Rafael Nadal has vowed to fight on “in a positive way” after crashing out of the 2015 US Open at the hands of Fabio Fognini.
Nadal, the 14-time Grand Slam winner, lost for the first time at a major after taking a two-set lead, with Fognini storming back to secure a 3-6 4-6 6-4 6-3 6-4 in the third round at Flushing Meadows.
The loss also means that for the first time since 2004 Nadal has not won a Grand Slam title during a calendar year, but the Spaniard, the 2013 and 2010 US Open champion, has vowed to come back strongly before the season draws to a close.
“The only thing this means is I played worse than the last ten years. That’s the real thing,” he told reporters.
“By the way, for me it was amazing to win ten years in a row a Grand Slam.
“You can imagine how difficult it is to make that happen. I have to accept that it was not my year and keep fighting until the end of the season to finish in a positive way.”
Nadal has struggled for much of the year after injury and illness problems in 2014, losing in the quarter-finals of both the Australian Open and the French Open, before suffering a second-round defeat to Dustin Brown at Wimbledon.
Fognini, meanwhile, moves on to face another Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez, in the fourth round.
Ian Horne
Ian goes back to the very early days of CrunchSports, having been tirelessly covering soccer for us for over 10 years.