Wimbledon 2013: Five reasons why Nadal lost his first round clash to Darcis

5. The knee has never been 100% all year

The sole purpose of Rafa skipping the Halle tournament was to give himself some much needed rest and it would be foolhardy to think that he would come into the event with a suspect knee without Uncle Toni and himself being fully confident of it holding up.

The truth is that even through his magnificent comeback, which saw him win six out of the eight tournaments he played in (five on clay), his knees were never 100%. Nadal through various interviews during that period has mentioned that some days it feels good and some others it doesn’t.

At Rome and even at Roland Garros, he admitted to feeling pain in the knee during a few of the matches, but that it was manageable which enabled him to continue. “Some weeks I didn’t feel well,” he said after claiming his 8th French Open title. “I am still going week by week, day by day.”

Grass though, is a completely different beast. Of all the surfaces, clay exerts the least amount of pressure while grass does the most. The ball keeps a lot lower on grass and the players are forced to get down really low to play their shots. That in turn, means more pressure on the knee and the lower joints, which tends to exacerbate any niggling problems that a player may have in those areas.

Rafa was candid after the match on the difficulty level, “I said is probably the toughest surface for me today, because I had to move and I have to play in a lower position than in the rest of the surfaces.” And without the experience of playing a tourney on grass, Nadal jumped straight into the deep end.

When Sharks sense a potential prey, they tend to close in and circle round them, lying in wait for an opportune moment to strike. Steve ‘The Shark’ Darcis, nicknamed for the shark tattoo on his shoulder, moved in just as swiftly as he saw Nadal swimming in troubled waters. He bide his time, stayed patient and played the big points extremely well to ensure that there was no way back for the 2-time champion from Spain.