5 things Rafael Nadal needs to do to stage a comeback
Rafael Nadal: Fading into the shadows?
#1 Get back his mojo
Nadal has always been known for his physicality, hence his nickname ‘The Bull’.
But his mental strength and resilience have always set him apart from the rest, and contributed to his legendary status. Nadal would never go down without a fight – even if you put him into an 8 foot pit with no weapons, he would scratch and claw his way out of it.
But that was then. Nadal lost to Fabio Fognini after winning the first 2 sets and with a commanding 3-1 lead in the 3rd. Sure, the Italian took his chances, but the Rafa of old wouldn’t have given him those chances in the first place, or played the way he did in the deciding 5th set.
Apart from a few flashes of brilliance, the passive way in which he kept getting his service games broken and hitting the ball back into the middle of the court – a few times, Fognini did not even have to move after shots – was disheartening not just for Nadal fans, but for tennis enthusiasts world over.
Nadal had said earlier in the year that he was facing problems with his confidence. Most ex-players and pundits scoffed at this – how can a 14 slam champion have confidence issues at the age of 29, they reckoned.
Only Nadal himself would know how to find that lost belief. We can only hope that he finds it soon enough, because to watch this watered down version of Nadal is heartbreaking.