Rafael Nadal refuses to use his weak knee as excuse for Wimbeldon loss

It was just that round one on court one on the opening day of Wimbledon amid a cacophony of bullish Spanish fans was not the expected location for Nadal's inevitable fallibility.
Nor that such an exit would be so hasty as a slick three-set match for a 12-time grand slam champion and the man lauded on the front pages of the Spanish press reverently as Rafa VIII following his spectacular run of success at Roland Garros.
But in grey overcast conditions Nadal did indeed falter to the one-handed backhand slices of Belgium outsider Steve Darcis 7-6 7-6 6-4 and The Championship's established order was immediately rocked out of kilter.
Darcis, who had surprised Tomas Berdych on Centre Court in last summer's Olympic Games, is quickly establishing a feared reputation way beyond his 136th seeding that had seen him battle on the lowly Challenger circuit.

"That was one of my best memories, I have to say," Darcis acknowledged of last summer.
"The first top-10 guy you beat, you don't forget. Now, here is the second one."
Nadal, 27, was to have been one of the finals contenders here, and indeed his No 5 ranking coming into Wimbledon had raised eyebrows given his scintillating form coming back from injury earlier in the year, making the final of each of the nine tournaments contested, winning seven, including the prized French Open just two weeks ago.
But those championships were mainly on his preferred surface of clay and Nadal had no easy entree on to the vagaries of grass thanks to Darcis's creative play.
"At the end, it is not a tragedy. Life continues," Nadal said. "That is sport."
Nadal had shown increasing signs of fatigue with a pronounced limp to his troublesome left knee - which had buckled during last year's Wimbledon second-round exit and sidelined him for seven months - in the latter stages of Monday's match, but his insouciance immediately afterwards turned quickly to irritation at the relentless questions which tended to underplay Darcis's good form.
"Are you joking? I answered this question three times or four times already," he said. "I am not going to talk about my knee this afternoon. (The only thing I) can say today is congratulate Steve Darcis.
He played a fantastic match. Everything that I say today about my knee is an excuse, and I don't like to put any excuse when I'm losing a match like I lost today. He deserves not one excuse."
His blunt analysis? "Sometimes you play worse and you lose, that is all."
Nadal rejected some implied criticism that somehow he had prioritised the French Open above Wimbledon.
"Seriously, I don't have a priority. I don't see any way you can prepare for one tournament in particular," he said.
"For sure, it is tough losing in the first round. This is a sport of victories. It's not a sport of losses: nobody remembers those.
"And I don't want to remember this loss."