EDITOR’S NOTE: After Nadal lost, the author wrote this piece explaining what went wrong in his prediction and why Nadal lost.
12 months ago Dustin Brown produced the performance of his career, beating at the time World #1 Rafael Nadal on the grass in Halle. Not only did he beat the Spaniard but he destroyed him with a non-stop barrage of fine attacking tennis mixed with serve and volleying 6-4 6-1. Due to such a performance and result, many believe that the German can repeat his performance at Wimbledon against the former champion on the same surface, but here are the reasons why it’s not likely to happen at all.
It’s not really a grass court this time around in anything but name
The grass courts in Halle are known to be noticeably fast; faster than Wimbledon at the very least. This year, however, that is even more true than usual. When asked about the match yesterday in his interview, Nadal said “It is little bit different, the surface and everything.”. The match will be on Centre Court which in particular is the slowest I’ve ever seen it for the first week of the Championships as well as having a higher bounce.
This will heavily favour Nadal. The slower courts will make Dustin Brown’s life a lot harder in through hitting through Nadal and as we’ve seen over the years from the 10th seed on the clay, on the slower surfaces he can keep retrieving shot after shot until forcing out errors from his opponent. This isn’t clay by any means but at the same time to call this a grass court to an extent is anything but true.
This isn’t Germany, it’s Britain.
Dustin Brown is sort of another Gael Monfils. They both feed off the crowd; the more support they get, the better they play. Last year in their match the crowd was fully behind the serve and volleyer, mostly because he was a home favourite. The crowd really did bring the best out of Brown and another big performance will need an electric crowd backing him.
It won’t be the case tomorrow, however. Of course the German will get a fair amount of support being the underdog and a huge entertainer, but most of the crowd will heavily be on the side of the man they’ve witnessed win two titles here before. Right now Nadal is in a rough patch in his career and the crowd will hope their support can push the left-hander to regain some of the form he’s shown here in the past.
It’s a grand slam, not an ATP 250 event
Like many great players, Nadal is one of those who plays his best tennis in the biggest events. It’s the reason he has 14 slams and the most Masters of any player in the history of the sport. Brown, on the other hand, has only made it past R2 at a slam only once in his career and even making the last 64 of Slams has been an issue more often that not. Nadal will be able to use all his experience in Slams and use it to his advantage.
The German hit through Nadal for 2 sets, but can he do it for 3? It’s a very difficult task. Unlike their encounter last year Brown is going to have to pace himself throughout the match and can’t risk going all out from very start and expect it to last for the duration of the match. The Spaniard has one of the best records in terms of winning % in best of 5 matches and there’s a reason behind it–he knows how exactly how to play the moment.
Nadal has a point to prove
After a poor year for his standards and slipping down the rankings seemingly after every big tournament, the Spanish #2 has a huge point to prove. There are many who have already written him off but if anything his year so far might only push him onto bigger and better things starting at this year’s Wimbledon. Nadal is as hungry can be for big results again and judging from his R1 match against Bellucci, which he won comprehensively 6-4 6-2 6-4, this is the most motivated I’ve seen the former World #1 at Wimbledon for many years, and with such motivation and desire, great performances are to be expected.
All in all it’s an incredibly hard task
Of course it’s not certain that Rafael Nadal will win, but if the World #104 is to preserve his winning head to head against one of the greatest players to ever play the game he’s going to need to do something extra special and far beyond what he did in Halle last year and probably ever produced. There’s no saying he won’t do it but but given the circumstances and situation it might well be asking for too much from the qualifier.
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