For all his success in tennis, some do not consider Rafael Nadal the greatest of all time. One of the reasons for this is his versatility, which is questionable on the indoor hard courts toward the end of every season. This year, the Paris Masters will not have Rafael Nadal playing in it, making the tournament a huge blot on an otherwise impressive resume, and there is more than one reason for it.
Nadal is not someone to give excuses, even though one may think he would, probably because of his average communication skills in English. After winning the French Open in 2020, a reporter asked the Spaniard about his struggles in the other important Paris tournament. Nadal responded, saying that he ‘usually gets tired around that time every season’.
The tennis schedule is brutal and the way Nadal played throughout his career with a broken foot and painkillers, he needed time to rest and recover ahead of every new season. He wasn’t really destined to win on the hard courts of Paris in November as much as he did on clay almost every June from 2005 till 2022.
Traditionally, indoor tennis was not taken that seriously until Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi elevated their game on the surface. It was followed by Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, who raised the bar from the mid-2000s.
These conditions require a game that involves more power than strategy and hardly any time to react as such. All the external factors, such as airspeed, the elevation of the court, weather conditions, natural light, noise, etc., are taken out of the equation because of the roof and artificial lights. Additionally, the courts are much faster than outdoor hard courts.
Nadal’s game was more orthodox in that sense since he liked taking his time and sizing up his opponents before going for a win at each point. The 22-time Grand Slam champion did not have a great serve, and relying on topspin on his forehand, which was his best shot, did not work indoors.
However, to say that Nadal did not try to make it work on the surface or didn’t have it in him at all is inaccurate. What is conveniently forgotten is that at the start of his career, he made it to the finals in 2007 and had one bad match against David Nalbandian.
Nadal’s tough luck at the Paris Masters over the years
Apart from Novak Djokovic’s record seven wins, the next-best performer has not been one particular player but many of them. In several attempts, Roger Federer could win the tournament just once, which was in 2011. In the last 20 years, amongst Grand Slam champions apart from the Swiss legend, only Andy Murray and Daniil Medvedev have won once.
Coming back to Nadal, he did not play in the Paris Masters for 11 seasons out of his 20. So, in his nine appearances, he has not made it to the quarterfinals and beyond, just one time. That was in 2022 when Tommy Paul produced a stunning upset, which was again one bad match for the legend.
What’s more fascinating is that Nadal has made it to more semifinals (4) than quarterfinals (3) at the Paris Masters. In 2008 and 2017, he had the best chance of winning the tournament but had to retire hurt from the quarters, co-incidentally due to a knee injury on both occasions. In 2019 as well, Nadal handed over the match to Denis Shapovalov after sustaining an abdominal injury in what was his best season in that decade otherwise.
Even when Nadal lost in those big matches, they were by no means humiliating defeats. The only one exception was the 2009 semi-final against Djokovic.
So the answer to the question behind Nadal’s ‘failures’ at the Paris Masters cannot only be that he had an average indoors game. It was also due to the timing of the event each year, which made it difficult for him to sustain his otherwise intense level of tennis.
And more than that, a player also needs luck to win in sports sometimes. Nadal just did not have that on the other side of Paris, alas!
