No player in the history of tennis has been more sure-footed on clay than Rafael Nadal.
Earlier this week at the Rome Masters, however, Nadal took a rare tumble – although, had you blinked, the moment might have passed you by, such was the swiftness with which he recovered. In one fluid movement, the Spaniard slipped to the clay, rolled on his backside, and sprang to his feet, ready to resume battle with Zizou Bergs, a Belgian qualifier ranked 108 in the world.
It certainly felt like a metaphor for something; quite what, it was hard to tell. Decline or resurgence? Rise or fall?
On the plus side, Nadal went on to win both the point, which he punctuated with a delicious winning drop shot, and the match, prevailing 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in two hours and 54 minutes. Not bad for a banged-up 37-year-old supposedly chasing a last hurrah at an event he has won a record 10 times – particularly given that he hit the deck just three shots into the 17-stroke exchange.
More broadly, however, Nadal’s game, like his body, remains a work in progress. Striving to work within the physical limitations imposed by the hip and abdominal injuries that have brought him to the brink of retirement, he struggled against Bergs and was brutally exposed 48 hours later by Hubert Hurkacz, the seventh seed, in a match that promised answers but only begged more questions.
The most immediate puzzle is where Nadal finds himself – physically, mentally, and in tennis terms – after suffering a dispiriting 6-1, 6-3 defeat to Hurkacz, a player whose most notable achievement came not on clay, but on the grass of Wimbledon’s Centre Court, where he mauled Roger Federer three summers ago to reach a maiden grand slam semi-final. Looking further ahead, will the Spaniard play at Roland Garros, the scene of 14 of his 22 grand slam title triumphs, a decision he said he would base on how well he performed in Rome? And broadening the outlook still further, might he even play on into next year?
For now, even Nadal seems to have no answers. After last week’s emotional farewell in Madrid, tournament organisers in Rome had a similar sendoff planned. But having looped one last forehand over the baseline, signalling the end of his resistance, Nadal left the court in double-quick time, pausing briefly to wave to the crowd before flinging a towel into the stands and disappearing down the tunnel. Asked afterwards about his rapid departure, he teased the possibility that he may not have contested his final match at the Foro Italico.
“I never said [it was] going to be my last tournament here,” said Nadal, who has already confounded expectations that he would bow out at the summer Olympics in Paris by committing to play in September’s Laver Cup in Berlin.
“I said [that] in Madrid, because that was that case. Here, I am not 100% sure. Was probably 98%, but I will not say 100% when it is not 100%. Different feeling here than Madrid. Different story. Different kind of moment for me. I don’t know. I didn’t expect any ceremony, honestly.”
While the altitude in Madrid makes for a quicker playing environment, rendering the event something of an outlier on the European clay-court swing, the conditions in Rome are closer to those at Roland Garros. Are we then to divine that Nadal has not ruled out another assault on Paris next season? Why else would he leave open the possibility, however slim, of returning to the Foro Italico? And does the chance of a tilt at next year’s French Open make an appearance in the 16th arrondissement a fortnight from now more likely, or less?
“Now is two ways,” said Nadal. “Probably one is to say, ‘OK, I am not ready, I am not playing well enough.’ Then is the moment to take a decision in terms of not playing Roland Garros. Another is to accept how I am today and work the proper way to try to be in a different way in two weeks. The decision, as you can imagine, is not clear in my mind.
“But if I have to say what’s my feeling, and if my mind is closer one way or the other way, I’m going to say, ‘Be in Roland Garros and try my best.’ Physically I have some issues, but probably not yet enough to say [I am] not playing in the most important event of my tennis career.”
On the evidence of his performance against Hurkacz, that sounds about right. Having played with the handbrake on in Barcelona and Madrid, where he sought to ease his body back into the rigours of competitive play, avoiding the kind of setback he suffered at January’s Brisbane International, Nadal acknowledged before his first career meeting with the 27-year-old Pole that the time had come to shift gears.
“I need to try, I need to go for everything,” he said. “If something happens, something happens… I need to prove [to] myself if I am able to push my body to the limit that I need to push to feel myself ready for what’s coming.”
And push he did, not least in the opening two games, where he fashioned five break points, added 7mph to the average speed of his forehand compared with the previous round, and moved with renewed sharpness and freedom. With Hurkacz struggling to tame Nadal’s ferocious topspin and nervously spraying forehands long, 14 minutes elapsed before the Pole finally held serve for 1-0. By the time Nadal levelled, saving the second of two break points with a vintage inside-out forehand, a further 13 minutes had passed. In blazing heat, it was shaping up to be a long afternoon.
And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. Hurkacz held to love in barely a minute, then engineered a break with some devastating play off the ground. He settled into a relentless rhythm on serve, routinely landing his first delivery at 128mph. More surprisingly, he also began to eclipse the Spaniard off the forehand, which he struck with such rare potency and consistency that he would end the afternoon with more winners and fewer unforced errors off that wing than Nadal.
Meanwhile, the former world No 1 compounded his difficulties with some poor decision-making. Twice he missed drop shots when break point down. On the first occasion, Nadal half-raised his arm in a gesture of mild frustration; on the second, his anger was palpable, the Spaniard whacking a ball into his thigh. It was an uncharacteristic reaction, but then unusual things happen when you have barely played in 18 months. Tennis is a game of repetition, of muscle memory, of feeling and sensation; it is about knowing you can execute a certain shot under pressure because you did it last time, last week, last month. For all the experience he has banked over the years, Nadal doesn’t have those sensations right now.
So the old certainties are not what they were. Against Bergs, Nadal had to fight tooth and nail to avoid suffering two consecutive defeats on clay for the first time in his career. Everything he did well in some moments, he also struggled with in others. His consistency of shot, focus, and physical and mental intensity all fluctuated. That happens when you are feeling your way back into competition after having part of your psoas tendon removed, as Nadal did when he underwent surgery on his hip last summer. And while he is improving from match to match – and did so once more against Hurkacz – uncertainty inevitably leads to inconsistency.
“I need to accept that my level, it’s a little bit more on and off,” said Nadal. “It’s not like [it] used to be, that everything was very stable. I need to find this stability again.”
Stability eluded Nadal in Rome, where he slipped again in the early stages against Hurkacz. Second time around, he was unable to recover. The question now is whether he can find his feet in time for Roland Garros.