Nadal's losing streak outside of clay

Since Nadal won his first title in 2004 in Sopot he has gone through several losing streaks outside of clay.

He had to wait 12 months from his first title ever in Sopot to win his first title outside of clay in Montreal 2005.

Then from Dubai 2006 he had to wait 12 months to win again a title outside of clay in Indian Wells 2007.

After that he had to wait 15 months to win a title outside of clay in Queen's 2008.

His next losing streak would be of 16 months after winning Indian Wells 2009 he won again a title outside of clay in Wimbledon 2010.

Right now he is going through his worst losing streak ever outside of clay. Exactly 20 months since he last won a title outside of clay in Tokyo 2010.

Discuss.

Sopot is on clay, by the way. I do realise the OP knows this but just wanted to make sure for everyone.

Rafa has been in finals of US Open, Australian Open and Miami and Wimbledon, all the biggest tournaments outside of clay, where Djokovic stopped him. Without Djokovic, he would have done quite well.

I actually think Rafa will attack Djokovic on those surfaces and I expect him to win a (non-clay) title by October at the latest.

It would be interested to see his win % for tournaments entered in his career for clay and none clay. I expect he has won about 50-80% of all clay tournaments entered in his career and about 5-10% for others.

Im confused, didn't he win Wimbledon 2010, so 2 months earlier than the USO in 2010, so it would be 14 months with a title away from clay, not 16...? Sorry to be pedantic....!

It's very interesting stuff. I was aware he had a long run without title off clay a while back but I don't realise how these barren runs stacked up.

Anyone know out of all his titles, how many are off clay?

He has at least 30 titles on clay according to Wikipedia but that only includes Barcelona and ATP 1000 Masters events & RG, so that represents @ least 60% of his titles (but it's probably higher). With his recent win @ RG, his grand slam titles on clay is at 63.4%, a similar %.

luciusmann wrote:Im confused, didn't he win Wimbledon 2010, so 2 months earlier than the USO in 2010, so it would be 14 months with a title away from clay, not 16...? Sorry to be pedantic....!

I corrected it. His next losing streak would be of 16 months after winning Indian Wells 2009 he won again a title outside of clay in Wimbledon 2010.

Double checked Wikipedia, it's 36 titles on clay, so 14 on other surfaces. So that's:

72% of his titles on clay (36)
28% of his titles off clay (14)

Nadal titles - Clay 36

HC 11 (Tokyo 2010, USO 2010, IW 2009, AO 2009, Beijing Olympics 2008, Canada 2008, IW 2007, Dubai 2006, Madrid/Beijing/Canada 2005)

Grass 3 (W 2010, W 2008, Queens 2008)

but....

Finalist at

2012 AO
2011 Tokyo, US Open, Wimbledon, Miami, Indian Wells
2010 WTF, Doha
2009 Shanghai, Rotterdam
2008 Miami, Chennai
2007 Paris, W
2006 W
2005 Miami
2004 Auckland

Not too shabby for the King of Clay.

Very good post by redmoon. The numbers are telling that is why I am bit suprised people have Nadal as such a strong favorite at wimbeldon. He is better on grass than on hardcourt. He still doesn't have a victory over Novak on hardcourt in since USO 2010 and with as consistent as Novak has been getting to the finals of hardcourt events he probably explains a large part of his streak. Nadal has been winning a high percentage of matches in the last year and change but in his finals he has been running into Novak and losing till his recent run on clay. It will be interesting to see if Nadal has regained his mojo as much off of the clay as he has on the clay. That is going to be the big question of the next few weeks on the tour.


And the prior slumps though those are puzzling because he has never had the same problem of beating Roger off of clay. This reinforces the idea that while Nadal is the best clay courter of all time he is not anywhere near as effective on other surfaces. Not that he isn't great but he is significantly more vulnerable and where few can have a chance to beat on clay more players have a chance to beat especially on hardcourt.

I think Novak will reassert his dominance a bit now that the clay court season and some personal issues are behind him. He has the superior hardcourt pedigree to Nadal and most of the tournaments left are on hardcourt.

He would have won many hardcourt titles last year if not for Novak.
Infact I'm pretty sure with the momentum Djokovic had last year he would have beaten Nadal in MC and FO too if they had met so we can't read too much into the stats.

Last year Nadal got 0 sets from Djokovic on CLAY in both their matches. This year he has got 6 with the loss of just one set.

I think things are in the balance. Momentum can go across surfaces, remember it was Djokovic's wins in IW and Miami which spurred him on to the two clay wins. However it is noticeable that Djokovic's favourite surface is HC and he did beat Nadal in AO by the skin of his teeth.

