Novak Djokovic has beaten Rafael Nadal five times this year. And he has beaten him on every surface-hard court, clay and grass. The question is, has Djokovic gotten into Nadal’s head? And if all goes as expected in the U.S. Open and the number one and number two seeds meet in the final, will Nadal be able to turn things around?
Their first meeting this year was on a hard court in the championship match at Indian Wells in March. Until that match, Nadal held a 16-7 lifetime dominance over Djokovic, and almost everybody expected Nadal to win again. He started out strong, taking the first set 6-4, with that that look of determination on his face that says, “I will not be beaten.” But Djokovic took over in the second set and easily won the last two sets 6-3 and 6-2.
Their next final was in the Sony Erikson Masters in April. Again Nadal started out as though he were determined to win, taking the first set 6-4. But once again Djokovic came back to dominate the last two sets. When the clay season started most people thought Nadal would get back on top. But Djokovic won both the Masters tournaments in Rome and Madrid in two sets.
Now the buzz had it that Djokovic had yet to defeat Nadal in a major. When it came to majors, the buzz said, Nadal would assert his authority. But when the dust had settled at Wimbledon in July, Djokovic was once again the victor. Djokovic won, 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3. In the third set, Nadal seemed for a brief moment to regain the momentum, only to have it squashed in the fourth set.
This fifth defeat to Djokovic, in a major where Nadal had reigned supreme for two years, was devastating to Nadal. “When one player beat you five times, (it’s) because today my game don’t bother him a lot,” Nadal said after right after losing the match. “Probably, the mental part is little bit dangerous for me.”
When Nadal, with his usual candor, spoke about the mental part being dangerous, he was echoing the concerns of his fans. They, like him, were wondering whether Djokovic had broken Nadal’s confidence, whether he had worn down Nadal’s often-noted will to win.
This will to win was carefully honed by his only coach, Uncle Tony Nadal. Tony put Rafa through rigorous, almost military training from his early childhood on, with the end result that Nadal became a warrior famous for laying his heart on the tennis court. However, underneath the warrior was a sensitive young man who had missed out on many of the normal stages of childhood and adolescent growth.
The chink in his armor came to the surface two years ago, in 2009. His parents’ separation and divorce was a shock to him. For the first time in five years, he was beaten in the French Open, by Robin Soderling. He was struggling with a knee injury, but that apparently was not the real problem. “My parents’ divorce made an important change in my life. It affected me. After that, when I can’t play Wimbledon, it was tough. For one month I was outside the world,” he confessed to reporters at the time.
Nadal spent 10 weeks at his home in Malorca. He later said that the injury gave him time to be with his family and get himself together. He implied that although the knee injury was important, it was mainly his mental attitude that caused him to be vulnerable to Soderling in Rolland Garros.
Uncle Tony had trained Nadal to be a warrior, but he hadn’t taught him how to handle the personal situations of life. And when one arose, the warrior seemed to come apart, at least for a while. One thinks of another athlete in another field, who also had a coach who trained him to be a warrior but neglected to teach him to handle personal relationships: Tiger Woods and his father Earl Woods.
So far, at the U.S. Open, Djokovic and Nadal are on course to meet in the final. Should that happen, will we see Nadal the warrior? Or will “the mental part” again be “a bit dangerous”?