No excuses, says Nadal
Clay court king Rafael Nadal crashed out of the Italian Open on Saturday, falling to a straight sets defeat to Argentine Diego Schwartzman in a tournament the Spaniard had won nine times.
Eight-seeded Schwartzman meted out a punishing 6-2, 7-5 loss in Nadal's final warm-up before his bid for a 13th French Open, and record-equalling 20th Grand Slam in just over a week.
Men's top seed Novak Djokovic also stumbled on the Roman clay but recovered to win 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 against German qualifier Dominik Koepfer.
"We can find excuses, but I didn't play well enough. Then we have to think internally, 'Why? How I can fix it?'" the 34-year-old told reporters. "Now is not the moment to find excuses. It's just to accept that I didn't play well enough."
"It was not my night. He played a great match, I think, and I didn't. These things can happen. After such a long time without competing, I played two good matches, and now I played a bad one against a good opponent.
"That's how it is. I just want to congratulate Diego and I'm going to keep working."
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