After a decade at the absolute pinnacle of the game, reaching heights in some years attained by no other player ever, after a decade that has brought 14 grand slam titles, one poor-ish season and this is where Rafael Nadal finds himself?
This is a strange old place, where people are beginning to wonder whether or not the best years of his career have passed him by. Every question, every interview, including one he gave to The National just recently, the line of questioning is the same — are we at the end now, Rafa? What next, Rafa? Can you win again, Rafa?
If you are Nadal, it must be insulting at some level to be questioned about it. The first year in 11 you do not win a grand slam title and boom, people are wondering whether you are finished.
It might explain the occasional tetchiness of his responses to such questions (he tends to see the worst in all questions, even via email). The day before his semi-final win over David Ferrer at the Mubadala World Tennis Championships (MWTC), he was asked about his expectations for the year ahead, and whether he needed to make a big comeback.
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“Not a big comeback, I am No 5 in the world actually,” he said. “It seems like I’m No 50 or something like this.”
Still, it is true that of the big four, nobody will be under greater scrutiny this year than Nadal and no need for anyone to be reminded that he is ranked just outside the top four currently.
What will he do this season? Does he need to win a slam to prove that he is not spent? Can he exist in the rarely occupied space in which Roger Federer currently resides, where, though he is not winning majors, he is expanding our idea of late-career greatness?
His three-set win over Ferrer, as he said himself, was so intense it felt like a mid-season match, rather than an exhibition to open the season. And there were moments when Nadal came to the net, when a future course of action appeared to present itself.
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Nadal does come to the net more often than he is given credit for and there is no denying that he is more than just an adept volleyer — he actually has great, soft hands, as on plentiful display against Ferrer.
As a way to cut points shorter and to thus impose a lesser toll on his body, it is a no-brainer way to move forward. His serve does not always feel assertive enough to allow regular forays, but as crucially, it goes against the grain of how he has grown up playing.
It was, for example, when he came under pressure at certain moments against Ferrer that he chose to stay back at the baseline and not come in. He is an undisputed genius from that area of the court, enough to still win most of those points when it mattered.
But that approach is what has taken so much from him physically and maybe the regularity with which he approached the net against Ferrer, just maybe, it is a sign of what we might see more of this season.
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