Rafael Nadal and Grigor Dimitrov will be going head-to-head for the eighth time in their careers when they collide in the quarterfinals of the China Open on Friday.
Nadal is a perfect 7-0 in the head-to-head series, including 4-0 on hard courts. They have not faced each other since last fall at the 500-point indoor event in Basel, where the Spaniard prevailed 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. Their most memorable showdown to date came during quarterfinal action at the Australian Open in 2014, when Dimitrov started hot but ended up going down 3-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(7), 6-2.
This season has been a painful one for Nadal, literally and figuratively. The world No. 4 pulled out of the French Open after two matches and missed Wimbledon because of a wrist injury, which is a big reason why he has not yet wrapped up a spot in the World Tour Finals. Nadal is trying to bounce back from a fourth-round U.S. Open loss to Lucas Pouille and he is doing a good job of it so far in Beijing, where he is 20-4 lifetime. This week’s second seed destroyed Poalo Lorenzi 6-1, 6-1 before holding off Adrian Mannarino 6-1, 7-6(6) on Thursday.
A Nadal-Pouille rematch came extremely close to headlining Friday’s schedule, but the Frenchman failed to serve out what would have been a straight-set victory over Dimitrov. Pouille eventually succumbed 6-7(3), 7-6(0), 6-4 after twice coming within two points of finishing the job. Dimitrov preceded that comeback by outlasting Steve Johnson 7-5, 6-7(9), 6-4 in a first-round thriller. The 20th-ranked Bulgarian is 14-5 in his last 19 matches, a stretch that includes semifinal showings in Cincinnati and Chengdu plus a quarterfinal performance in Toronto.
“He’s a great player [who] is playing well,” Nadal said of Dimitrov. “He’s one of the players on tour with high potential. I know I have to play my best tennis to win against him, so I’m trying to focus on that.”
Although that is Nadal’s pre-match analysis every time he takes the court, it is rarely true–and it should not be true this time around. Even if the favorite is less than than his best, which has only been the case in one of four sets this week (the second against Mannarino), he should not have too much trouble in a matchup he has absolutely dominated in the past. A motivated Nadal will likely cruise into the semis and continue his push to climb from seventh to sixth in the race to London.
Pick: Nadal in 2
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Congrats to me. 🙁
Anybody can beat Rafa on any given day depending on Rafa…
Ben Rothenberg @BenRothenberg 1m1 minute ago Washington, DC
Grigor Dimitrov beats Rafael Nadal 6-2, 6-4 to reach the Beijing semi finals. His first win over Rafa in eight tries.
#DontYou?
#OrDoYou.
wanted: grand slam champion and one of the all time goats.
missing for nearly 2 years. reward for information as to his whereabouts…
Whereabouts?
He’s lost inside his own head.
true. nothing is going to change until he gets some help.
And, for me, he proves that he is physically capable of playing great tennis.
Dummy didn’t do anything special at all today.
with nole faltering badly and fed out he should be capitalising. not in this perpetual fugue state.
really bummed he lost to dim dim…
I think Nole bounces back big time in Shanghai virtually sealing No. 1. Then one more year to tie Sampras and that other guy for most YE No. 1’s.
you think? i haven’t seen him play recently…you dont’ think he is suffering from burn out??
I learned a new perfect word for the state from Margot. “moidered” .
margot is very adept with words no?? wish she was here….
I think he definitely has suffered from burn out but with the rest he’s had over the last month, I think he’s still the man to beat next week and Shanghai suits him well historically.
Yes, wish she was here too.
The problem is that he kind of feels betrayed by his body and feels he was close to reaching his his top level at RG but the injury ruined that. So based on that, he thinks he can still reach that level granted he remains healthy. Well, he actually was pretty close to that RG-winning level I would say. The mental strength wasn’t quite tested but he was getting ruthless.
Today’s loss was so shit though. He is mentally fragile now generally speaking. Post FO 2014 it’s been that way.
