Freefalling Nadal nears point of no return

20 August 2015 - 02:11 By Jonathan Liew, ©The Daily Telegraph

The decline of a great athlete, in its classic template, occurs in two phases. There is the first, dramatic phase: the toppling of the crown, the surprise defeats, the niggling injuries, the photographs of them staring sadly into the middle distance. It feels like a disaster, but what we are really experiencing is shock. For the real disaster comes in the second phase: when the decline continues, and nobody cares any more.The thing about phase one is that it is salvageable. You can tweak your game, maybe cut a few starchy foods out of your diet, whatever. Essentially you can recover from phase one. Virtually nobody recovers from phase two.Which brings us to Rafael Nadal, an athlete whose decline has two peculiar qualities: its speed, and his reaction to it.As recently as last summer, Nadal was world No1. He had just won the French Open, his 14th Grand Slam title. Claiming three more to draw level with Roger Federer seemed a formality.Here, instead, is what happened. Nadal is No8 in the world. He has not beaten a top-five player for 14 months. He has not reached a hard-court final in 17 months.Nadal was swept aside in straight sets by Kei Nishikori on Friday last week, and at times it looked like Nishikori was playing a different game entirely. Nadal may still be in phase one, but he is plummeting through it faster than anybody could have expected.The strokes look tired and forced; the old wicked spinning forehand now loops innocuously and begs to be hit; the long baseline duels now feel more like work than play. Nadal perches a quarter of a mile behind the baseline, a place where he once felt strongest, but now looks weakest.For this is the other arresting aspect of Nadal's decline: the extent to which he appears to be acquiescing in it. Great athletes are supposed to rage against the waning of their powers: learn new tricks, howl down their doubts. Nadal, by contrast, is indulging his. He has been startlingly candid in discussing his loss of confidence, his mental struggles, his mortal fear of collapse.Moreover, his Plan A has remained unchanged over a decade: run further, work harder, hustle longer, and beat you by sheer willpower, with a tie-break if necessary. Plan B: see Plan A.These are, of course, the very same traits that drove Nadal to the top in the first place. The difference is that they are no longer working for him. The US Open begins in a fortnight, and if he loses it will be his first year without a Grand Slam title since 2004.Yet the idea of Nadal being beaten no longer feels like a shock. Perhaps this is the real moment of danger: the point at which phase one ends, and the decline becomes terminal. ..

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