Rafael Nadal reflects on his comeback efforts after his first round loss at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2015 to the German qualifier Michael Berrer.
After Rafael Nadal lost 6:1/3:6/4:6 to Michael Berrer he briefly talked about the match, reasons for his loss and his comeback efforts.
As usual Nadal complemented his opponent to show respect by saying that “he played well”. But there is more to it.
Reason for the Loss
When you take a look at the match stats then you will notice that Nadal only converted 2 out of 12 break chances, a 17% conversion rate to Berrer’s 50% (2/4).
How could that happen?
Maybe it had to do with mental toughness.
I was playing with more nerves than usual. I knew that winning [a] couple of matches here will help me, so that makes me play a little bit more under more tension.
Nadal also had an explanation as to why this could happen:
“These things happen after [a] long time without being on the road, being on rhythm, being in competition,” said Nadal. “So I think I played a great first set [with] a lot of winners with my forehand [and] no mistakes.”
Comebacks Are Tough
It looks like Nadal is having a tougher time coming back this time when compared to his last comeback, where he won match after match and made it look easy.
He didn’t mention why it’s more difficult for him this time around but went on saying:
“There is risk…you can see all the comebacks from a lot of players when they were injured from long time. The comebacks are tough; I’m not an exception.
At the end, that’s the sport. I’m going to work hard to try to make it less tough as possible, but my motivation and my hunger to keep doing the things well [are] still the same. I am sure that I’m going to come back to my best. I hope to be soon.”
