where does Nadal go from here?

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I am not saying he won't have a comeback or that he is done or dusted. But he can't play like Nadal of 20 or 25 anymore. I think that much is clear. His whole formula was based on being able to be the fittest guy, the fastest guy, and the player who could run around 90 percent of his backhands to hit forehands. He just can't anymore. People are wondering why his forehand seems so weak. Well the answer to me is simple. He is asking too much of the FH and of his legs. His style of play requires him to run more than his opponent and to get into position to hit FH from anywhere in the court. This tactic along with his big swings require him to stand back further and to do more running than any guy on the tour. At this stage it just won't work. The reason his FH isn't as penetrating and as good is that he is late on the ball, that he can't get his feet right to hit the ball the way he should. I mean Nadal hasn't forgotten how to hit his forehand. He is either lunging or he can't get his body out of the way fast enough so he gets jammed on the FH wing. It becomes very easy to hit a ball if you are in the right position and you are top pro. If you drop a ball short to him midcourt he still knows how to whack it and angle it off the court. But the top guys aren't going to do that very often to him. They are going into all the space Rafa leaves on the FH side and he is late getting there so he either errors or gives back a short reply that they can then finish. This problem is compounded by the fact that Nadal is not as confident or as good as he used to be at going up the line with that FH. This could be due to the fact that if his opponent gets there the cross court is wide open and he can be hurt if he doesn't do enough with that ball.


So what can Rafa do to get back to the top. I know this sounds crazy but he has to abandon the core of his game. And I personally don't believe that he can do it. Because unlike Federer or Agassi when he got older he doesn't need just minor tweaks and improvements he needs a whole new outlook on the game of tennis. I actually think if he is dedicated enough to a new formula he can pull it off. But I don't think it is likely because it may require a year or more of him actually going backwards to go forwards.

1. He needs to trust the backhand and run around less. His backhand is actually pretty good. I mean it isn't as good as Murray or Djoko's but he can do damage with it and he has improved his down the line backhand. This will relieve the pressure on both his legs, his lungs, and his FH. Instead of running around every backhand just run around the ones that every other pro would run around the mid court ones

2. He has to do more damage with the return and his return position. The whole dropping back to hit a heavy return that gets you back to neutral thing is not going to work against the very best. He doesn't have to hit outright winners but he can take a page here from Djokovic and hit a flatter, earlier ball into uncomfortable positions for his opponent. That is something he did to Novak in the hardcourt swing of 2013 so he can do it, but I haven't seen it since.

3. Maybe hitting with the most RPMs, is hitting with too much RPMS. He needs to flatten out the FH, the FH is the core of his game and right now his current strategy is just not impacting the best guys. He has that flat FH, I have seen it over and over again since 09 and a little before.

4. Point 3 leads to point 4. He needs to move up to near the baseline and play. To hit a flatter FH he needs to be closer to the baseline and shorten his swing. He needs to hit with more mph and less RPM. When he is late on his FH as he often is now the ball either sales long, goes into the net, or drops short and if his opponent is good enough he takes advantage.

5. More variety on his serve. Every one and their grandmother knows where Nadal is going with 90 percent of his serves. Fed and Djoko don't have the biggest serves in terms of mph. I mean Djokovic hits his first serve marginally faster than Nadal. But what he does is that he mixes up his serves and doesn't stick to one tell tale pattern. Fed is particularly brilliant at this as the returner has no idea where the serve is going till he hits it and by then it is too late.

6. He has to go up the line more off both wings. His CC BH is good his down the line BH is weak he needs to improve the frequency and effectiveness of this shot. And he needs to use the down the line FH more and recently he hasn't done much damage with it against the best players.

I honestly don't think he can pull off these changes. Not that he doesn't have the ability but I just think it is very hard for a top pro to completely overhaul like this at 29 years of age. But I don't think he can continue to play the current style in his thirties like Fed has been able to. It asks so much of his legs, his heart, his lungs, and his FH. He should wake up tomorrow and say this is the way I am going to play and if I go 0-39 till I get it right that is what I have to do. Because the current strategy of resurrecting the old (young) Nadal into this Nadal's body I don't think will work. And if it does work it isn't going to work for long.

CC

It's a good point that confidence, consistency and success are not isolated from each other. At the moment, of what I've seen of Nadal this year, he doesn't know from one match to the next which shots are going to work for him and so he lacks confidence. Low on confidence, he's not applying his previously extraordinary focus, and his results are well below his previous level.

If he is serious about keeping going and trying to regain a spot at the very top of the game, maybe he should follow Murray's approach from last year and play a few lesser tournaments with the aim to get a few wins under his belt and maybe rediscover his love of playing and winning matches and tournaments. Get the motivation back to put in the hard yards off-season and see if he can produce decent results next year, especially that 10th Roland Garros title.