After taking a look at players on the rise, here is a look at names slumping going into the 2015 Mutua Madrid Open Masters 1000 tournament on the ATP side.
ATP Form Tracker: 2015 Madrid Masters Players in a Slump
Cold:
3: Feliciano Lopez
Lopez is the #11 seed, but he’s nowhere near a top 15 player on clay. He was below .500 last year on the surface (5-7), and this year he seems to be even worse, which is hard to believe given he’s a Spaniard. He has losses to Sam Querrey, Pablo Andujar, and Robin Haase over his past three clay court tournaments (Houston, Barcelona, and Estoril), all players ranked well below him, and his serve and volley game simply does not translate well to a slow, high bouncing surface. Lopez is likely to lose in round 2 to either Gilles Muller or Leonardo Mayer, as his round 1 opponent, Benjamin Becker, is even worse on clay than he is. He’s not a threat in the slightest in his section.
2: Stan Wawrinka
Wawrinka has been in free fall since winning the Rotterdam title. There has been some speculation that the recent announcement of his separation from his wife may have contributed to this. Regardless of the reason, he’s struggling greatly right now, and the pressure is on for him to find his form and pick up his results before his ranking really starts to slide. Before 2013, he was not considered an elite level player, but now he’s considered as such, and the pressure of that may be wearing him down. He’s just 3-4 since Rotterdam, and has losses to lower level players Sergiy Stakhovsky, Robin Haase, and Adrian Mannarino in that span, along with getting demolished by Grigor Dimitrov in Monte Carlo, a match in where as the defending champion, he simply seem to give up early in the first set.
Now the #8 seed, Wawrinka could lose to Jerzy Janowicz, but he’s more likely to lose to Dimitrov again (or Fabio Fognini/Santiago Giraldo). It’s actually not a bad draw for him, but his losses have been entirely self-inflicted, not merely his opponents outplaying him. When he gets down he starts spewing errors, and he seems to have no rhythm or consistency right now from either wing of his game. The rest of this season will be make or break for his career, as to whether he can maintain a top 10 level, or if he will fall back down the rankings.
1: Rafael Nadal
Speaking of struggling players, look no further than Nadal, who has always had a more challenging time in Madrid than in the other spring European clay events, and enters this tournament with serious question marks about his game, and his ability to defend the French Open title. He is the defending champion here, and the oddsmakers favorite to repeat, but anyone who has watched his matches this season will tell you something is still off with his game, and that “it” factor has been missing for Rafa.
He’s still the king of clay, but the king has been exposed to be without any clothes in losses against both Novak Djokovic and Fabio Fognini on the red dirt this season. He lost to Fognini twice (Barcelona and Rio), playing shaky tennis both times, and he simply didn’t have the consistent level needed to beat Djokovic in Monte Carlo, merely showing short flashes of brilliance and nothing more. He’s in the Federer section, but he’ll have to get past Dimitrov/Wawrinka first, and though he normally plays Federer (and those other opponents well), Rafa is not a trustworthy player right now, and that’s why he qualifies as cold. Most players on tour would still be happy with his results, but given the lofty standards, red flags are sticking up for Nadal at the moment, and we’ll see if he can silence the critics, or if their howling will grow the closer we get to the French Open.
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