Well I guess that this match confirms what many of us suspected after yesterday's match: the stars aligned and Nadal pulled out a great performance but the usual level is abysmal,like it has been since after WB. And I have to reiterate once again,it's not that he loses but how he loses. He could have lost yesterday for all I care but at least he played some tennis.
Guys who have great HC games like Fed,Djoker,DelPo and so on would have given in-form Nadal fits,but when Nadal plays like this beatdowns are only normal. Nadal's problem is in his head,not in his muscles or lack of steroids.
There is no way you play like in the tsonga match(or monfils match in USO) one day and play pusher tennis the next. Nadal's biggest problem,besides the whole injury thing,is that,in his absence,the world has passed him by. Watching Nadal in the second part of the year,it's like he is trying to adjust to get back his game but everytime he makes some progress he doesn't follow through. It's almost like one step forwards two steps back.
Beating Djoker on HC was always hard for Nadal but when you stick with one strategy and refuse to change you pay the price. It was 6-2,6-3 and at times it looked like djoker wasn't even trying. High ball the BH and djoker would either punish Nadal's BH(which didn't work like yesterday) or go DTL. Davydenko,DelPo,Cilic did the same thing. Instead of varying a bit like in the tsonga match he barely changed something in the second but it was too late.
My biggest worry is that Nadal might retire soon. Nadal has always said that when he won't have the urge to improve his game further he will retire from the game. Well,a few months have passed and I haven't seen any improvement. I see a lot of ups and downs but no major improvement. Sure,he is making good results if we look at them in a cold manner but his game is missing bigtime.
He has beat just 1 top 10 player after WB and has always been stopped by a member of the top 10 in every one of the tournaments he played in. DelPo in Montreal,Djoker in Cincy,DelPo in USO,Cilic(the exception but top10 potential nonetheless)in Beijing,Davydenko in Shanghai and now Djoker again in Paris. And he didn't even win a set,coming close only 2 times,when he had 5-2 in the tie with DelPo in Montreal and when he had SP against Davy in Shanghai.
Like I said,the world passed him by. He even struggled against lower ranked players,who weren't in great form like Blake(twice),Bahgdatis,Ljubicic,Mathieu and so on. To tell you the truth I wonder what the hell is Tony doing or whether he has an influence over Rafa anymore because his problems are blatantly clear and it seems that no one is working on them. He had a flatter FH in the first rounds of AO. What happened to that? His BH was clicking in the first part of the season. What the hell happened to that? He actually did combos before in the form of hit BH 2-3 times only to move to the FH side to move the other guy around. Where is that? Nowadays he just moonballs to the BH and that's about it. It's a sad sight really.
I am not holding my breath for TMC. Anyone of the guys participating can beat Nadal,steamroll him even,and he might only get one win if he has the headcase verdasco in his group.
He is probably just waiting for the DC final cause he certainly didn't seem to put any effort into today's match.
