Rafa's year of heart-breaks

Twice earlier I have picked up Rafael Nadal as the topic for my blog and on both the occasions, I have been in an excited mood where Rafa would have just won a Grand Slam tournament - Not this time though. At the end of a frustrating year, this time my mood is nothing short of being deflated, depressed, devastated and demoralized.

The year 2010 was an absolute gem for Rafael Nadal. Been forced to retire midway through his Quarter Finals match against Andy Murray in Melbourne, Rafa staged a remarkable recovery to come back and win the next three Grand Slams. At that end of the US Open, I wrote “2010 has been almost perfect, I expect Rafa to make a clean sweep in 2011”. I was extremely confident when I wrote this statement because, I found only Roger Federer who was upto Rafa’s standards at that time, the rest including the likes of Djokovic, Murray and Roddick just weren't good enough. And against Federer as we all would know and agree, Rafa always seems to have the upper hand.

How wrong was I in ruling out the man from Serbia?

Even before this year, I believed that Novak Djokovic had tremendous potential, capable enough to regularly challenge the Swiss and the Spaniard. But never for a moment did I think that Nole would be able to raise his game to such high standards where he would lose only 4 matches out of 73 right through the year, a couple of them due to an injured shoulder. Such an astonishing achievement and the one who suffered most due to his brutal winning streak was Rafael Nadal. They call him the DJoker, but he did some serious damage.

This year's combat between them started with a couple of hard court finals which - though I’m surprised - is acceptable with Djokovic winning both. But what followed that was truly incredible and not many would have predicted would happen. Novak defeated Rafa in two separate clay court Masters finals and that proved to be so vital for the Serb’s renaissance. He gained complete belief in his own game having beaten the King of clay on his preferred surface, while Rafa shockingly went the other way.

Still many of us trusted this sequence of play can only be an aberration and it simply cannot continue the same way. But, it did.

I had no doubts in my mind that the Serb is an outstanding hard court player, but what put me in a deep sense of disbelief was the Wimbledon finals. The reason why I felt that way was, from being an out and out clay-courter, Rafa has improved his Grass court game over the years and surely is a better player on that surface now, than Nole - few may disagree. Before the finals, I had even started counting early chickens by taking his Grand Slam count to 11 and we need just 5 more to equal the Master. However, Novak had other ideas and made me look stupid. More than the win, the way things unfolded hurt me badly. With pressure being applied relentlessly by the Serb, Rafa gifted away the final break of serve in the 4th set and Djokovic served out the match with ease. Very unlike Rafa to surrender so meekly but all credit to the undisputed World Number 1.

Things didn’t improve by much at the Flushing Meadows, Rafael Nadal once again succumbed to the guiles of the Serb and this time I wasn't too optimistic about a positive outcome - having see that many defeats in the previous months. The year-end Masters provided Nadal with a perfect opportunity to resurrect a lost year, but after witnessing the painful defeats against Federer and Tsonga, I have no hesitation to admit, Rafa never deserved to reach the semis. The energy was missing, the fighting Rafa seemed to be history, the retriever was never seen, the amount of spirit and passion (Rafa did admit he didn’t have too much) shown was completely Un-Rafa like.

Previously, Rafa has been let down physically on plenty of occasions. The troublesome knees, the strained abdomen, blistered fingers and the foot injury during Wimbledon - Name it, he would have gone through it. The Spaniard has responded to each one of those in astonishing fashion. Quiet differently and possibly for the first time, Rafa has been mentally let down. His confidence has reached an all-time low having taken a real beating by Djokovic, it will be interesting to see how he responds. I’m sure he would, in the best possible manner.

In a despondent state of mind I complained to my friend Praveen Srinivasan, a Federer worshipper himself, that Novak has single-handedly spoilt Rafa’s year and also his positivity. His reply was “Just think how many times Rafa would have single-handedly thwarted Roger’s cruise towards Glory”. He did have a very valid point. If not for Rafa, Federer would have easily crossed 20 Grand Slam wins by now. Roger moved on and is still looking solid as ever. Rafa too has to.

2 Masters titles, 1 Grand Slam, 2 Grand Slam finals and a handful of Masters finals - Many will take it as a very successful year. But for the lofty standards that Rafa has set for himself, It’s a terrible year. Still, All is not lost!

Bring on 2012 - The Passion will be right back, the smiles will be back, so will the fist pumps be!