{"id":16967,"date":"2019-07-04T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=16967"},"modified":"2019-07-04T12:00:18","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T16:00:18","slug":"rafael-nadal-biggest-threat-wimbledon-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2019\/07\/04\/rafael-nadal-biggest-threat-wimbledon-himself\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Nadal\u2019s Biggest Threat at Wimbledon is Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 2011, Rafael Nadal has made the quarterfinals or better at Wimbledon<\/a> just a single time. During that same period, he\u2019s also gone onto contend in four Australian Open<\/a> finals, win six more Roland Garros<\/a> titles, and take two US Opens<\/a> home.<\/p>\n

Every year we always hear the same thing on the grass, however, about how a lower ranked player played \u201cthe match of his life\u201d to beat the Spaniard at Wimbledon. With many tipping Nick Kyrgios<\/a> to upset the 18-time Grand Slam champion at Wimbledon once again, the truth is, it\u2019s more down to Rafael Nadal than anyone else.<\/p>\n

Nadal’s losses<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s quickly take a look at Nadal\u2019s losses at the most prestigious event in tennis these past seven years:
\n2012 \u2013 R2 loss to Lukas Rosol (Ranked #100)
\n2013 \u2013 R1 loss to Steve Darcis (Ranked #135)
\n2014 \u2013 R4 loss to Nick Kyrgios (Ranked #144)
\n2015 \u2013 R2 loss to Dustin Brown (Ranked #102)
\n2017 \u2013 R4 loss to Gilles Muller (Ranked #26)
\n2018 \u2013 SF loss to Novak Djokovic (Ranked #21)<\/p>\n

Four of these six losses have been to players ranked #100 or lower. Now consider in that same time span, the three best players on grass these past ten years–Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy Murray–have just two losses before the quarterfinals combined. That surely has to make one wonder how it\u2019s always the case that Rafael Nadal seemingly gets players that show up for the big occasion.<\/p>\n

One reason is Rafael Nadal\u2019s passive style of tennis. On the clay, there\u2019s no doubt such a gamestyle does wonders<\/a>. He\u2019s able to grind pretty much every player to a standstill, waiting for unforced errors or moving them around the court to create an opening. It\u2019s how he\u2019s won a staggering 12 Roland Garros titles. The issue is, he adopts that same style on grass. He’s done that for a majority of his career, and for the most part it\u2019s failed massively in recent years.<\/p>\n

Even when he was successful on the grass of SW19, this issue existed. In 2006, he found himself two sets to one down against Robert Kendric–ranked outside the top 200–in R2. In 2007, he went to a fifth set with Robin Soderling, and also trailed two sets to love down to Mikhail Youzhny. He was also close to going two sets to one down to Latvian Ernests Gulbis in 2008. Even during his two best Wimbledon runs these past 10 years, he found himself two sets to one down twice in his 2010 title run and in serious trouble against Robin Soderling again. In 2011, he faced similar issues against Andy Murray and Mardy Fish.<\/p>\n

Back then, though, he used to find a way to win. While his passive style of groundstrokes still allowed players to dictate play against him, a majority of the time he would keep contending for as long as possible, tiring his opponents out to a level where his usual gamestyle would be most effective. The main reason I believe he used to do this a lot better back then compared to the last seven or so years is simple–his return of serve.<\/p>\n

The Nadal Return<\/h3>\n

If you look at the two-time Wimbledon champion\u2019s game, it\u2019s evident on grass his biggest weakness is his return of serve. When you consider his three biggest rivals are all arguably the three best returners ever on the surface, it only makes the Spaniard\u2019s weakness even more magnified. Looking back at the list of losses, here are the points won on first serve by the winning players:
\n2012 \u2013 83%
\n2013 \u2013 74%
\n2014 \u2013 83%
\n2015 \u2013 77%
\n2017 \u2013 80%
\n2018 \u2013 76%<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt some of those winning players have big serves, but for almost all to hit at least near the 80s in first serve points won is usually only going to end one way for the World #2. By struggling to even get balls back into play, it reduces his chance of doing what he does best, out-rallying and out-maneuvering opponents. On the grass, it gives his opponents an easy out. As long as they serve decently, they know they\u2019ll hold their own more often than not, letting them attack the Spaniard\u2019s serve freely, which you\u2019ve no doubt seen happen many times over the years.<\/p>\n

Without question, Nadal should be at a high in confidence after winning his last two events in both Rome and Paris, but these two weeks at Wimbledon will be tough, like always. His return will get exposed again, and there\u2019s not too much he can do about it. When he does get into rallies it\u2019s another story, though. Instead of letting his opponents dictate, if he is to go far this year with a draw featuring the likes of big hitters Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and former finalist<\/a> Marin Cilic, he needs to at least be aggressive off the ground where possible.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all seen Nadal play aggressive before, even on grass. Just look at last year\u2019s Wimbledon quarterfinals and semifinals. He may have ultimately lost, but he pushed Novak Djokovic to the brink. If he played passive tennis, the match wouldn\u2019t have lasted more than a few hours.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about a matter of execution now. Regardless of how good others can be, though, against almost everyone not named Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal still dictates his own fate, even at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since 2011, Rafael Nadal has made the quarterfinals or better at Wimbledon just a single time. During that same period, he\u2019s also gone onto contend in four Australian Open finals, win six more Roland Garros titles, and take two US Opens home. Every year we always hear the same thing on the grass, however, about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":666,"featured_media":16490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9,6],"tags":[18,2680,209,22,135,114,21],"class_list":["post-16967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","category-wimbledon","tag-atp","tag-nadal","tag-nick-kyrgios","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-rafael-nadal","tag-roger-federer","tag-wimbledon"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/666"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}