The Fall of Rafael Nadal

[ClayDeath]

The Fall of Rafael Nadal: What really happened? What were the main causes?

Can he come back? Exactly what will it take? Does he have a slam left in him?

Be objective or subjective or both.

Post away  and have fun.

 

[ClayDeath]

this did not happen overnight. I believe this decline is well over 4 years in the making and accordingly, could have been picked out or spotted early.

I will put some numbers up later tonight to show the trends.

the fall is quite steep in a sense that he now finds his game quite diluted. there are massive casualties on every front or in every single aspect of his game. that does not happen overnight.  and that also does not happen if there is a decline in confidence.

there are far deeper causes of the decline and lets try to get a sense of them and explore them.

why exactly did the decline become so widespread so as to swamp every single aspect of his game? it even affects his mighty topspin forehand for instance.

 

[Mastoor]

I can't promise you that Rafa will keep wining couple of slams pet year, but I am sure he is back.

 

 

[Moxie]

Rafa has not been at his best since the last "season of woes":  back/wrist/appendicitis.  But he is making his way back.  Some of his recent wins have been due to, well, basically, his brass balls and refuse-to-lose attitude, but it's all good in terms of confidence-building and form.  But I agree with Mastoor...he's pretty much back.

 

[ClayDeath]

the casual observers and  fans---who have not played the sport at a fairly high level and those who have not played a heavy topspin game--would have vey little idea of the fall and the true and very rate rate of decline over the last 4 years.

he was the greatest ever on his best surface. no other all time great suffered such decisive losses on his best surface and struggled so mightily.

some people have absolutely no idea of how steep the fall is.

 

of course I have my own eyes and I can see pretty damn good but we can also dig up stats like this all day long.

as I said before, he has one hell of a mountain to climb on clay, let alone his worst surface which is indoor hard courts.

he cannot win any title anywhere going forward unless he can stage a comeback and show that he can win on clay.

so until then, he is not back. he fought a little in Basel and got a few wins. and then he faces a 35 year old he had a 23-11 record against and had won 5 in a row against him going to into that match. he even took the second set to suggest that he had the momentum.

still could not bag the title.

take a very close and hard look at these numbers:

 

1: Service Games Held: After spending 2012 and 2013 in the top-5 of this category, Nadal’s numbers have slipped in the last two years.
Service Games Held, Overall ranking/ Pct

2015: 16th, 84.1
2014: 13th, 85.3
2013: 5th, 88.1

2. Serving Woes vs. Top-10: Nadal has struggled even more vs. the ATP’s elite. This is where one can really begin to see the difference in Nadal’s statistics.

Service Games Held vs. Top-10, Ranking/Pct:

 

2015: 21st, 70.8
2014: 18th, 78.7
2013: 5th, 82.7

3. Sets won vs Top-10: Winning sets has been a challenge vs. the top-10. Again, the numbers are quite startling.
Sets Won vs. Top-10, Pct:

2015: 10-23, 30.3
2014: 18-12, 60
2013: 52-19, 73.2
4. Struggling to break Top-10 also:

Nadal’s serve, and his difficulty holding serve, has been his biggest issue in 2015. But the stats show that he’s struggling to break against elite players as well. he cant back his weak serve--and now much weaker serve--with his diminished ground game
Return games won vs. Top-10, Pct/ overall ranking:
2015: 14.6, 18th
2014: 29.5, 3rd
2013: 31.5, 1st

Note: Nadal broke 37.4 percent of the time on clay against the ATP this year, but against the Top-10 on clay, he only broke 19.7 percent of the time (in six matches).

 

[ClayDeath]

more on this later.

here we will explore the true root causes of the decline which led to such a massive fall.

we will explore all the contributing factors.

please feel free to jump in and share your insights.

 

[Moxie]

please feel free to jump in and share your insights.

If only you were interested in them. Mastoor and I have actually added insights, and you just glide past with your own POV. Is this a conversation, or a lecture?

