Rebooted Nadal still master of his Paris playground

Spaniard has adapted his game brilliantly but there is hope for his young rivals, writes Simon Briggs

During an injuryplagued spell that ran from November to March, Rafael Nadal withdrew from six successive tournaments. According to the doom-mongers, his very future as a grand-slam contender stood in doubt.

Yet over the past six weeks, Nadal has proved that he is not just the king of clay, but the king of comebacks, too. Once Nadal’s feet had touched the red dirt in Monte Carlo, he began a winning streak that has continued all the way to Roland Garros – with the exception of a single reverse at the hands of Dominic Thiem in Madrid. His unbroken run of 50 straight sets on clay set a world record.

All of which begs two intriguing questions. Is Nadal playing better than ever? Or is the competition weaker than before?

For answers, The Daily Telegraph turned to Game Insight Group, the cutting-edge tennis statisticians based in Melbourne. And after consultation with their analysts – Graeme Spence, Stephanie Kovalchik and Machar Reid – we can confirm that, as so often, the explanation is a little bit of both.

Let us deal with the competition first. According to Elo ratings (which are different from the ATP’S rankings because they focus on who you are playing, not where or when), Nadal faced a lower standard of opponent in 2017 and 2018 than he had in previous years.

Much of this comes down to injuries and form slumps among tennis’s established stars, especially the ‘Big Four’. Nadal has not played Andy Murray for 25 months and faced Novak Djokovic only once last year – the lowest seasonal incidence of this highfrequency rivalry since 2006.

Admittedly, the great Nadal-federer feud enjoyed a revival. There were four meetings in 2017, all of which Roger Federer won. But none of those victories were on clay, as Federer has effectively retired from that surface.

Turning to Nadal’s actual performances, the hiring of coach Carlos Moya – himself a former world No1 – at the end of 2016 proved to be a masterstroke. Moya recognised that Nadal’s power and intensity allowed him to dominate most opponents once the rally had started, but that he was less effective than many of his peers on the two most pivotal shots: the serve and the return.

Moya encouraged his old friend, who is not a gambler by nature, to take more risks with his serve. Analysis of data from clay-court matches only shows how the body serve – once the safe option that Nadal used more often than not – has receded so dramatically that he now hits it only one time in 10. Meanwhile, the most difficult and penetrative serve – the one that flies down the ‘T’ – has become his favourite this season, used on more than 40 per cent of points.

And what of the return? Nadal has always stood a long way back when receiving, but under Moya’s guidance he has moved even closer to the line judges. By the time the ball reaches him, it has slowed down to the point where he can take a full-blooded swing, imparting his usual heavy topspin.

This is the opposite approach to the one pursued by Federer, notably in his SABR (Sneak Attack By Roger), which sees him dart forward to block the serve back almost as soon as it has bounced.

Players serving to Nadal have almost a second longer to prepare for their second shot, because the ball travels perhaps 30 feet farther in either direction. Even so, dealing with his deep, dipping, kicking return is still nightmarishly difficult. Especially as Nadal’s return depth has vastly improved this year, with a career-high figure of 85 per cent of balls landing beyond the service box

Craig O’shannessy, the ATP analyst, has recommended bold experimentation as the best response. “Rafa backs up so far when he’s receiving serve he’s halfway to Moscow,” O’shannessy said this week. “So an under-arm serve? Why not? I’m not advocating a player continually doing it, but you need an agent of disruption. Perhaps a slow serve-and-volley, more drop shots. Do something radical.”

The challenge is all the greater because Nadal is an outlier, tactically speaking, whose game has little in common with anyone else’s. The only satisfactory way to prepare for facing Nadal is … by facing Nadal.

GIG’S analysis suggests that Nadal deploys less variety of shot than either Federer or Djokovic, preferring to concentrate ruthlessly on his strengths. One particular type of angled forehand, hit short and wide with heavy spin into the righthander’s backhand, represents around 20 per cent of his total strokes off that wing, an unusually high percentage for a single option.

Nadal’s clay-court dominance has grown throughout his career, with the exception of a two-year hiatus in 2015 and 2016. Since that period of relative uncertainty, when he admitted that “I am playing with too much nerves”, he has found his mojo again.

Yet there is one chink of light for the rest of the field. Under pressure in Madrid against Thiem, Nadal reverted to old patterns on both his serve (more conservative) and his return (less depth), as he slipped to a 7-5, 6-3 defeat.

This supported the theory, expressed by the ever-insightful Eurosport pundit Mats Wilander on Tuesday, that Nadal can still be knocked off his stride by the stars of the new generation.

“When he plays well, Rafa is better now [than when he was younger],” said Wilander. “He and Roger, they’re on every shot. But mentally I don’t think they believe they are better players now, and I don’t think they are as confident as they were. Rafa is more aware of the young players, he is afraid of them differently than before.”

If Wilander is right, Nadal might encounter a few more anxious moments over the next fortnight.

Should he slip back into old habits, this tournament might not be a foregone conclusion after all.

‘When he plays well Rafa is better now than when he was younger – but he is not as confident’