Good luck next Mach love your fans 🎾🎾🎾🎾🎾❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️👍👍👍👍👍🇺🇸
I wanted to add my concernto the very interesting comments made about Amazon Prime’s move into tennis. I live in the US, but feel that Amazon must be testing this to eventually expand to the US. ESPN holds the major rights to the USO in the States. They have already limited the courts that can be seen for free online. They start broadcasting at noon despite so many matches starting at 11am edt. They often have talking heads instead of showing live tennis. Luckily, Rafa is such a major star that they always show his matches. I hope Amazon Prime will respond to the legitimate complaints.
It is concerning that, even as the technology improves which allows fans to watch tennis in high quality and at their convenience, providers limit or remove our ability to do so.
I understand that profit is a motive for these people, but how does lack of choice or convenience advance their agenda?
Living in Ireland and had all main tennis events, 250, 500., majors and Slams on either SKY or Eurosport. Both have lost the rights but no communication from Virgin Media , the provider of my package for which i pay a lot.
So disappointing and I only became aware from reading comments of Facebook.
Bought Eurosport tennis package to view on a laptop. Not ideal.
It is obviously something that we the followers of sport need to pursue’
1
Va4favre and Alex, I echo your concerns. It was so easy and convenient to watch tennis on Sky. The picture quality in HD was excellent and it was easy to switch to the interactive mode to watch matches on different courts. I have just subscribed to Amazon prime on a 30 day free trial just to watch the US Open (will be cancelling at the end of this period) and I must say that i’m not happy because we already pay a subscription to Virgin to get Sky Sports. Furthermore, the service via Amazon is inferior. We have to switch between remotes to get the tennis and the picture quality and commentary isn’t as good as with Sky.
I hope we just don’t roll over and accept this, but as tennis lovers who are passionate about the sport we complain in numbers because it’s all about the money and not about what we the paying public want.
Rafa very well played ,stay aggressive sorry to see David had to pull out
I would love to reflect on the match, but I wasn’t able to watch it. I apologise for taking the talking point away from the tennis, but therein lies the substance of my complaint:
I live in the UK and Amazon have snaffled up the rights to the US Open this year. They are my only platform for watching it. While there are several other problems with the quality and breadth of the coverage, here is the absolute kicker:
There. Are. No. Replays.
I have a job and need to keep fairly healthy hours. I cannot stay up waiting for US night matches to start. Whatever the tournament, most tennis fans in different time zones rely on replays. They are such a *basic* of tennis coverage.
But I wake up this morning to find, not only can I not see how dear Rafa is playing, but I’ll never see Mr Ferrer’s last US Open match.
Most of Rafa’s US Open matches will be night ones in the US. So currently, I will not be able to watch a single moment of his 2018 campaign. !&£%@(!
Alex, how about highlights on Youtube? There are sometimes even the full matches posted on there as well.
Good luck though, coz I’ll also be very piffed if I cannot get my Rafa fix on demand:)
Dear Mac,
Thanks for the idea. You are right; there are highlights on Youtube. But those are not enough for me. I want to watch the full match! This one, and the following ones!
If I weren’t paying for the coverage, I’d have no right to complain / demand a full match for free on Youtube. But I am paying for coverage! It seems utterly incompetent to me that replay isn’t available as an option. Amazon need to sort this out quickly.
At the moment it feels like a huge, profit-hungry conglomerate hoovering up tennis rights because they think they can turn a profit with minimal service. They clearly have no experience and no idea how even the most basic of tournament coverage goes.
What fills me with further dread is that apparently Amazon have won the rights to the majority of ATP tournaments in 2019 as well…
If the situation improves (and I think it must, reading the dismal reviews given by 80% of the subscribers on the Amazon page) then I will update you.
Best wishes,
Grumpy Alex
Yes, of course there is Youtube but it often shows very short, limited highlights and when a full match video eventually comes out, I have lost interest. The fact remains that we’ve been pushed into a corner. I bet if attempts were made to demote football exclusively to another provider like Amazon, something would be done about it. Only a matter of time, I wonder?
You’re right Alex.It’s terribly annoying to go to the Amazon website and only see ‘Match Over’ instead of the option for replays.
The service has horrible reviews as well, just a little above 2/5, with most complaining about the lack of options for later viewing. Shame on Amazon. I think the regulator needs to step in to ensure that the consumers are getting a good deal for their buck. This does not bode well if Amazon is getting the rights to other tournaments as well.
couldn’t agree more!
Totally agreed with Alex, and Mac …..I had no idea that Amazon had bagged the rights for 2019 ATP tour events. Im horrified and agree 110% with both you guys.
I have spent all morning contacting advisers to clarify whether they are planning to show replays or not. Currently they are not, but I think with the deluge of negative feedback on this point, they must. It is astonishing that there was no review of the service provision before the rights were handed over.