 

[ClayDeath]

Clay Death wrote:
please feel free to jump in and share your insights.

If only you were interested in them. Mastoor and I have actually added insights, and you just glide past with your own POV. Is this a conversation, or a lecture?

saying he is "pretty much back" does not make it so.

show us some evidence.

he won masters events and slams for a decade.



did you not bother to read those stats I just posted. they were for you and mastoor and all of us.

nobody "glided" past anybody as you put it.

my posts are for everybody.

can you counter those stats? do you not ascertain the steep depth of this fall? he is not just a shell of what he used to be but something even less.

so it is a very long road back. I know he can do it if anybody can but I just don't know if he is going to.

simply because the mountain is too steep to climb.

don't be fooled by the #5 rank. who can he beat? he beat stan 13 times in a row without ever losing a set to him? what kind of confidence crisis could he possible have against him? now stan can beat him anywhere and on any surface.

he holds winning records against all of the top 30 players". what kind of confidence crisis can he possible suffer against fognini and yet he has lost to the Italian no less than 3 times this year alone.

it is not a crisis of confidence. he just does not have the game and fitness and the physicality anymore. he refuses to put in the hard yards. he does not have the cyborg like focus and drive of djokovic that he once he had. he does not have the fitness and the physicality he once had. he does not have his ground game. it is at best at 30% capacity.

saying "he is pretty much back" does not mean that he is back.

it all has to begin on the clay of Europe. he has to prove to his adversaries and himself that he can win a masters event on clay.

he failed to win a single masters event this year for the first time in nearly a decade.

we cant blame his fall on injuries. he has been healthy for over a year now.

he is NOT BACK until we have something concrete in front of us.

nothing is going to happen in London. and he has already said that he wont be ready and prepared for the Australian Open. I take that as either he does not have enough time to prepare or he just does not care to. or both. and I know that already anyway. he is not going far at the Australian Open. not with the current game and the current fitness levels.

this is why we just have to see something before we can rush to conclusions that he is back.

those stats show the steep depth of his fall.



monte carlo is 147 days away. he does have time to prepare for that event.

he needs 2 of these 3 and he needs a win over djokovic:

1. monte carlo
   
2. barcelona
   
3. rome

 

[ClayDeath]

Roger Federer:

he said he was at the O2 arena to win the ATP finals.

that is also what he said when he showed up at the slams.

note that he did not say that there was no shame in losing to djokovic long before the match was actually played.

he also did not say that it did not matter if he lost since he had won it before.

note also what Wawrinka said at RG:

very specufically he said that he had the game to beat anyone. He also said he did not fear djokovic and that he had the game to beat him.

that is the kind of positive and courageous mindset you have to have.

rafa even went so far as to say he was not the favorite against anybody after getting slapped around by Fognini in Barcelona.

go work on your game and your fitness Rafa. And stop talking nonsense. do something. change your stars.

 

[ClayDeath]

Pat Cash has offered to help Rafa.

has anybody seen and read his remarks? I can post them later.

 

[Moxie]

Pat Cash has offered to help Rafa. has anybody seen and read his remarks? I can post them later.

That would be a joke. Pat Cash lost to Rafael when he was 14. What is culturally useful or otherwise about Cash's game that would be helpful to Rafa? I don't see it. If I were to ask for one consultant to be added to the team, I liked Moya, and they may be talking to him, but my other favorite would be John McEnroe. He was a very aggressive player, and he's a fan of Rafa's game.

 

[amicitia81]

Here you can see the blogs about the Fall of Nadal from stars like Vilas, Kodes and Emilio Sanchez Vicario

http://tennismem.com/?lang=en

 

[ClayDeath]

Rafa talks a lot of nonsense. I don't know if he is that clueless or he just talks to be talking since reporters are always hounding him for answers.

now he said he is doing just fine. and all he has to do is improve his serve.

and about 3-4 days back he said he had to improve his return for 2016. he said that was his top priority.

