Watched the entire match yesterday and IMO Nadal is not at the level he was on clay and maybe even the first 3 matches in Wimbledon.
On the backhand, he did hit some flashy winners , but overall the backhand was ordinary by Rafa's standards. He was slicing a lot which usually doesn't happen when he is playing well. Gasquet hardly ever pushed Nadal wide on the backhand which is usually where Rafa gets into trouble. He was also late on getting to the ball and throwing up defensive mid court balls.
The forehand was also not firing as it was earlier in the year. He missed a lot of routine forehands. The winner to UFE ratio was bad. There were precious few off- forehand or DTL winners. His cross court fh was decent which pushed Gasquet back.
However the biggest deficiency was the return of serve. To be fair, Nadal should have broken Gasquet more than the 2 times he did. Several times Nadal just missed easy returns on breakpoints or gave a sitter return that sat up in the service box. Did not cost him Gasquet, but might be decisive in a tight match.
The 1st serve for Rafa was also not as fast Close to 112 mph average many times - which is low - even for him. He also had more double faults than usual.
This post is not meant to be critical. Nadal won the match handily. And he is not playing bad in general. But Gasquet is a really easy matchup for him given how far back the Frenchman plays and has no ability to step in and take time away from Rafa.
Overall, based on the scintillating form Nadal was in the clay season, his hardcourt performance is just ordinary. I was expecting 2013 level hardcourt form given how he looked early in the year. But it is clear he is nowhere close to that level.
Good news is that Nadal can only improve from here. So let's see how he does in the UsOpen. Based on the current form, it is likely to be a scrap in NY..
