By Charles Bricker
In a vacuum this was as seamless a transition as one could reasonably expect from Rafael Nadal, who glided easily this afternoon from his recent fifth French Open championship to his first grass court match in two years.
But of course we don’t play this game in a vacuum, so as smooth as this 6-2, 6-2, 53-minute pasting appeared, it needs to be tempered with at least one salient fact — namely, that his opponent was some Brazillian nobody named Marcos Daniel, ranked No. 114.
Nevertheless, when you strip away the statistcs for this win, and they were mighty impressive, and look at the play itself, there was a lot to like here.
It took Nadal all of one point to let everyone know he had his grass legs under him, as he smacked a running cross-court forehand passing shot for a winner about 30 seconds into this match.
He then closed out a break for 2-0 by slapping back Daniel’s second serve — the ball returning faster than when it arrived.
It was — surprise! — a moist day at Queens Club in London and the players had a brief exit with Nadal leading 2-1 in the second set. When they got back on court, nothing had changed. Nadal was ready and inspired, and the emphasis has to be on “inspired.”
Not that anyone should have had much doubt about Nadal’s motivation after the emotionally draining triumph in Paris, but it was something of a question. That victory over Robin Soderling in the Roland Garros final was a source of great relief after the year and a half Rafa had been through.
His career since turning pro at age 16 had been nothing but upward mobility. The early titles. The early wins over Roger Federer. The improvement of his serve, upon which he had never relied because of his prodigious ground strokes. And then the consecutive titles at the French and the whipping of Federer at the 2008 Wimbledon final.
At that point, barely 22, the world was at Nadal’s feet. . .until the knee injuries and the divorce of his parents sent him reeling emotionally. To lose to Soderling, even with a gimpy knee, at the 2009 French, was a crushing setback for him, but he learned from it. He learned to deal with his fitness. He learned he cannot play week after week after week. He learned how to practice more economically. He started listening to his body and the result was the victory last Sunday in Paris.
He spoke with great eloquence after that match about what it had meant to him to come back after the trauma of injury and the breakup of his family, and it left you wondering, perhaps not deeply but to some extent, how much emotion would be left when he arrived in England.
Today’s triumph over Daniel speaks to that issue, though perhaps not enough. I still want to see him sustain this level, and he should through the third round on Thursday against No. 16 seed Dennis Istomin.
He looked sharp. He looked swift. He looked motivated. But, again, this was Marcos Daniel.
It could not have been lost on any tennis afficionado that this was Nadal’s first grass match since his win over Federer two years ago in that five-set drama at the All England Club, and it’s never easy making a fast transition from the slowest surface to the fastest. But he looked entirely comfortable. There were no slips on the damp court. Pete Sampras never looked more on balance on grass.
There were 35 minutes gone when the players left the court for the rain delay and, at that point, Nadal had served 35 points and, of the 24 service points he won, 14 were unreturned serves — a very good sign.
It was Rafa’s first match, also, since regaining the No. 1 ranking. He and Federer have no prospect of facing each other again until the Wimbledon final — if Federer gets there, and I think, at this point, there’se a greater chance that Federer, not Nadal, will fail before Wimbledon’s final Sunday. One player has reached the pinnacle, the other is in a very slow decline.
It’s not just that Nadal has returned to No. 1. It’s that he’s going to be entrenched there for some time. The knees are fine. The emotions are under control. He is, certainly, the best player in tennis right now and for the foreseeable future.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com