Mailbag: Despite his recent slump, Nadal is still a French Open contender - SI.com
Email him at jon_wertheim@yahoo. com or tweet him @jon_wertheim. Given how Rafael Nadal has been known for being mentally the strongest, it seems ironic and appropriate that his struggles suggest that mental issues are plaguing him right now. An optimist would say given that the body is still strong, it's just a matter of a match or two for his mind to get the belief back. A pessimist would say the decline is visible to others when there issues start showing in your strongest of strengths. As a pragmatic observer, I'll say Nadal should get married right away and have triplets/quadruplets if possible, ASAP. • Discussions of Nadal—gloomy and gleeful, plangent and pragmatic—dominated the mail this week. By now we’re accustomed to results that, like his topspin-laden shots, pop up and divebomb with little predictability. ) And most depressing: he is starting to resemble Tiger Woods with an iron, simply shaking shots he’s accustomed to converting in his sleep. ?Nadal lays bare the false distinction between body and mind, the physical and emotional. Here’s how a sage tennis observer put it to me via email: “He is not moving nearly as well in 2015 and as a result he is fractionally late to shots. Cascade effect to all areas of his game…and eventually even the strongest mind men’s tennis has ever seen starts to capitulate. Source: www.si.com