 

he is a bright guy so I am just going to say that he is talking to be talking.

 

then a few days back he said he and his team were doing some things different: he said they were playing and practicing more from closer to the baseline. that was before Basel. all those matches there were long. I never saw any significant evidence of that "playing closer to or inside the baseline". and it is not going to work for him anyway. that notion is wrong anyway. he needs his time to execute his heavy topspin strokes.

he has one hell of a mountain to climb. lets just hope that he knows and understands that.

and it all has to start on the red clay of Europe. he has to be able to run over the top guns there before anyone can say he is back.

he simply has to win rome or monte carlo. and he has to take Barcelona.

as for the improvements in 2016, they have to happen in all these areas:

a. fitness

b. physicality: he has to hit the gym and build physical strength

c. practice more on clay and get his consistency back

d. practice the return

e. better serve

f. engage the topspin backhand in battle. enough pushing and shoving that sliced backhand already. ditch the weak and club level slice unless you really need it like for defensive reasons to get back into the point. that means work on the topspin backhand and regain full confidence in that stroke.

g. go forward a little more with conviction. certainly in easy matches so as to develop more confidence at the net. don't guide and push the volley. take a chance and stick it or punch it.

 

more on this next time.

 

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

nadal is not 'back' he's not won abig tourney since 2014 French open. no majors, no masters..not even any finals in those tourneys since then.

he could sneak a major next year maybe, but he has clearly declined since the good old days.

 

[ClayDeath]

no hard court titles in 28 months or longer. I expect that trend to continue well into next year also. hard court masters titles will be very difficult to come by. he has to go run over them on clay before he can improve his chances on other surfaces.

I am glad he is healthy for a change and showing some renewed hunger and fight.

but it all has to start on clay for him. clay is the wellspring from which he flows.

he has to be able to win on clay against the top fields before we can conclude that he is back.

 

[Moxie]

nadal is not ‘back’ he’s not won abig tourney since 2014 French open. no majors, no masters..not even any finals in those tourneys since then. he could sneak a major next year maybe, but he has clearly declined since the good old days.

And yet...as he keeps finding his way back to form and confidence, you have to admit that his upswing, especially late-season and on fast and/or indoor HCs has struck just a bit of fear in the hearts of the Federer and Djokovic fans, has it not? I think yes. You list his failures to accomplish since winning RG in 2014, but you don't mention that he had a back injury, a wrist injury that didn't allow him to defend 2 MS and the USO, and an appendicitis, FFS. I know folks hate to hear about "extenuating circumstances" when it comes to Nadal, but...seriously? He's 29, supremely talented, he's a great competitor and he works incredibly hard to match his game to the challenges at hand, (no matter what Clay Death says.) He says his focus is improving so as to have a good 2016. I'd say he's on the march to that. And as "shocking" as it is that he hasn't won a Major in 17 months...Roger hasn't won one in 3 years and 4 months. Andy hasn't won one in 2 years and 4 months. (Cilic and Wawrinka: yes, but...) A resurgent Nadal is the nightmare of many. B-)

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

^^I don't know if rafa;s upswing has rattled Federer/Djokovic fanatics,

he still isn't back though until he wins a big tourney, a major, a masters, or dare I say it..a world tour final title.

 

[Moxie]

^^I don’t know if rafa;s upswing has rattled Federer/Djokovic fanatics,

he still isn’t back though until he wins a big tourney, a major, a masters, or dare I say it..a world tour final title.

Stand by on the WTF title, eh? He's in with a chance. (Ok, ok...I won't be betting my mortgage on it.) But if he's close to back on form, and targeting the clay season, "some" people will get nervous. ::sw1::

 

[ClayDeath]

who is the player on the far end?

 

[Moxie]

That was probably the 2007 RG and who cares who it is, since he's a pinpoint.  Why derail a conversation in your own thread with a lame quiz question?  Why don't you just let us have a conversation without trying to control it so much?  I was addressing JLLB.