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by Pete Bodo
The faces today said it all, as far as I was concerned. There was Robin Soderling, crouched low to receive Rafael Nadal's serve at match point, the trace of a smile on his lips, eyes alert and glittery in the manner of an opportunistic wolf staring at an elk calf.
And there was Nadal, looking fretful and - I have to write it, even at the risk of creating a mixed metaphor - nothing less than out-to-lunch. Nadal is a young man with elastic, expressive features. He wears his heart on his sleeve (but not moreso than when he didn't even have sleeves, back in those heady Guns R Us days), and on that mobile face. This is a great asset when he's on his game and playing with confidence, less so when he's in trouble - not garden-variety trouble, as in: This is a big point I need to win. . . but deeper trouble. Psychic trouble. As in: I'm not really sure what's going on here, I hope I can win this point.
Oddly, though, Nadal has never really done joy, or satisfaction, as well as less pleasant emotions. Nadal does "cautious" expertly; when he lines up to serve a deuce point, he's intent, like a painter preparing to apply just the right dollop of orange to the depiction of a sunset. He's always done "wistful" well, in keeping with his attractive and humble streak of streak of fatalism. He does "pained" awfully well - you half expect his lower lip to tremble each time he's forced to dwell upon the details of a loss. But what he may do best of all is "troubled," although "worried" might be a better description; in it's mildest manifestation, we see the raised, quizzical eyebrow; when things are really grim, Nadal has a world-class scowl.
As if to illustrate Nadal's dilemma as he prepared to serve that second match-point against Soderling, the mid-arena advertising crawl in the O2 arena was all lit up with the words, "Match Point." It was a CNN or Times Square-grade alert; you could almost read it as the comic-book style thought bubble over Nadal's head. Troubled is one thing, fearful is another. And for the first time watching Nadal play, I thought maybe he was scared.
That sense owed partly to the man across the net. And it wasn't just because Soderling had put Nadal out of the French Open in the fourth-round, adding to tennis's lore and legend of the unthinkable coming to pass. It was also because Soderling is an interesting player against whom to measure Nadal this year. Back at the Italian Open in May, Nadal carved him up, 6-1,6-0, and Nadal went on to win the title in neat, straight sets over Novak Djokovic. It turned out to be the last tournament win of the year for Nadal. In his next event, Madrid, Nadal was beaten by Federer. And things - including the state of Nadal's knees - degenerated from there.
We can cut Nadal a break, and he certainly deserves it, based on his history as a formidable competitor. There's the knee tendinitis issue, the long layoff (which included Nadal's inability to defend his hard-won Wimbledon title), the parents' divorce issue. . . We can rationalize Nadal's struggles in the second half of the year numerous ways, but that seems a little soft. You could just as easily argue that having had an extended break ought to have left Nadal in excellent position to match one of his rival Federer's great accomplishments of '09, completing a career Grand Slam (only six men in history have done it, and neither Pete Sampras, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl,or Bjorn Borg is one of them).
Oh there were physical issues associated with his failure to win the U.S. Open despite being well-rested and having all the incentive one could ask. But it's not like Nadal has recovered from the symmetrical 2-2-2 loss to Juan Martin del Potro in the US Open semis to rekindle his zest for competition. He's played well - sometimes very well - in the subsequent tournaments of the fall, but in his three tournaments before the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals - strong showings by ordinarly standards: two semis and a final - he hasn't won a set. His losses were to Djokovic (understandable), Nikolay Davydenko and Marin Cilic (less so). If Nadal were a race car, this would be a little like developing a bad wheel shimmy at exactly the speed required to actually win a race.
Mainly, Soderling's performance has added vivid context to Nadal's trials because it made manifest the value of playing with enthusiasm and wholehearted, undistracted ease. And we all know the power of desire; for three years, until the middle of '09, Nadal gave us lesson after lesson in it. Today, Nadal looked scared to lose and not particularly interested in winning - emotions that would be hard for anyone, especially Nadal, to conceal.
Desire and confidence are curious emotions - if that's the right word for them. Some players, like Soderling, presumably have the desire, but lack the confidence, at the start of their journeys in the game. With some luck, they build that confidence, and getting it propels them to a higher level. Suddenly, they realize that their desires were realistic, and that's truly a joyous moment. A giant piece of what has been an absorbing but often frustrating puzzle falls into place and life begins to look easier, the court looks larger.
Nadal started his journey from a different, advanced place. If the confidence wasn't there at the outset, it built quickly - in his case, as a result of his extraordinary talent for clay-court tennis. The one thing I'm pretty sure about is that the big pieces in Nadal's puzzle have been in place all along; filling in the rest called for trial-and-error, and patience. But it's different now that the two-man race has become more of a four or five way battle, now that it's less about catching Federer than getting to him. Just as Soderling's story is one of confidence built, Nadal's is about confidence lost, or at least shaken.
That's not a disaster or a tragedy; it's just part of the game's familiar narrative. And it calls upon the player living through it to show flexibility, a grasp of psychology, and a willingness to expand his field-of-view. Losing confidence is like losing innocence - it's a painful blow for anyone, but most stinging for those lucky enough to have had it, and taken it for granted. Either way, overcoming the loss and coming to understand how to rebuild it, and to keep it, is part of growing up. Is anyone more boring - or deserving of pity - than someone who can't quite get used to the fact that things change, and not always for the better?
Nadal may yet salvage this tournament, but I can see where he wouldn't feel driven to do it. He's been blind-sided; how can a year that began so well, so smoothly, run off the rails and become, if not a disaster, then a disappointment? It would be better for Nadal not to dwell on that. Put it down to fate - it's something Nadal understands, and a reality he's shown he can navigate.
And he can look to 2010 as a good rebuilding year, especially when the action shifts to clay. Winning is still the best tonic for the troubled heart of a tennis player.