Rafael Nadal can still be the man to beat on clay - Corretja
In an interview to AS, the former world No. 2 Alex Corretja commented on Rafael Nadal's chances in the upcoming clay tournaments. Corretja believes that world No. 2's losses to Fabio Fognini in Monte Carlo and Dominic Thiem in Barcelona should not be particularly worrying. "With room for improvement, Rafa can go for more and between Madrid and Rome, he will find the perfect fit. If he succeeds, he is still the man to beat on the clay. He could not [compete] with Thiem and Fognini, but both are players who had already beaten him on the clay. They knew him and they are specialists in that area. The extraordinary thing is to win a tournament eleven times and repeat. Ten matches between Monte Carlo and Barcelona could be already very demanding and he has already had to overcome an injury. Last year, he was also injured before the clay, but the previous Davis Cup matches in Valencia helped him", said Corretja.
Speaking on The Tennis Podcast, the fellow pundit Catherine Whitaker said: “He was pretty roundly beaten by Dominic Thiem. He’s got a lot of building to do. It wasn’t best of five but he was pretty roundly beaten. Thiem believes now, Thiem believes he can beat Rafael Nadal in any context. For me, that’s really significant. He doesn’t walk out on court thinking, ‘I’ve got to absolutely red line my game to have a chance.’ He goes out on the court thinking, ‘My game’s good enough.’ Mentally for me, that’s significant. The game has just about been there. Then the French Open final, he might have been trying to convince his brain that he believed but none of the cells in his body actually believed and I think that’s changed.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2VkfF2U
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