It’s been a tough couple of days for Rafa Nadal after his surprise defeat to Dominic Thiem in Buenos Aires. Not just because of the result but because of the sensations the Spanish offered all throughout the tournament: he didn’t convince in his victories over Monaco or Lorenzi.
Parts of the Spanish media have been particularly tough, suggesting Toni Nadal should step to one side. Rafa, visibly tired of all the talk surrounding his every move, said “it’s time to stop talking if I will return to my best, my objective is to improve on yesterday“. This came after a 6-1, 6-4 win against Pablo Carreño in a match interrupted by the heavy Brazilian rainfall.
One of those aspects that need improving are the amount of unforced errors coming from Nadal’s racket, something he admitted to in Buenos Aires. Against Carreño his winners to unforced errors ratio was 16-15, so in that department Nadal can certainly feel he has met his goal of improving on the day before.
Now Nadal faces a player who has taken significant strides in becoming what he once was. Nicolas Almagro was one of the most feared claycourters on tour some four or five years ago and had he not collided with Nadal time and time again at Roland Garros (Nadal knocked Almagro out in the quarter finals on three occasions) he could have perfectly gone deep at the French Grand Slam. Injuries have marred the Spaniard’s career in the last two years and his fiery temperament has often been his downfall, even more so in this period where patience is key.
Almagro most definitely turned a page into a new chapter in terms of his recovery in Buenos Aires. He came within touching distance of the title, losing out to Thiem in a third set tie break, but most importantly he grabbed wins over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (for the first time in his career) and David Ferrer, and also turned around a break in the deciding set against Federico Delbonis. If his mind is on par with his groundstrokes, very few players in the world can stop Almagro, and against Nadal his inconsistency has always matched up terribly with Nadal’s continuity. So much so that their head to head is 13-1 in Nadal’s favour and Almagro has only managed to scrape a set in two of those defeats. His only victory came at Barcelona in 2014 when Nadal first started showing signs of being a mere mortal on clay. In South America he’s shown those signs again and, with the confidence Almagro is playing with, it wouldn’t be too shocking to see him prevail. The spotlights in Spain will once again be closely fixed on this clash and a loss for Nadal would only further increase the media frenzy in his homeland but as he says, we should not judge him on his brilliant past. The computer has been rebooted and now he just looks to show the best version of himself possible, and against Almagro nothing else will do if he wants to surge forward at the Brasil Open.