Losing in the early rounds of Wimbledon is not something new to Nadal. Since the 2012 defeat to Lukas Rosol in the 2nd round, a player who was ranked no.100 at that time, Nadal has lost to opponents outside the top 100 rankings for four straight years. Steve Darcis of Belgium was ranked no.135 in the world when he beat Nadal in the first round in 2013. Nick Kyrgios of Australia was ranked no.144 when he upset the former champion a year later. So, the defeat on Thursday perhaps shouldn’t be considered as an upset.
An obvious stats in the Brown encounter was the amount of serve and volley from both players. According to Wimbledon, Brown won 71 out of the 99 times he comes into the net. It was a clear cut tactic from Brown that he wants to force Nadal to come to the net more often as Nadal loves to camp a few meters behind the baseline regardless of what surface he is playing. It is a simple, but yet a very effective tactic.
Over the years, Nadal has been heavily criticized by a lot of people of not taking advantage of the shorter bounce of the grass surface to shorten the rally by playing more serve and volley rallies. With the injuries he often had, the tactic could help him extend his career longer.
He was often classified by tennis fans as the “King of Clay”, somebody who dominates only on the clay court surface. But people tend to forget that, Nadal had won two Wimbledon titles which include that epic 2008 final against Roger Federer. He has also won three hard court grand slam titles, including two US Open titles and an Australian Open title. So, perhaps calling him a player that excels on a single surface is premature.
Confidence is at an all-time low for Nadal. Tim Henman, former British no.1 tennis player summarized Nadal’s confidence level after the loss to Brown, “When you have won 14 Grand Slams and 60 odd tour titles, it amazes me how fragile Rafael Nadal’s confidence is”. You just sense that Nadal was struggling with his nerves badly in his match against Brown. There were no fist-pumping with his left leg high in the air. The quality of the return were poor. Double faults crept into his game. Overall, his body language looks concerning right from the start of the match.
A quarter-final exit in Roland Garros together with a series of poor results on his favorite clay surface just doesn't bold well with him since returning from the lengthy injury layover. With his world rankings hitting a 10-year low of world no.10, Nadal’s comeback in 2015 will be a much tougher one compare to his previous comebacks.
Clearly, Nadal needs to make some changes to his coaching team. As former three-time Wimbledon Champion John McEnroe quite rightly pointed out, “Perhaps Rafa needs fresh blood in his corner. Uncle Toni has done an excellent job but clearly at this stage, some fresh ideas might be in order”. A change in his coaching team doesn’t necessary means firing Uncle Toni. Perhaps that won’t even happened as Rafa has a very close relationship with his family members and many of the members on his team were working behind the scenes even before Nadal won his first grand slam title.
A closer look at his rivals coaching team, you can see a positive effect they had in their game after making changes. Novak Djokovic worked with Boris Becker starting from January 2014. Since then, Djokovic has been consistently staying on the world no.1 spot and has been the best player this season. Meanwhile, Andy Murray choose to work with Ivan Lendl at the start of the 2012 season. The partnership has helped propel Murray to victories at the 2012 Olympics, 2012 US Open, and 2013 Wimbledon title - ending Britain’s 77 years wait of a male British winner.
It is worth mentioning that Nadal chooses to play some smaller tournaments since he came back from injury. Perhaps a sign of needing some extra match practices to boost his confidence. He choose to play in Buenos Aires, an ATP 250 tournament in February just before the American hard court series in March. He also played in Stuttgart, a grass court tournament right after the French Open. On both occasions, Nadal won both tournaments. But, at this point of his career, Nadal needs to choose his tournaments wisely. Participating in lots of tournament might give you extra match practices. It will also wear you down easily or pick up an unnecessary injury. So, making smart decisions on the ATP calendar is definitely crucial for Nadal at this stage of his career.
A great example of that is Roger Federer. This year, he chose to skip the Miami Masters, an ATP 1000 masters series tournament that offers massive ranking points, so that he can have an extra two weeks rest in his calendar to give him more time to prepare for future tournaments.
At the age of 29, Nadal is still able to compete for grand slam titles. Despite struggling with injuries over the past few years, Nadal has the physical ability to stay on court for a few hours to chase down shots, hitting ridiculous winners from his racket. But time is running out. A change is desperately needed. Whether it is a coaching change or a playing style change, Nadal needs to do something to stop the rot because he is much better than what we are seeing right now.
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