Guardian Newspapers
June 28, 2024
Rafael Nadal has an engaging presence on the court and will attract considerable support in years to come but lost to Paradorn Srichapan yesterday.
The attractive notion that this might be a good year for a 17-year-old to emulate Boris Becker by winning the men's singles expired at exactly three o'clock yesterday afternoon when Rafael Nadal, the youngest player in this year's draw, surrendered in straight sets to Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand, the No12 seed.
By beating Mario Ancic and Lee Childs, the boy from Majorca had become the youngest player to reach the third round since Becker in 1984, the year before the German took the title. Those seeing Nadal for the first time were struck not only by his confidence and composure but by the ease with which he seemed to be adapting to grass, a surface not generally welcoming to Spaniards since Manuel Santana became champion in 1966.
This was, in fact, only the second grass-court tournament of Nadal's short career. A year ago he reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon's junior championship, and he had not played on the surface since then.
Yesterday his present limitations were fully exposed as he lost by 6-4, 6-4, 6-2, and he was quick to identify the principal reason. "If I want to win more matches," he said, "I have to develop my serve."
Srichaphan is not the biggest server on the circuit, but his delivery looked like a bazooka compared with Nadal's catapult. The Spaniard managed to get 73% of his first serves in but, since most of them were hardly more threatening than his opponent's second serve, that scarcely mattered. Although the ace count ran only 7-2 in favour of the Thai player, Srichaphan was always asking questions of Nadal's ability to return his 120mph deliveries with anything other than a defensive jab.
Nevertheless Srichaphan saw enough to be impressed. "I think he could be a really top player in the future," he said. "I love the way he hits the ball. He's got a big shot and he's really quick around the court. If we were playing on clay I think I'd have no chance."
Nadal has an engaging presence on the court and will attract considerable support in years to come. At the moment he plays like a teenager in ways that are both highly attractive and less flattering. His hectic chasing after seemingly lost causes occasionally results in spectacular retrievals, but too often yesterday he showed a profound uncertainty over the choice of tactical options in an unfamiliar environment against a more experienced opponent.
The first game of the match was a mini-tutorial which rocked his youthful self-belief. He was serving, and he wanted to attack Srichaphan, and he thought the way to do it was to get up to the net as quickly as possible. But on the first two points his opponent had him diving around at the net, vainly trying to lay his strings on the ball. At 0-30 he stayed back for the early exchanges but was lured forward by the teasing length of Srichaphan's shots and had the lesson underlined. One of Srichaphan's screaming forehands quickly secured the break.
Thereafter Nadal largely resisted the temptation to rush to the net until he had built a solid platform, although his stuttering feet betrayed the occasional uncertainty. But even if he failed to construct a convincing alternative strategy, the case for tipping him to do well here in future was strengthened by his refusal to go for the default option of trying to play a clay-court game.
It was easy to detect his interest in the challenges and possibilities that grass offers, his record to date suggesting that he will be prepared to do the work necessary to bring the deficient aspects of his game up to the necessary level. And, he says, he will not be alone.
"All the young players from Spain, and also from the rest of the world, are interested in playing better on these surfaces," he said. "I think that in the future they can make it to the later rounds of this tournament."
He was undismayed by the outcome of his second visit to SW19. "It's been a good tournament," he said. "I've won two matches on grass, a surface I hadn't played on for a year. And today I lost against the No13 player in the world. Normally the No70 doesn't beat the No13. So I've played three matches at a very high level, and that's going to help my game."
Most impressive of all, at this stage, was his temperament. There is plenty of emotion in his game, but it seems to be under firm control. His reaction to an unhelpful overrule was to turn away and get on with the next point.
The temperament on the other side of the net was equally impressive. Between rounds Srichaphan is visiting a Buddhist temple five minutes' walk away from his rented house in Wimbledon. "Go to see a monk, try to keep it calm," he said. "Sitting down, meditation for five or 10 minutes, keeping it quiet."
But there is excitement back home in Bangkok, where they are following his progress avidly. "My friends just called," he said. "The match started at one o'clock, which was 7pm in Thailand. They said, 'It's Friday night, it's raining, and there's no traffic here'." There will be no shortage of traffic on the Centre Court on Monday, when Srichaphan's forehand meets Andy Roddick's serve.
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