Rafael Nadal wins the Barcelona Open: Tournament Analysis
Rafa defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas to pick up his 12th title in Barcelona. How did the Spaniard find his feet on the dirt after a rocky start to his clay season?
Well, I’ve went way over my word count limit this week so I’ll keep my intro brief.
Rafael Nadal won his 12th Barcelona Open title last Sunday against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
I’ve analysed his final three matches.
His quarterfinal against Cam Norrie.
His semifinal against Pablo Carreno Busta.
His final against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
What was working and what wasn’t? How did the Spaniard find his feet on the dirt after a rocky start to the clay season?
Enjoy!
Barcelona Open Quarterfinal: Rafael Nadal defeats Cam Norrie 6-1 6-4
Rafa has a 52-2 record1 against his fellow lefties on clay. In 47 of these wins, he didn’t drop a set. Ordinarily, facing tricky lefty-player, Cam Norrie, on clay should have left Rafael Nadal unfazed.
Nadal’s clay season was in need of a defib, however.
He lost pretty emphatically to Andrey Rublev in Monte Carlo, hitting the third-most double faults per point of any loss in his career and spraying 19 unforced errors from his backhand.
In his first-round match in Barcelona, Nadal dropped only his fourth set to a qualifier on clay in his career.
Nadal looked convincing at times against Kei Nishikori in the Barcelona Open third round, but the Japanese star had Nadal on the ropes several times throughout the match.
Rafa was able to keep his record rolling against lefties but not without having to shake off some of this rust.
Norrie dominated the longer rallies, Nadal struggled to assert himself
If we only look at the points where a return was made, Norrie actually only lost five more points than Nadal. When he could sink his teeth into a rally, he made life surprisingly difficult for the Spaniard, playing a consistent, deep game that left Nadal unable to attack as frequently as he usually would from either wing, particularly the backhand side.
Norrie had clearly practiced hitting his flat backhand off a high ball. This prevented Nadal from getting up in the point, often leaving him going for too much on the backhand when the rally was extended.
Norrie actually came out on top in the rallies that went over nine shots, winning 13 points to Nadal’s 7. Eight of these points ended in a Nadal backhand unforced error and only one ended in a Nadal backhand winner.
Tetchy stuff on the Nadal backhand wing…
Standout serving from the Spaniard
Though he was only able to hold serve conceding less than two points twice, no thanks to feeling a bit uncomfortable in the longer rallies, Nadal was only broken once in the match.
What made the biggest difference?
Nadal had clearly polished up his serve since his loss in Monte Carlo. He double faulted only twice and 26% of his serves went unreturned. Rafa normally uses his serve to set up his following shot rather than win the point outright, so he would have been pleased with this aspect of his game.
Still rusty?
Rafa was able to do enough with the forehand even though it wasn’t at its best. It was still the most dominant shot on the court.
Rafa’s backhand was better than it had been in previous matches, yet he often wasn’t able to find the placement he was looking for behind it.
Surprisingly, Rafa’s serve was the crucial difference in making this match less sticky than it could have been.
The match-up was a bad one for Norrie but, despite the scoreline, he actually dealt with it very well and played above his usual standard. It’s testament to Rafa’s clay-court brilliance that he played below his usual standard and still only dropped five games.
Still rusty? Rafa certainly thought so, shouting to his team to book practice court 2 as soon as the match was over.
Barcelona Open Semifinal: Rafael Nadal defeats Pablo Carreno Busta 6-3 6-2
Another day, another streak for Rafa to continue.
Pablo Carreno Busta was 0-7 against Rafa going into their semifinal match and he hadn’t taken a set from him in five meetings on clay. Rafa had also won his last 23 matches against Spaniards.
The numbers didn’t bode well for PCB going into the match and, lo and behold, things played out as expected… for the most part. There were still signs of cracks in the clay GOAT’s game.
The expected
Since the beginning of 2019, PCB has made the highest percentage of first serves on clay in the top 50.
Good tactics? Not really. Especially against Rafa.
