In The Australian Open Youzhny deserved to win the match, from second to fourth set was the only player on court, dominating from the baseline and hitting winners ..Rafa was only a " marionette " running under Mikhail's dictatorship
Youzhny controled very well Nadal's topspin and Rafa hadn't weapons to hurt russian .. In those 3 sets Nadal wasn't able to win the points by himself, he had to wait a Mikhail unforced error to win points ...
Even in the fourth set Nadal saved a macth point when Youzhny sent an easy volley behind the baseline ... I also remeber that Mikhail played from the fourth set injured ...
In the fith set Nadal played aggresive dominating with his forehand and won the set easily...plus Youzhny physical condition was over
The main lesson of that match, is that even when Nadal plays horribly he's able to win the match because he's a fighter and in that match in Australia showed his mental strength
Nadal only had a bad day in Austalia against russian , and he has grown up a lot from Aus open, today is a better player, then i wouldn't give many options to Mikhail..
But the match against Berdych i think is quite dangerous for the spaniard because czech is very motivated after Bastad defeat , Tomas has great conditions to play in hard courts, plus Nadal isn't used to play against big servers in the last months, he isn't used to return amazing serves ( remember that in Montreal he had to face players who usually play from the baseline and not serve-volley players ) ..Nadal arrives to Cincinnati with physical problems , tired , even his coach has advised Nadal to pull out of Cincy but it seems he wants to play . So, it wouldn't be a surprise a defeat against Berdych .