Rafael Nadal the End Is Nigh

Nadal himself has admitted that there is some genuine cause for concerns over his dwindling form. So much so that he is now considering halting the season to work on his form...

- Bhavesh Bhimani

Things aren’t looking very good for tennis legend Rafael Nadal these days. The 14-time Grand Slam champion has been going through a prolonged patch of bad form and seems to be unable to recover from it. After crashing out of the Shanghai Masters earlier last month, Nadal was dealt with another bit of bad news. For the first time in 13 years, Nadal is now out of the Top 4 in the ATP rankings. This has come as a body blow to the ace tennis star and has prompted experts to wonder if the Spaniard’s career is now over.

The concerns aren’t unfounded. Earlier this year, Nadal had pulled out of the French Open ahead of his third round match. Since then he has been a rather ordinary 10-6 on the tour. His lowest point of the season came with his first-round loss to Victor Troicki, who is ranked 31st, at the Shanghai Masters. This embarrassing loss has been followed by his straight-sets loss to Grigor Dimitrov in the China Open quarter-finals recently. This now means that the Spanish left-hander hasn’t reached a final since he won his second title of the year in Barcelona in April.

Nadal himself has admitted that there is some genuine cause for concerns over his dwindling form. So much so that he is now considering halting the season to work on his form and fitness in the hope of returning with better fortunes next year.

“I cannot say now what I’m going to do during the next month. I’m not sure about my calendar. I’m not sure about the things that I need to do to try to be 100 percent ready for next year,” Nadal was quoted as saying to the press after his defeat in the Shanghai Masters. “Sometimes keeping (on) competing is not the solution. Sometimes the solution is to practice and stop and have a process of training. And maybe that’s an opportunity to do it,” he added.