Novak Djokovic and his team will have watched Rafael Nadal’s struggle against David Ferrer here on Friday afternoon with their usual attention to detail and noticed a dangerous adversary coming out of a slump who is remodelling his game with unexpected daring.
They meet on Saturday for the 46th time, in the semi-finals of the 2015 ATP World Tour Finals, the end-of-year bauble Nadal has never won and which Djokovic is aiming to lift for the fourth time in a row. It is a reasonable description of the gulf between them on this surface.
Djokovic qualified by beating Tomas Berdych handily on Thursday night but Nadal had to fight much harder to come out of his group unbeaten, taking two hours and 37 minutes to grind down one of the game’s most obdurate opponents, 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 – even though he, too, was already assured a weekend gig.
While a dead rubber might be the height of pointlessness to many, the near-full arena at least saw Ferrer push Nadal way further than he had been tested earlier in the week by Stan Wawrinka and Andy Murray. It was the first time in 44 matches this year Ferrer has lost after winning the first set.
There were sufficient incentives for both: from a total pot of $7m (£4.6m), there is a $167,000 participation fee, plus $167,000 per match win. There is $510,000 winner-take-all for the semi-final winners, $1,050,000 for the winner of the final (and nothing extra for the loser), plus a further $2,228,000 for an undefeated champion.
So, those are numbers to keep any self-respecting professional athlete interested for a week, no matter how many aches and pains have accumulated over nearly 11 months of one of the toughest schedules in sport.
There was no hint of trouble when they began. This match, surely, would go the way that most of the others have between them. But, after racing to a 3-0 lead Nadal was stunned when Ferrer put together a four-game streak and, momentarily bewildered, the world No5 was soon serving to stay in the set.
Was he being kind to his countryman, was he saving himself for the semi-finals? It all seemed odd, given the sublime level Nadal had hit during in his first two matches.
He looked relieved to get a break point, when Ferrer hit long in the 11th game, and was further encouraged when his opponent’s backhand billowed the net. However, Ferrer stayed doggedly in the fight and broke again to force a tie-break, which he took for the loss of two points. An upset was more than possible.
Nadal historically has found his “real game” after being stretched – especially by Ferrer who had beaten him only six times in 29 attempts, although they had shared the honours four-all on hard courts before Friday.
There was an inevitability about the fightback and it started with Nadal’s serve, which he repaired quickly enough to level at a set apiece then ramped up further in the third to finish with a respectable 74%, winning 39 of 60 first serves overall.
What Djokovic’s eagle-eyed operatives will also have noticed, both on court and in the statistics, is Nadal’s increasing willingness to attack the net, something nobody would have predicted even a year ago.
But the clock is ticking on his long career, as it is with Roger Federer, whose occasional daredevil returns from nearly the edge of the service box leading up to and including the US Open Nadal dismissed as frivolous.
He has not gone quite that far but he won 15 of 17 points at the net here against an opponent who is one of the game’s best retrievers – which is how he caught Murray cold on Wednesday.
So, will we get the old Rafa on Saturday or a new version? Djokovic is preparing for a combination of the two. It is unlikely he will be able to take such net-rushing liberties with the Serb but, if his strategy clicks again, it could be lethal. They are all getting a little tired.