Maybe we could get in touch with the Nadal camp to ask for a “Rafa cam” to be fitted to his bandana?! Then we could have our dedicated view of the event XD
Alex, we’ve been in an identical situation so I completely sympathise. I signed up yesterday for Prime but struggled to stay up for the match. I only discovered this morning you cannot reply the US Open videos:( Like you, I prefer to watch entire matches and not highlights which tend to be miserly unless some generous fan has put them on youtube. I have a Eurosport subscription and I’ve always been annoyed at their inadequate or complete lack of labelling and having to scroll through reams of footage to find a match but at least you get there eventually!
So true: at least with Eurosport one gets there eventually! Replays actually exist!
When paying for a streaming service that has made a big song and dance about acquiring the rights to an event, one expects progress. At the very least, that it not to be *worse* than it was before. It doesn’t cross one’s mind that it will be literally unwatchable!
If some generous fan puts matches up on Youtube that is kind of them and appreciated by us. But when we’re paying for a huge multinational to sit back and do next to nothing, why should a fan be expected to give up their time to provide the content that this profit monster cannot condescend to provide?
Pitchforks!! XD
Apparently Amazon are going to offer replays of the quarter-finals and onwards, so we can only hope Rafa gets that far! I’m in the UK too, and although I got up at 3am to today to see the match, it’s not something I can do regularly. I don’t get why they can’t offer replays – I’ve said the same before about Wimbledon, but at least that’s the BBC who aren’t making millions like Amazon.
jas, I agree with you. I find the lack of individual Wimbledon replays very frustrating, but: i) there are at least replays by court, so one can skim along a day’s recording to find the match one was looking for, ii) it’s not a new problem – this has been a frustration about the BBC for some time – and at least they are making outer courts and replays more accessible year by year, iii) by contrast, here is a new provider making a big show about how great their coverage is going to be, and singularly failing to back that up, and iv) profiteering off our dear sport.
If they can offer replays of the Quarter Finals, they can offer replays before that as well. The technology exists(!)
Where did you get the news about the QF replays? Do you happen to know the reason why they can’t / won’t show replays before that stage?
Best wishes,
Alex
I understand and share your views
Please Alex, you don’t need to apologise because you have a legitimate complaint. I agree with everything you said and I am angry that viewers are getting steam rolled like this. As Rafa fans and tennis lovers, how are we supposed to assess matches and give our honest critique if access is limited? Clearly we are being ripped off because we are getting less from Sky etc for the same money. Unless there is some sort of campaign against this, i’m afraid things are only going to get worse.
Dear Lorna,
I have already complained privately to Amazon, and left a public review on their US Open page. I will cancel my subscription if they do not provide replays; that is the primary point. Though I have other complaints about the quality and breadth of their service as well.
Might it be worth sending our concerns / wishes to Sky? Eurosport?
Or do you think that tennis is too “minor” a sport for them to worry about annoying us and losing our custom? :-/ I would like to believe the opposite, and will take gladly suggestions for what further action we could.
Amazon Prime bought out Sky’s and Eurosport’s rights. Maybe to help you decide which company has the ability [legally] to help consumers you may want to check articles on the Internet about Amazon’s entrance to sports coverage.
I think the only thing that can sway any company is their bottom line—revenue. If sports fans simultaneously boycott this nonsense “maybe” we can get some favorable results. But a boycott is not likely.
@Alex Re source of news about replays – BT website. I’m not a customer of their set-top box or broadband, but found the info when looking up who the Amazon commentators would be. I should probably have said “according to this source”. I hope we get replays of the latter stages and I will make my comments to Amazon, but for now just concentrating on sending good thoughts to Rafa. He will be out there playing, irrespective of media deals, and even if we can’t see him we can still will him on to win. Vamos!!!!
Thanks, jas.
Vamos indeed 🙂
Very sad for David. All the best for him in the future.
Not the best match of Rafa, still a lot work to do but a first round is always tough. All the best against Pospisil. Vamos Rafa <3
Very very sad
Fab Ferrer
Some amazing rallies were seen ofcourse
Cheers
That was hard to watch, so unlucky for David. The TV coverage showed him walking back down the tunnel while at the same time Rafa was saying such kind words about him in the on-court interview. No surprise at all that Rafa did zero in terms of celebration and didn’t look like he even wanted to sign and hit the souvenir balls.
It was a very sad way to end the match. Rafa was visibly upset in the second set when he saw how David was suffering. It brought back painful memories of Rafa’s loss to David at the AO in 2011. Rafa had injured himself in the first set, but he refused to retire to take away from how well Ferrer was playing. His camp was pleading with him to stop, but he would not. You could see David trying to do that too, but the pain was too severe.