This loss was far from being restricted to having troubles on a fast court. Some of the forehands we missed, I could see rafa feeling like punching himself on the face! they were so bad.
well we don’t know what would have happened at rg do we?? he didn’t take the set points against nole in rome which wasn’t a good sign.
why he doesn’t get help and make life easier for himself is beyond me.
He’s in denial, maybe he thought once his physical problems are resolved he would be OK but now we can tell its not the case. It’s mental, he’s slow in thinking and in finding solutions.
Sometimes I just hope he doesn’t think too much and just go for his shots; just hit as hard as possible and takes more risks, on quicker courts there’s not much time to think so just has to be more offensive all the time. He just can’t walk out of his old game style to play a different type of game even when he has the tools to do so. It’s sad that he has all the gifts to to do so but not the mindset to do it. He’s not going to win big if he continues like this, that’s my take.
Mine too Lucky.
We are on the same page.
His mental fragility actually coincided with AO final loss in 2014 with a bad 3rd rnd loss at IW to Dolgo where Dolgo did nothing special. Rafa just played well behind the base line hitting short balls.
Similar uncharacteristic loss in the 2014 MC QF losing in straight sets to Ferru where he hadn’t missed a final in nine years prior losing only once.
Those were the first signs that there was something wrong for me.
the 2014 ao final is when it all started!!! that match was utterly disastrous for rafa….
There is something wrong with his serve, I mean how many times he couldn’t buy a first serve? Dimi just had to wait for Rafa’s second serve and attacked with success – at one stage Rafa only won 20% of his second serve!
Another problem with Rafa is that he couldn’t sustain his high intensity for over two sets. He said it himself after yesterday’s match, that he slowed down his rhythm in the second set, and that really caused him all sorts of problems in the second set.
Dimi wasn’t playing fantastic tennis in the first set but Rafa was playing so badly that he lost it 6-2. In the past Rafa would give chase and then won the second set and won the match going the distance. Nowadays, Rafa would become tense and instead of fighting back to win, he made even more errors and lost.
Perhaps we have to accept that we will be seeing only this Rafa from now on; the Rafa of the past remains a thing of the past. Maybe, that will make us less furious, less disappointed having accepted that this is the Rafa we have from now on.
I doubt he can change anything, with or without new coach. He’s just a person who’s not very confident, the way he was brought up, so the more he wants something, the more nervous he gets and the less confident he becomes. He’s not going to change that now that he’s 30; it’s too late.
What he can do is try to improve his serve, at least with a better serve, he can start his service games with more confidence. Without that it’s almost game over for him, when in each service game he has to face BP.
magnus helped stan!! stan is older than rafa.
why can’t rafa use a mind coach/ sports psychologist like everyone else? they work!!
I’ve bee less frustrated, etc. for quite some time given that he loses early consistently now.
However, as long as I think he is able to change, I don’t assume this is the way it is from now on.
The problem is he is unable to change. To be honest, I was still haboring some hope of seeing a better Rafa, a Rafa of 2014 pre injury, but after watching one of his worst match if not his worst match ever, today, I now have lost that hope.
I mean when did Rafa ever lost serve in every one of his service games in a set! He faced BPs in almost all of his service games in the match! How worse can he get? His confidence certainly wont improve from here on if he can serve so badly!
And the bizzare thing is that he could beat an opponent 6-1, 6-1 but in another match he could just collapsed and lost horribly. Its not that his opponent was playing fantastic tennis throughout, but was almost as bad in set one. Rafa just gave him the encouragement to go all out to beat Rafa.
Rafa can hit good shot but unable to outplay his opponents. He used to beat The Great Fed but now he loses to Baby Fed. Too many UEs.
Never thought I’d see the day when Rafa lost to baby Fed.
as hawks says its rafa over rafa. sucks though..
Nothing wrong losing to baby Fed when he lost to Coric, Pouille etc.
