Despite going down 6-2, 6-2 against Novak Djokovic, surprisingly a lot of positives were taken away from Rafa Nadal’s performance. And who better than the Serbian to analyse the Spaniard’s game?
“It’s normal to have ups and downs in your career but if someone knows how to come back that’s him if you take into account his history”, said Djokovic after winning his sixth China Open.
According to the world number one, the king of clay’s main problem at this stage of his career is his forehand. “His results show that he’s not the same player as before and he’s making more mistakes with his forehand. Nadal understands what he has to do to get back to the top and he’s continuing to work hard as he’s one of the hardest workers on tour”, said Djokovic of the player he now only has a 23-22 losing head-to-head record against.
“After 10 incredible years, where he won at least one Grand Slam every season, when Nadal doesn’t win or isn’t in the top five people start to talk, so he loses some confidence on court. But, at the end of the day, he’s one of the best players to have every played this sport”, rounded off Djokovic.
Meanwhile, Nadal said on his behalf that “I’m going to fight, I’m going to do it my way. When I was number two and Roger was number one, it was not my obsession to catch him. My obsession was to improve my game and do it my way. For me, it’s the same thing today. My motivation is to keep going and I have been doing that already. I know if I am playing well again then I can fight. If I can fight, I can compete well many times in a row against the best players . So I think I’m going to be a good competitor again if I recover my level”.
“My main goal is to try and be 100% ready for the beginning off next season. I hope to fight next year, I hope to fight again with the top players because I have the motivation to do it. Do I consider myself one of the best players in the world? I am humble enough to say that this year has not been the ideal year for me. But at the same time I don’t want to lie to anyone. It’s obvious that I consider myself one of the best players in the world after the career I’ve had”, rounded off Nadal who kicks off his campaign in Shanghai against the player to have struck most aces in the history of tennis: Ivo Karlovic.