In the same period of time, over half of the top 50 have won a higher percentage of their first serve points on clay. This is likely because of the speed of the serve - against Rafa, PCB’s first serve speed was around 107mph, enough to see a pretty measly 11% of his serves go unreturned. This was in spite of missing one of 25 first serves in the first set.
I’d have liked to have seen PCB go for a bit more on the first serve, relying on making a stronger second serve. Nadal ate PCB’s serve for breakfast with his deep return position and ended up winning the majority of his return points.
Like Norrie, Nadal was also able to exploit PCB’s pretty darn flat backhand. Unlike Norrie, however, he is right-handed, meaning his response to a high forehand would be easiest struck cross-court, straight back into Rafa’s forehand. PCB opted for the down the line shot frequently but this opened up the court to allow Rafa to dominate proceedings.
Though PCB is a good enough player to deal with this every now and then, Rafa finished the point with a forehand winner or forced error on 22 occasions to just five forehand unforced errors, making it by far the most dominant shot on court.
Rafa’s serve hadn’t diminished either (on the whole) as 25% of his serves once more went unreturned.
The unexpected
Out of nowhere, at 5-1 15-0 up in the first set, Nadal wobbled.
He lost 11 of the next 12 points and gifted a break to PCB with an untimely double fault, reducing his lead to 5-3 0-30.
Nadal would steady the ship after a 14-point service game, perhaps ultimately proving how strong a competitor he is.
It’s still a worry, however, for him to drop so many points with the finishing line in sight and for him to double fault on break point2.
Less rusty
Bar an out-of-sorts blip, Rafa was the most impressive he’d been all tournament in his semifinal match against PCB.
His forehand and his serve were in decent form and he’d halved his backhand unforced error count from eight against Norrie to four, essentially doubling its reliability overnight.
Rafa still hadn’t peaked though. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but, for me, the tail-end of the first set was significant. Rafa wasn’t quite at his ruthless best against his countryman and the double fault on break point is perhaps an indication of nerves.
If he continued to play at this level, he would surely struggle in the final against 2021’s best player3, Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Barcelona Open Final: Rafael Nadal defeats Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4 6-7 (6) 7-5
Wow.
Rafael Nadal and Stefanos Tsitsipas have had some entertaining battles in the past, but their final at the Barcelona Open takes the biscuit.
Nadal narrowly squeezed passed Tsitsipas in the longest, and probably best-est, three-set match of the season. The match had all the twists and turns of a twisty-turny thing… I could barely wrap my head around it.
But I’ve given it a shot.
Set 1 Nadal 6-4: Nadal steals the set
Tsitsipas had dropped his serve once during his run to the final of the Barcelona Open. He immediately showed Rafa why.
Tsitsipas’s first and second serves are supremely effective on clay4. In his first three service games, Tsitsipas won nine of the 14 service points he won in three shots or less. On the other hand, Nadal was handily broken to love in his second service game, thanks to three groundstroke unforced errors.
In Nadal’s third service game, at 1-3 down, despite double faulting twice, the Spaniard survived two double break points. In the nick of time, his forehand stepped up a gear to win him two very important extended rallies.
Any nervousness Nadal had been feeling was now laying dormant.
He broke back to get to 4-4 but suddenly found himself down 15-40.
Cue this week’s trusty sidekick. Nadal bombed three unreturned serves to snuff out the opportunities. He obliterated a forehand on a subsequent break point for good measure to see himself narrowly through another service game.
Perhaps the rued opportunities rattled Tsitsipas as he opened his 4-5 service game with a double fault. It set the tone for the rest of the game as another two groundstroke errors signed his capitulation.
Tsitsipas had played well enough to win that set but still came out second-best. His forehand was actually the most dominant shot on court, winning 14 points with it to Rafa’s 11, and his backhand was more than holding its own against the Nadal forehand. Unfortunately for Tsitsipas, Rafa dug deep, leaning on his first serve, arguably his most impressive shot this week, to squeak through the set.
Set 2 Tsitsipas 7-6 (6): Tsitsipas’s turn to flex his mental muscles
As you might have guessed by now, on clay, both players are pretty evenly matched from the baseline. Tsitsipas’s forehand is often just as effective as Nadal’s and Tsitsipas can deal with Nadal’s high looping forehand well, by sheer virtue of being so tall.
