Needled by his knees, Nadal looks iffy for Wimbledon

Into the quiet of a country club by the Thames River on Thursday came a bit of disquiet pertaining to that celebrated tennis tournament that’s starting Monday.

Rafael Nadal lost an exhibition to Lleyton Hewitt just before tea at the Hurlingham Club, but more than that, Nadal spent the 6-4, 6-3 match arriving late to shots, muttering to himself and stirring enough concern about his fractious, tendinitis-inflamed knees that his coach and uncle, Toni Nadal, indicated the world’s No. 1 player might miss Wimbledon.

Immediately after the match, the first of two exhibitions in which the defending champion hopes to gauge his suitability for a title defense, Toni Nadal made two telltale gestures.

For one, he simulated the planting of a foot as if to hit a shot and said, “The problem, he cannot” -- plant -- “so much.” For the other, he used his hand to simulate the takeoff of an airplane, suggesting it might be wise for his 23-year-old nephew to head for Mallorca, the Spanish island of his upbringing and residence.

“I don’t know. I want to wait for tomorrow,” Toni Nadal said, referring to the exhibition set for this afternoon against Stanislas Wawrinka, the Swiss ranked No. 18 in the world.

Hewitt, the 2002 Wimbledon champion and erstwhile No. 1 who is clambering back from an injury-prompted winter ranking of No. 107 that marked his lowest since 1999, has pulled in at No. 56 even as his 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 blasting by Nadal in the third round of the French Open supplied zero hint that Nadal would topple against Sweden’s Robin Soderling in the fourth.

As the surface changed to grass, Hewitt, 28, won two matches last week in the Wimbledon preparatory at Queen’s Club in London before losing to Andy Roddick in two tiebreakers, while Nadal withdrew from that event as its defending champion, citing the tendinitis -- the same sort of tendinitis that kept him out of the Davis Cup final in Argentina last December.

The respite delayed Nadal’s trip to London -- he didn’t arrive until Tuesday -- and helped foment a gathering media commotion around the No. 1 British player, No. 3-ranked Andy Murray, with whom Nadal practiced for 30 minutes Wednesday.

On Thursday, Nadal ate a buffet lunch with his coterie and then walked out with Hewitt beneath big clouds and before a few hundred corporate spectators, including club members standing beside the court. Surrounded by huge trees and pristine grass surfaces, the place remained quiet except for the District Line Tube rumbling in the distance.

Nadal’s unbandaged knees made no sound, while the outcome of the match -- his first on grass this year -- proved loud enough.

The sub-Nadal look of it prompted Toni Nadal to say of his nephew’s current physiotherapy treatment: “At the moment, it’s not enough.”

Lacking his usual zip on the court, Nadal languished particularly against Hewitt’s serve, getting aced four straight times in one game and lunging for three straight returns that ticked off his racket frame in another.

“You saw what he’s doing,” Toni Nadal said, referring to the relative slowness.

Nadal’s lateness on shots caused errors, especially in the 2-2 game of the first set, in which he was broken for the first time, and in the middle of the second set, when he mock-complimented himself after sending a baseline forehand flying long on break point.

“And so we wait until tomorrow,” Toni Nadal said.

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chuck.culpepper@yahoo.com