Nadal Continues Clay Season Domination with Madrid Title

Happy mother day to all the mothers out there. I haven’t been able to make posts this week due to exams and sickness but as you know I make updates to Facebook. Nadal continued his clean sweep of the clay court season today with a 7-6(8), 6-4 win over Thiem.

So congrats to him and to Thiem as well for another good week where he made his first Masters semi-final and final. He did very well in the final where he broke Nadal in the third game and came back from 3-5 in the tiebreak where he had two set points but in the end, Nadal had the edge.

This is Nadal’s 5th Madrid title. On his way to the title, he also won his first match against Djokovic after losing 15 consecutive sets and 7 matches to his nemesis, 6-2, 6-4. Unfortunately for Djokovic, Nishikori’s withdrawal in the quarterfinals didn’t help him at all.

After a promising 6-4, 7-5 victory over Lopez Djokovic was scheduled to play Nishikori in the quarterfinals who withdrew due to physical problems like so many times before. This meant an already heavily undercooked Djokovic had to sit the day out while Nadal could get into prime shape against Goffin.

Not that he needed to. He’d already won Monte Carlo and Barcelona as well as many more matches earlier this year. So the result was no surprise at all. It was not the conditions I hoped for as far as their first clay court meeting went.

Djokovic was always going to be the only one who really had a chance of stopping Nadal and blowing some life into this clay court season but Nishikori’s withdrawal may have ruined all chances of that happening.

Rafa #Nadal with the ballkids after winning his 5th title at the @MutuaMadridOpen!

· @inesgrossocruz / @raquetcom pic.twitter.com/MzJu91elfs

— Gaspar Ribeiro Lança (@gasparlanca) May 14, 2017

It would have been better for Djokovic to play against Nishikori and lose than to lose 6-2, 6-4 to Nadal, but it was likely that he would have won and gotten another much-needed injection of confidence before facing Nadal.

Things just keep working against Djokovic and for Nadal. But that’s what momentum does. That’s why the past matters and why I said after Barcelona that I think Nadal will win the French Open. Djokovic still had a shot at stopping Nadal but the Nishikori episode makes it look like Nadal is truly destined to win a 10th French Open this year.

That said, Djokovic will take some positives from his week in Madrid and try to do one better again in Rome. That’s all he can do. Keep grinding away with blind faith that his luck will eventually turn again.

That’s all that anyone can do. This is just Federer and Nadal’s time after they did the same for a long time while Djokovic was dominating. Peaks and slumps are as sure to follow each other as night follows day. It’s a law of nature.

Fans will look for reasons and scapegoats like Pepe Imaz(who Djokovic has known for many years) ignoring the fact that the valley is as deep as the mountain is high and none had a higher peak than Djokovic did in 2015 and 2016.

It is no wonder then that he is currently in the deepest slump of his career. Just before that he had the highest peak of his career! But as long as he cares(which he clearly does) then as sure as night follows day he will get out of it again and reach another peak.

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