The balance between the two players continued up until Tsitsipas served at 4-5 down 15-15. Tsitsipas uncharacteristically5 hit two consecutive groundstroke errors on only his second groundstroke in the rally.
Two championship points.
This is where Tsitsipas dispelled any possibility of nerves. Tsitsipas hit two booming down-the-T serves and hit two super-confident approach shots, putting the game into his hands with some sublime net play.
Where Tsitsipas flourished, Nadal faltered. Though his first serve had helped him throughout the tournament, the second serve failed him once more, as he double faulted at 6-6 in the tiebreak6.
Tsitsipas made no mistake on the next point with an unreturned serve.
Set 3 Nadal 7-5: Big point plays and a sliver of luck
The two gladiators traded blows on serve with neither able to manufacture a break point for the first nine games.
At 4-5 down, however, Nadal’s forehand briefly went AWOL as three unforced errors on that wing gave Tsitsipas his own championship point.
No matter. Nadal showed Tsitsipas why he has a 60-8 record in clay-court finals.
Tsitsipas did well to get up in the championship point by ripping the backhand return cross-court. Following this though, he insists on searching for Nadal’s backhand and pays the price. Nadal runs around the weakest backhand and outfoxes Tsitsipas by going inside-in with the forehand.
Nadal would go on to hold and break Tsitsipas in the next game. Nadal trusted in his most basic strategy against Tsitsipas to win two very important points in his final service game, down break point and up championship point.
Serve out wide to the backhand and blast the forehand into the open space.
Tsitsipas still needs to develop a backhand return down the line that can neutralise this play, especially if he’s going to keep playing Rafa.
Which is more than likely.
Well done to both for an outstanding match!
Rafael Nadal in Barcelona: Tournament Analysis
Honestly, Nadal wasn’t at his absolute best in Barcelona.
He struggled to assert his dominance from the baseline against Cam Norrie and he almost let Pablo Carreno Busta back into a match that was his for the taking. Even in his final match, where he tightened up his backhand, his second serve still let him down at times.
Nadal at 90% is good enough to beat most players, however. He used this gear to get through his first four matches and upped his game to close to 99% in the final. With both Nadal and Tsitsipas playing basically the same level of tennis, Nadal played the important points just that bit better than Tsitsipas. The tiniest bit better.
If I were nitpicking, Tsitsipas could maybe go and work on his backhand return down the line. He can take plenty of heart in his performance in Barcelona, however, as only a few inches of net cord separated him from the winner’s trophy.
Nadal, on the other hand, will be overjoyed. This match will fill him with confidence going forward in the clay season and will hopefully serve to iron out any of the kinks we saw in his game this week.
Vamos Rafa!
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Rafa’s two losses to lefties on clay were against Horacio Zeballos in the 2013 Vina Del Mar final and Fernando Verdasco in the 2012 Madrid Masters Round of 16.
According to Craig O’Shannessy’s study, from the beginning of 2015 to the 2017 US Open, Rafa double faulted on break point 2.7% of the time. That’s about 1 in every 37 break points.
Stefanos Tsitsipas has earned more points on tour this year than any other player. As it stands, the top five players in the race to Turin are as follows.
Stefanos Tsitsipas - 2840
Andrey Rublev - 2490
Novak Djokovic - 2320
Daniil Medvedev - 2130
Aslan Karatsev - 1505
See my analysis of his Monte Carlo title run for more info.
Tsitsipas had only hit eight groundstroke unforced errors before hitting his third groundstroke in a rally in the 125 points they had played so far!
It’s not just my imagination - Nadal’s second serve has been a problem for him. He has the lowest second serve points won percentage (53.2%) for a single season on clay since 2004 (51.5%). Perhaps this lack of confidence on the second serve is also why this is shaping up to be his double-fault-iest season on clay ever with 4.3% of his service points ending in a double fault (second highest is 2018 at 3%). It’s not just the frequency of them but the timing, too… No doubt he will have sorted this before Roland Garros!