It's all to play for.

Interesting stats. I would still have him as my favourite for Wimbledon though as he comes into it with great momentum. In recent years he has turned that momentum into a place in the final at Wimbledon and twice into a slam victory.

It's a tough one to predict though, this Wimbledon. Nadal being the only one of the top 4 in particularly great form. It's tough to try and asses who his big rival is for the title. In my opinion anyway.

I'm hoping Murray avoids his half in the draw.

Ref the ratio of clay titles to non-clay quoted above ....... the 'losing streak' outside the red stuff has become perhaps even more skewed over the last couple of years, given that of the seven titles he has won in 2011 and 2012 to date, all came on clay.

The glowing plaudits Rafa received in the wake of his surpassing even the great Borg at RG were of course richly deserved. But the victory didn't actually bring him any additional ranking points, and as the dust (or clay, ho ho) settles, his key priority must surely be on regaining that Number One spot.

With Rafa being such a massive part of today's game it's surprising to realise that in terms of total weeks spent as World Number One he is still only seventh on the all-time list, and is currently almost 200 weeks behind the all-time leader. It goes without saying that he would not want to end his career with that figure - even if his status as King of Clay seems totally secure.

So this second half of the season is critical for him. If Novak can defend his Wimbledon and USO titles - a mighty tough ask of course - then Rafa's bid to claw his way back to the top just gets harder and harder. There aren't exactly a lot of threats coming from 'newer' faces, so the battleground for number one is surely likely to be restricted to Novak and Rafa for the next couple of years at least (notwithstanding any brief interruption that may, just may, come from Federer based on various projections/potential scenarios already put forward by others).

All that said, I'm with Danny_1982 wrt to Rafa being favourite for Wimbledon. I feel he's the player with the momentum this year. So far, there have been no (truly) catastrophic defeats in 2012 as there were in 2011 ; and, despite all the comment about his comparative weakness outside clay, lets not forget that of all active players, Rafa does have the second best record on grass.

Nadal's slow start @W can be detrimental. Olympics is also in the mix this year. Tough schedule.

Nadal loves the tennis balls used at Monte Carlo and RG. He does not love the tennis balls at majority of other events, he's not the "great all rounder" his tard fans would have you believe.

Erm... I'm no Rafa fanatic, but how can someone who holds a golden career grand slam NOT be considered as a great all-rounder?

If you win every slam, you're an all-rounder!

No his game is very limited.. he will never win a GS on a hard court... no hope of winning Wimbledon.. and forget it Rafa if you think you will ever win a gold medal at the olympics. Monte Carlo and RG is your limit sorry to say old boy.
Never mind you´ll just have to stay at No.2. until Monte Carlo next year. :roll:

JM Always here to amuse me and cheer me up with your posts

Btw MC and FO use different balls, maybe you meant court like 'clay court' lol

Contiues.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Nadal loves the tennis balls used at Monte Carlo and RG. He does not love the tennis balls at majority of other events, he's not the "great all rounder" his tard fans would have you believe.

Agreed again.

He overachieved with 11 slams.

I agree with Josiahs comment, this is highlighted in the Madrid Masters. Conditions have to be perfect for them or they dont like it, instead of just getting on with and adjusting to the surface just like players have to do against him on clay. Surfaces were different monthly not so long ago, they should feel happy they get it their way as much as they do, otherwise shocks like today would happen much more often

While I agree that Rafa is a grea player on any surface hardcourt, grass, and clay i don't think he has been particularly dominant on surfaces outside of clay since the summer of 2010. It has now been 2 years since we have seen Nadal at his best on hardcourt. Now can Nadal regain the magic of USO 2010 or AO 2009? We have seen that off of clay he is not only more vulnerable to Djoko, but now with two straight early round defeats on grass which was supposed to be his second best surface that Nadal is vulnerable again to others as well.

redmoon wrote:He overachieved with 11 slams.

That is, of course, a massive compliment.

If you look at his record off clay alone, 4 slams, 5 TMS on hard, the Olympics, Queens and two other HC tournament wins it's better than the overwhelming majority of pro tennis players. I'm not his fan, but I can see quality when it's before my eyes.

That said, throughout his career he has been vulnerable to hard flat hitters, particularly in best of 3 matches. At a slam he has 5 sets over which to break you down, and the sort of tennis that beats him is quite low margin stuff. Not only that, but as Lydian points out there's a lot more to his game and his tactics than meets the eye. When I watched him one of the things that I noticed in particular was that he has soft hands and touch when he wants to deploy it.