By Chris Oddo | Monday, August 17, 2015
Rafael Nadal hopes to bounce back from a tough loss in Montreal by working harder than ever in Cincinnati.
Photo Source: AP
Rafael Nadal arrives at the Western and Southern Open with a stinging loss to Kei Nishikori in recent memory, but the 29-year-old former champion is eager to continue his work and seeks to improve his form in his final U.S. Open tune-up.
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“I have been playing better than the beginning of the season in the last couple of months, I think, even if I lost a few matches that I am not happy with,” he told reporters in his pre-tournament press conference at Cincinnati. “I have been playing a little bit better, but every week is a different test and every week is a different story.”
Nadal, who fell 6-2, 6-4 to Nishikori in the Montreal quarterfinals for his first defeat to Japan’s No. 1 in eight career matches, admits that he struggled to find solutions in that match. He lamented the fact that he had several opportunities to keep things close in the opener but he was unable to keep Nishikori from running away from the first set.
“He played very aggressive and he played a great match,” Nadal said. “The first six games of the match were very tough for me. In a normal situation I should go 3-all, not 5-1, but that’s what happened. First game I won, second game I had break point, third game was a tough game with my serve, I lost fourth game 0-30 with his serve. Fifth game 30-0 with my serve. At the end of the match I was closer, but he was better than me that day, especially in the key moments, and that’s why the results have been comfortable for him.”
Nadal, who won the title in Cincinnati the last time he played the event in 2013, is 10-5 on hard courts this season with a best performance of quarterfinals (Australian Open, Indian Wells, Montreal). Undeterred by the lack of a final, Nadal plans to soldier on until his fortunes change.
When will it happen? No matter, because the process in the present is more important to the 14-time major champion.
“I know that the work, when you are coming from a bad moment the work is tripled,” Nadal said. “There is much more mental and tennis work than when you are in a normal situation, when you are in a good dynamic situation. So that’s what I am accepting and doing, working more than ever to try and change the dynamic and to try to feel myself more confident and more comfortable on court. I am doing the right things and when somebody is doing everything possible the only thing you can do is keep doing the same and wait for opportunities and wait for better moments and that’s what I am doing.”
He added: “I hope to have the second part of the season be a little bit better than the first one. Obviously the second part of the season is a little bit more difficult for me than the first one—we don’t have clay out there. Far more [important] than results is finishing with the feeling that I did things better, that I feel that I was improving in my game. This last part of the season is going to be important for me to feel this season with a better feeling that what I started with.”