The new timeline of the Federer-Nadal duality is about resurrection, not revival

Caught in the upturn of Novak Djokovic’s rivalries with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the last couple of years, the Federer and Nadal competition series in tennis’ booklet looked to have trailed abruptly.

The 2015 Basel Open final, which has now come to be the indicator of a pivotal turnabout in both players’ careers, was then considered an isolated eventuality, more on coincidental lines much like their Australian Open final. The Indian Wells draw did bring a difference to this narrative of concurrence, by pitting them together in the so-called quarter of death, but the potentiality of them actually playing each other still remained tentative at best.

And, at the end of their match, the highlights of which predominantly include numerous retelling and encapsulation of Federer’s dominance, there’s also certain uncertainty leftover.

Was Rafael Nadal finally left in Roger Federer’s shadow?

The one-sidedness of Federer dictating the game to Nadal looks to have brought their contests on an even-keel. When viewed from Nadal and his coaching team’s perspective, however, the rivalry continues to be uneven. This time though, stacked against them.

“It was obvious that I didn’t have the right answer for his returns, no? I needed to neutralise the points,” Nadal pointed out in his post-match press conference. “I needed to neutralise his two first balls, and I didn’t. I was a little bit better than him in general when I neutralised the first two shots, and then I could manage [the point] a little bit better, no? So I was not enough good tonight to make that happen and he deserved the victory, for sure. [It was] very easy [for him].

Nadal’s assessment was narrowed to the finer points of his tactics, or lack thereof. Yet, in trying to recap his 68-minute endeavour, the 30-year-old missed the obviousness of the stagnancy ailing his game in the recent past.

Transformation of the Mallorcan’s forehand: From boon to bane

In the last couple of seasons, coinciding with the strongholds of Djokovic, Murray, and Federer was also the unmistakeable loss of form of Nadal. Indeed, he finished 2014 by winning his ninth French Open title and with a second final at the Australian Open. Irrespective of these successes, it was also the year when his opponents started to lock in on his game’s predictability, especially honing in on his top-spin heavy forehands.

2015 was a continuation of this newly exploitable trend, with his rivals finding it easier to barter against his forehands than on his relatively weaker backhand wing. The essence of Nadal’s game that revolved around him setting up winners and drawing out errors against his opponents thus came to be diluted in the course of those 12 months, as he remained bogged down by his brittle physique and the resulting loss to his self-confidence.

A curtailed 2016 and the wins enclosed within the year gave him adequate time to regain his ambitious purposefulness, which he put to good use at the start of 2017, reaching consecutive finals at the Australian Open, and in Acapulco. However, on both occasions, he failed to hit his stride, with his forehands unable to withstands the barrage of shots directed towards it. And, while it was not a final, it was a pattern that repeated itself in his fourth-round match at Indian Wells on Wednesday.

Is an alteration imminent?

The redistribution of the erstwhile designated strengths and weaknesses of Federer’s game delves largely on his backhand, as it should be. It is far from being perfect and even now, despite all his adjustments, Federer is most likely to pepper errors when facing a constancy of shots on that front. A similar analysis of Nadal’s shot-making would indicate the superficiality that lies camouflaged in the Mallorcan’s forehand. Just like it presents an interesting parallel for Nadal to borrow ideas from.

Whether he likes it or not, and whether he is wholly accepting of it or not, Nadal needs to reinvent his game to stymie his rivals, including his oldest, all over again. He did make a reference to it in his last presser at Indian Wells, indicating a timeline for the Miami Open. “You need to play well. You need to play your best if you want to have chances to win, and I did not play my best,” he said.

“[But], I was fighting. I was trying to find solutions. I tried to serve quicker. I tried to serve changing more directions, and I was trying to return inside and in the back. I have to think from my side, and I think I can do it much better next time. I started the season [great], [by] playing great tennis [and by] winning a lot of matches. [On Wednesday], I didn’t play my best, but I am really confident I gonna play well in Miami this week.”

If, then, he does manage to ring in these changes in time for the Miami Open next week, any probability of a Fedal rematch will be seen as the resurrection of their long-standing jousting, and a more balanced one at that.