What Rafael Nadal’s Wimbledon loss means for his US Open future

They say lightning never strikes twice in the same place. But if you were Rafael Nadal, you might disagree with that. For the second consecutive year, Nadal came into Wimbledon as the reigning French Open champion and as one of the legit contenders for the grass court major. And for the second consecutive year, Nadal ran into an unheralded opponent who played the match of his life while Rafa’s physical conditioning seemed suspect. Twelve months after bowing out to world no 100 Lukas Rosol in five sets in the second round, the Spaniard found himself reliving one of his worst nightmares on Monday as he crashed out to world no 135 Steve Darcis at the All-England Club. The only difference being that this was the first round and it happened in three straight sets. [caption id=“attachment_903365” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] It was another shocking early loss for Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon. AP[/caption] 29-year-old Darcis is your classic tennis journeyman. At 5 ft 10 inches, the Belgian, who goes by the nickname ‘Shark’, does not have the big serve or pounding groundstrokes that are a trademark of Rosol’s game. Instead, the Belgian put his topspin one-handed groundstrokes and his one-handed backhand slice to great effect to keep Rafa off-balance throughout the two hour and 55-minute encounter. Before Monday, Darcis’ biggest win had come at the same venue – when he upset world no 7 Tomas Berdych in the opening round of the Olympic Games at Wimbledon last July. But no one really gave him much of a chance against Nadal, who had won 7 of 9 tournaments since coming back from a seven-month lay-off caused by his bad knees. Those weak knees came back to haunt Nadal on Monday as he appeared to have trouble pressing on them to hit his two-handed backhand. Forced to hit more backhand slices than he would have liked, Nadal was relegated to playing counterpuncher to Darcis’ all-out attacking game, hoping that in time the Belgian’s strokes would find the net or bounce outside the lines. But Darcis stayed the course. And Nadal’s physical conditioning seemed to appear more suspect as the match went on and the result became more obvious. Whether it was Nadal’s mind playing tricks on him, or whether Nadal was playing tricks on the fans or whether his knees were really bothering him, we won’t know for sure. Stung by criticism over the years that he used his knees as an excuse, Nadal did not offer any in his post-match press conference. “I don’t gonna talk about my knee this afternoon. Only thing that can say today is congratulate Steve Darcis. He played a fantastic match. Everything that I will say today about my knee is an excuse, and I don’t like to put any excuse when I’m losing a match like I lost today. He deserve not one excuse.” When Nadal won his eighth French Open title two weeks ago, he seemed like a lockdown for the year-end no. 1 ranking. But with his first round loss here and his questionable physical conditioning, you have to wonder what implications this might have for the rest of his season and for his rivals. The tennis calendar post-Wimbledon is centered on hard court tournaments. And hard courts are the toughest surface on an athlete’s body. Nadal has already called for reduction in the number of hard court events in the calendar to extend the careers of tennis players. Any change in that direction will take more than a few years of dialogue and negotiations in the complicated ATP structure and hierarchy. The Spaniard might even retire before that happens. In the meantime, Nadal has little choice but to limit his own hard court schedule in order to maximise the number of years he can continue to play and dominate the clay court season. With Nadal out, Wimbledon becomes a three-way race between Djokovic, Murray and Federer and when you consider that Federer will turn 32 years old in September and has only won one title this year, it seems clear that it will be Djokovic and Murray who will carry the game on their shoulders over the next few years.