Fall season has been the balm for a wounded Rafael Nadal

After a difficult beginning to the 2015 season, Rafael Nadal's smile is back in the fall

‘’Rafa’s head is again his game’s lung’’ – Spanish tennis website ‘Tennistopic’ wrote it after Rafael Nadal’s three-set victory over Kevin Anderson in the third round of the 2015 Paris Masters.

Indeed it is!

After two confidence-boosting wins over top-5 players in straight sets on the indoor hardcourts of the World Tour Finals, there is no shred of doubt that the 14-time Slam champion is back to being the thinking player that he always was.

He has 16 wins so far in the fall season and 14 of those came in the period between the US Open and the World Tour Finals – the highest that the Spaniard has ever notched up in that stretch of the season as a professional.

Nadal’s quick thinking ability and resourcefulness have always been a prerequisite for his monumental success. A dedicated student of the game, his understanding of the court to make the ball drop successfully on his opponent’s side from anywhere, has been his mojo.

It is why Nadal has been the embodiment of undying hope – that he will find out ways to fight till the last point and earn his victory is what has been embedded in his countless fans’ minds.

It is this belief that got a jolt as his asset lost its sharpness in the early part of the 2015 season. Because of his mind getting clouded with anxieties, jangling nerves is all we got to witness at crucial junctures of matches. The clarity was missing which led to confusion in shot-selection. So many times, Rafa pushed forward but could not put away the ball despite the entire court remaining open.

The crisis mostly affected his bread-winning shot – his forehand. The feared shot which had condemned so many of his opponents to their doom, became a whimper of its former self with Rafa struggling to find even a decent amount of depth with it.

The intrepid and resilient player that we were so used to seeing got replaced by a staid and vapid countenance whose fire has been doused long back.

That is until the fall season.

That fire has once again been ignited now as evidenced by his unprecedented number of wins post-US Open. For Rafa’s shots to work magic on the court, his mind needed to work in tandem. After nine months of searching in desperation, the former World No. 1 is finally enjoying on the court again.

Nadal made a brilliant quote during his post-match analysis after defeating Andy Murray at the World Tour Finals – “At the end of the day you are competing with yourself.”

It thoroughly signifies how much every player has to fight within himself to reach the pinnacle. When the inner serenity is lost, the battle is lost even before the match has been fought on the court.

Rafa needed to find his calmness back for his analytical mind to start working again. For that, he needed an ample number of matches too to give a boost to his competitive spirit.

Nadal embarked on a mission in the fall season to rediscover himself. More importantly, the early season catastrophe made him more open to accepting changes. It is not easy to detach oneself from long-practised habits, especially for someone like Nadal who has a penchant for repeated rituals.

But Rafa is determined to make his hard work show.

Earlier, the Spaniard used to be adamant about receiving serve to open a match. Now, he regularly opts to serve after winning a toss. At the Shanghai Masters, he ditched his usual warm-ups for proper practice and his practice match before his dismantling of Wawrinka in the quarters was longer than the actual match by 17 minutes!

His shockingly short forehands have been displaced by deep and stinging forehands which have wreaked enough havoc over the likes of World No. 4 Stan Wawrinka and World No. 2 Andy Murray in London. He is moving effortlessly again and changing directions at his own will.

There is that ultra aggression that his fans have so impatiently waited to see. The backhands have been impressive and he is regularly hitting them with a lot of pace and even going for the down-the-line backhands more often than before. His propensity to come forward is reaping rich dividends and he has had 73% success at the net this year.

Rafael Nadal's success at the net in 2015

His serving has been quite admirable, given the amount of variation he has been able to incorporate. Against Murray in London, Nadal went for 65% body serves in the Ad court. Rafa’s average first serve speed during his dismissal of Wawrinka in London was 2mph higher than what he served against the Swiss in Paris Masters just two weeks back. Clearly, he is focussed on bringing in the surprise element in his game.

Stepping inside the court, the southpaw has been unleashing his venomous returns with total abandon. A comparison of his court positioning at Shanghai and at Indian Wells showed that he played 30% from inside the baseline in the Chinese city unlike a paltry 16% during the first Masters of the season.

A comparison of Rafael Nadal's court positioning at the Indian Wells Masters (left) and at the Shanghai Masters

Repeated losses this year have given the Spaniard a wake-up call and made him introspect where exactly he needed to rectify and bring in changes. Rafa himself admitted that it is a conscious decision to keep on playing more inside.

“I am playing more inside, I am trying, I am working hard to try to make that happen.”

The split-second decisions are shining forth, just like before. Consider the uber-aggressive backhand that Rafa hit at 1:44 in the following video when Murray was serving at 4-5, 0-30 in the first set. It shows his supreme talent of outthinking opponents.

And if anything else is needed to endorse Rafa’s resurgence, there is no better example than his phenomenal running lob which flummoxed Stan Wawrinka and wowed the entire tennis world. That magical point saved a break point and was just the perfect testament of the World No. 5’s stunning vision and geometrical sense of the court.

Rafa’s diligence and perseverance are finally paying off and one can see the joy that he is feeling on the court from these continued positive results. The revived Nadal is raring to go with passion for his sport burning deeply inside him. He is not panicking anymore, rather calmly taking the harder route if he has to, as exhibited by his multiple three-set wins at Basel.

No wonder that the usual least-productive part of his season has now yielded his best results of the year that included two finals so far.

Nadal’s resurgence is still a work in progress and Rafa admirers will need to exercise caution before hitting the over-expectation button. He faces the World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in his semi-final at the World Tour Finals and the Serb will be a good test for the 29-year-old to gauge his recent improvements.

If the Spanish ace keeps on evolving his game the way he has been, even a setback against Djokovic, if it so happens, cannot deter the Spaniard. He is motivated to continue in this vein the next season and with the Olympics being in 2016, he will never be short of any inspiration.

“It’s good to finish the year with this positive energy. That helps to try to start next year in better shape,” the World No. 5 says.

And that’s all the assurance his fans need!