Nadal, Venus crash out of Australia Open

Rafael Nadal lost to Fernando Verdasco in the first round of the Australian Open, an unprecedentedly early exit at Melbourne Park for the 14-time Grand Slam winner and a reversal of their epic, 5-hour, 14-minute semifinal here six years ago.

Fernando Verdasco rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win the last two sets, recovering a break in the fifth as well, and claim a 7-6 (6), 4-6, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, only his third victory in 17 matches against his fellow Spanish lefthander.

Nadal won his only Australian title in 2009 after beating Verdasco in the semifinals. His only other first-round exit in a major was at Wimbledon in 2013.

Verdasco went for everything on his ground strokes, ripping 90 winners against only 37 for Nadal as he worked to the extremes to unsettle his former No. 1-ranked rival.

“To win against Rafa here coming from two sets down is unbelievable,” the 32-year-old, No. 45-ranked Verdasco said.

“I think I played unbelievable – the fifth set from the break that he made me, I just started hitting winners. I don’t know how, just, you know I was closing the eyes and everything was coming in and I keep doing it and I was doing well.”

A winning service return from Verdasco ended the match in 4 hours, 41 minutes. “Well I think 2009 was maybe the only day in my life that I hit 4, 5 hours,” Verdasco said, looking at the clock beside the court to compare it with their semifinal meeting.

“It was 35 minutes shorter today – I didn’t want to make it longer.”

Similarly, seven-time major winner Venus Williams also went out in a first-round 6-4, 6-2 loss to Johanna Konta. The upset results took some focus off the match-fixing allegations that have overshadowed the first two days of the season’s first major.

No. 2-ranked Andy Murray began his bid for a drought-breaking title at the Australian Open with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 win over Alexander Zverev, checked to see there were no urgent calls from home, and had to answer questions immediately about the reports.

“I just think that it should be tennis that does a better job of explaining … (players) shouldn’t have to read it in the press,” Murray said.

“You have to be proactive I think with things like this and go and speak to the players rather than them reading about it in the newspapers or listening to it on the TV or the radio.”

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