Rafa said it himself after the loss, that he couldn’t serve well and that psychologically affected him and his serve games and that serving so poorly he didn’t deserve to win. Right there, it’s his serve that caused him to lose confidence but I really don’t understand why his serve can be so poor!! What is his coach doing?
the whole business with the useless serve is ridiculous. why not use a serve coach for heaven’s sake??
Exactly! Why can’t he serve like USO2010 or 2013 again? Just do that for the quicker courts, I’m sure that won’t hurt his shoulder that badly. His shoulder wasn’t hurt in 2013. I feel he has a mental block after his back injury, he won’t want to overstress his back and that makes have affected his serve.
He has back, knee and wrist issues, his body has broken down so often that I think his mind now is the last to go. I really doubt he can win a slam anymore, and he may end the year not inside top eight the way hes going now. Maybe Fedal can retire together and soon.
he can’t possibly win a slam if he doesn’t improve his serve. a serve expert will know not to strain the back anyway!ie think up sth which doesn’t stress that part of the body. the weakness of his serve puts an insurmountable pressure on teh rest of his game.
he would relax mentally a lot more if he was getting free points on it. no wonder he gets stressed.
the nadal conservatism over this is just baffling.
i mean, why not try when he is taking such appalling losses? better than toni’s solutions which create more problems…
Right. I mentioned before, I blame Toni for not concentrating on improving Rafa’s serve from young. Toni took such short sighted view about Rafa’s tennis, that he’s stiffling Rafa’s talent instead of realizing Rafa’s full potential. If not for Toni, Rafa would be a more aggressive and more attacking player (watch how he played in 2003/2004) and to me that’s a better version of Rafa than the now more defensive version.
Toni has turned Rafa into a full fledged clay courter instead of allowing him to become a all courter naturally. For that Rafa has to do so much work to adapt to different surfaces throughout his career.
It will be a tough road ahead for Rafa to improve his serves and regain some already lost confidence. Im not looking forward to Shanghai, where Rafa suffered a humiliating loss to Delpo in 2013 when Rafa was having a fantastic season. Rafa just couldnt grasp the idea of how to play and win on fast hard courts, still playing his clay court style counter punching tennis on them.
not looking forward to shanghai either.
the central problem with rafa’s game over time is that it is all based around rafa being very mentally strong. ie weak serve, fighting off break points by raising his game and so on….once rafa’s confidence went downhill his whole game became vulnerable. the quickest and simplest way to change that problem with his game is to improve the serve. if his serve is weak then he has even more pressure on the forehand which has become his most nervy shot. a stronger serve would help him relax more with that.
i just don’t think toni gets it tbh….it’s all pracice, practice, practice..
Obviously Toni did an extremely good job for Rafa to win 14 slams but Rafa should have dumped him years ago as far as his tennis goes.
But Rafa defines success as happiness and for him that extends beyond tennis which is a big part of why he is my all-time favourite player.
It is a conundrum, for sure, no?
yes i know you like him for that hawks. but rafa gets very upset after the big losses so it’s not exactly fun to watch or for rafa to experience.
toni was fine for rafa when rafa was mentally strong but just so bound up with the problems when he lost his way.
margot put it very well on tennis-x saying that being coached by family was far too spider’s web…but she is not a fan of toni at all, as you know!!
on the bracket i did with rc she told me she thought toni’s influence in the nadal family was way way too overdetermining…
amy OCTOBER 7, 2016 AT 5:01 PM says: “margot put it…”
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What’s new? She has been attacking Rafa’s family for years.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuLqj-0WIAInrHa.jpg
luckystar OCTOBER 7, 2016 AT 4:44 PM says: “Im not looking forward to Shanghai, where Rafa suffered a humiliating loss to Delpo in 2013 when Rafa was having a fantastic season…”
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Yes, Rafa had a fantastic season in 2013, but it wasn’t easy for him – he was playing through knee pain the whole year (until he underwent stem cell treatment at the end of 2013).
The Golden Era has come to an end.
