What knee problems? After being sidelined for seven months with a nasty joint injury, Rafael Nadal crushed former rival Roger Federer in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open on Thursday with a final score of 6–4, 6–2. Rafa showed no signs of aches and pains on the court after keeping tennis watchers on the edge of their seats with his pesky knees over the last year (“I suffer [from] tendonitis”), which forced him to drop out of the London Olympic Games last summer—“one of the saddest days of my career.” If anyone looked injured in Thursday’s match, it was Federer, who wasn’t gliding around the court as effortlessly as usual after suffering a back twinge early on in the tournament. Nadal’s take on the match? “Roger didn’t seem to fight as much as usual. Maybe it was back problems.”
