A candidly speaking Rafael Nadal has berated his performance after crashing out of the US Open on Monday.
The world No.3 suffered a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, loss to Frances Tiafioe in the fourth round in what is his earliest exit from the tournament since 2016. Playing under a closed roof of the Arthur Ashe stadium, Nadal failed to capitalize on a 3-1 lead in the fourth set which could have taken the match into a decider. Instead, he ended up losing five games in a row to crash out of the tournament.
“I played a bad match and he played a good match. In the end that’s it,” Nadal said during his press conference.
“I was not able to hold a high level of tennis for a long time. I was not quick enough with my movements. He was able to take the ball too many times very early, so I was not able to push him back.’
“My shots need to be better. In some way my understanding of the game and the quality of my shots were not good enough, they were poor.”
Heading into New York the 35-year-old had only played one match over a 50-day period. That was at the Western and Southern Open where he lost in straight sets to Borna Coric. Nadal missed a chunk of the Tour due to an abdominal injury which forced him to pull out of Wimbledon.
However, the Spaniard is reluctant to blame his recent woes on his latest defeat given what he has done in the past. His run to winning the Australian Open and French Open titles this year came shortly after he was hampered by issues related to his long-term foot condition. Nadal suffers from Mueller-Weiss Syndrome which is a degenerative condition that affects bones in the feet and causes chronic pain.
“Of course, this was not the ideal preparation for me. But in other cases it went the right way, even with not the perfect preparation,” he said.
“We can’t find excuses. I need to be critical of myself. That’s the only way to improve or that’s the only way that I understand you are able to find solutions.’
“I have been practising well the week before but then when the competition started, my level went down.”
Conceding that his lacklustre performance could be linked to the mental side of his game, the 22-time Grand Slam champion will return to Spain to try and figure out what went wrong for him.
“I need to go back. I need to fix things so I don’t know when I am going to come back. I’m going to try to be ready mentally. When I feel that I will be ready to compete again, I will be there.” He stated.
The frank admission from Nadal raises questions about if he will play in this year’s Davis Cup. He also has a lot happening in his personal life with his wife set to give birth to their first child later this year.
As for Tiafoe, he has become the youngest American man to reach the quarter-finals of the US Open since Andy Roddick did so in 2004. The 24-year-old will next play Andrey Rublev who he beat at the same tournament 12 months ago.