#RIP
And that’s why I said Rafa is unable to change. There is something worrying, that Rafa may be thinking this is the best that he can do and just feels happy and contented that he already has achieved so much in the sport. He’s unlike Fed, who is still looking for ways to improve and to win despite his age. I feel Fed is never satisfied and feels he can still do better; whilst Rafa feels he has already done his best and he’s too humble to realize of his talent and what it still can help him to achieve even more should he find ways to improve various aspects of his game.
I feel Rafa is just not as ambitious as Fed or Djoko; he’s just brought up that way to feel humble and thankful for what he has or has achieved and never really think of how talented he himself is and what more he could still achieve.
But how much of Rafa’s problem is simply his age? Most players who have early success show a downturn at his age. Stan was such a late bloomer that he is in a very different situation. Federer playing at a relatively high level past 30 is the exception to the rule and I think it has clouded the issue.
I did a survey of when top players started to have worse results and the results were quite consistent. It was rare for a player who had early success to win a Slam after playing for 10 years at a high level. For most of those players that meant late 20s or 30 years old.
I was a big Stefan Edberg fan and a book that included the time he started to go downhill (and gave various players speculating on just what his problem was) was tough reading. I was nearly in tears about something that had happened many years earlier. It is hard to see a great champion lose that greatness and I can sympathize with Rafa fans who are now experiencing that with Rafa. But I don’t think that any changes at this point will bring back Rafa’s earlier success. That is not to say that he won’t still have some good wins; he just won’t have the necessary consistency.
it’s more that that thought hartt. the nerves rafa has shown are treatable and without them he would be doing a hell of a lot better. it’s hardly about winning slams given he can’t get past the early rounds and is losing matches everyone says he should be winning to relative journeymen. given that, i would argue that yes for sure he can make changes and play better.
Well Hartt I might somewhat agree but I would say mental age more than physical.
Physical age is more gradual. Rafa went from having arguably his best year in 2013 and making the final of 2014 AO but not making past a slam QF since.
Once his back was hurt, he never recovered mentally from that. His results went from outstanding in 2013 to pretty dismal other than the last hurrah at the ’14 French.
So for me, this is not simple physical decline.
He is physically capable, but not mentally at the moment. His hopes are dwindling as more time passes though.
Rafa certainly missed a good chance of winning the title and gaining points. I see all the players are not in tip top shape and Djoko is not playing; had Rafa played like in R1 and R2(first set), he certainly had a very good chance of beating Dimi. Given Raonic is just back from injury and Murray not in great form either, Rafa should be having a good chance of winning the title. I’m really disappointed about this loss and the way he played; still don’t understand how can his serve just collapsed like this when he had no issue in the previous rounds.
What would be the way to treat the nerves? Players talk about how important confidence is for success, but it seems circular. Success leads to confidence and increased confidence leads to further success. How does Rafa break the pattern of nerves affecting his play and poor play leading to a lack of confidence?
rafa’s problems have been more than just low confidence. excessive nerves are treatable by professionals whether you see a sports psychologist, mind coach, whatever…very many sportsmen and women use them now with very considerable success so i really find it hard to understand his, and presumably toni’s, resistance.
also, if he were to use a serve coach to fix his powder-puff serve that would surely really help his confidence as well. if your confidence in your overall game (especially the forehand) is low then having a serve to bail you out rather than put you constantly under the cosh is going to help a lot.
he’s been losing big matches by very narrow margins afterall ie against pouille, foggy, nando….if even small gains were made he would be winning them and that would lead into a cycle of increased confidence.
when rafa is confident his game improves hugely.
Sports psychologists can help, but there is no guarantee. We don’t even know if Rafa has ever consulted someone, he may have done it quietly. But he needs to find a solution to his serve and that won’t be easy.
Get a good serve coach, like the one in 2010, there is sure to be some experts out there who can help.
Rafa is forever in Djoko’s half of the draw! He is to meet Djoko in the SF at Shanghai, provided Rafa can make it that far of course, which is looking highly unlikely these days.