By Chris Oddo | Friday, July 3, 2015
Rafael Nadal isn't the problem solver he used to be, particularly on grass. Is it his coach's fault?
Photo Source: Ian Walton/Getty
Rafael Nadal was defeated in four sets by a scorching-hot Dustin Brown on Day 4 at Wimbledon, falling for the fourth time to a player ranked outside of the Top 100 in his last four years at Wimbledon.
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The match featured some fantastic play from Brown, who served and volleyed 99 times and relentlessly attacked Nadal to take away time and keep the Spaniard from getting his rhythm.
Brown’s heroics notwithstanding, there’s another side to the story that many pundits hit on in the aftermath of this dark day for Nadal: Nadal’s perceived unwillingness to offer up a Plan B when Plan A was clearly not achieving its desired effect. The Spaniard refused to alter his return hit point against Brown, clinging stubbornly to the baseline as Brown rifled through service games with startling speed, and that fact did not go unnoticed by many who wondered why Nadal would take such tactics into a match and, moreover, why he wouldn’t try to change things when play started to go against him.
“One of the great things about Nadal over the last ten years is that he’s been one of the great problem solvers,” said Darren Cahill while broadcasting for ESPN. “He can find himself in a little bit of trouble on court and he adjusts his game, he does different things, he maneuvers his serve around, he changes the return of serve around, he does all sorts to try and get his way into the match.”
But Cahill believes that Nadal is not the same problem solver that he once was, particularly on grass. “The last three or four years, here on the grass, he’s been very stubborn about where he is returning serve,” he said. “This has been the common theme for the last three or four years. I feel like he’s got himself stuck into this [routine]. I would [like to see him] go back a little bit to his roots… that’s standing back a little more, taking a bigger swing at the return and getting a little more spin on the ball so when the serve and volleyer does come in they’re playing much lower volleys instead of those bunted returns all the time.”
Cahill added that it’s far easier to talk about than to actually do. “It’s very easy to sit here up on the desk and say ‘Rafa you should do this,” but he’s been doing the same thing for the last three or four years, every single match.”
Brad Gilbert, also commenting for ESPN, felt the same way. “The last thing I’ll think about is I’ve now seen two years in a row where Rafa played big servers and he did not adjust his serve return stance once. If I was up in the coaching box I would have been yelling, ‘Move back, adjust your stance!’ The entire match Rafa was never back more than three feet behind the baseline. He was pretty much in the same position to return first and second serves. If he was on clay he’d be back 12 to 15 feet.”
He added: “For the last set and a half when a guy is on a rhythm like that, move around the batter’s box, give him a different look. I thought he let the server get into to a rhythm.”
Nadal earned five break points in the match with Brown, but he didn’t sniff a break point in the final two sets, which is when the match slipped away. The numbers certainly illustrate what Cahill and Gilbert are referring to:
Later on Thursday afternoon, while talking about the match for BBC, John McEnroe told viewers that he believes it might be time for Rafael Nadal to part ways with his coach and uncle in order to get some new insights on his game. "Rafael Nadal is one of the great champions—a class act,” McEnroe said. “He plays with a lot of effort and energy but, dare we say, is it time for some fresh blood in the Nadal camp? Can we say that? Uncle Toni's going to be upset.
“I know that he has had other people like Carlos Costa and they have tried to gently persuade Uncle Toni. He has done a magnificent job since he was a little kid and told him it was a good thing to go left-handed—but clearly at this stage it would appear that some fresh ideas would be in order."
When prodded by Tim Henman during the BBC broadcast, he added: "I'm saying get a new damn coach!"
Not everybody believes that Nadal should part ways with his Uncle. The pair has had difficulties before, particularly when Nadal was returning from long injury layoff, and they’ve always been able to regain traction and return to the top of the game. Just because it’s taking longer than normal on Nadal’s most recent comeback bid, does it mean that Toni has lost his touch with Rafa?
Novak Djokovic, Nadal’s biggest rival and a player who has shared the court with Nadal a record 44 times, thinks the Spaniard is fine staying the course with his Uncle.
"I don't see a big reason for this to happen,” Djokovic said of a possible change. “He has won 14 Grand Slam titles. He's one of the best players in the game with his uncle Toni who has been with him for his entire career."
He added: "He won two times title [at Wimbledon] and played five finals. I don't think that's too bad… It's not easy to come back in the same tournament, the surface I think he prefers the least, and get that necessary confidence. It seems like he needs a few more matches to get into that comfort zone on the court. But he hasn't had a chance. And the opponents he has lost to, they all probably played matches of their lives. They had nothing to lose."