Nadal is expressive, which makes him a pretty easy read. I swear you can see it each time a cloud passes in front of his sunny mind, or read the precise degree of ambivalence he is experiencing by the angles of his brows. This time, you could almost hear him thinking, I'd better watch it here, I don't want to say something that's going to backfire on me. . .
But you know how it is with expressive people. They're incorrigible truth-tellers, even when they're trying to hide the truth. One of the great things about Nadal is that he never tries to hides the truth; he isn't nearly calculating or devious enough to even want to pull it off. If a truth happens to be inconvenient, or not in his best interest to divulge, he'll just tap dance around it for a while, orchestrating the dance with a full range of scowls, knitted brows, "who me?" shrugs. But like all honest people, the weight of deception sits heavily on his spirit. It makes him uncomfortable. He'll tap his feet, twist and churn this way and that, but in the end he needs to say what he feels or knows to be true, just to rid himself of that weight. On this occasion, he said:
"Well, sometimes happen, no? Well, the thing is it's strange. . . .I don't know what he (Blake) says before (in his presser), I don't know what he says. But I think he was playing fine today. I think he was playing very good tennis. After the third game or fourth game of third set he comes a little bit down. I have lucky. . .but I think he goes a little bit down, no?
Thank you, Rafa. I'm glad it wasn't my imagination. Or it was both of our imaginations, in which case all I can say is that I like the company.
You had to feel for Blake on this sweltering afternoon in Miami; he's had two fine Masters events (Indian Wells and Miami) ending with Nadal wagging his finger: No pasaran! What must have made this doubly frustrating is that before Indian Wells, Blake was 3-0 against Nadal. If he was going to crash the Top Five, Nadal was his wedge. The psychic capital alone, when it came to Blake's reputation among the players, was significant. It's different now, and if Blake, ranked No. 9, can't be faulted for losing two matches in a row to the No. 2 player in the world (and a multiple Grand Slam winner and two-time Wimbledon finalist), he hasn't made his own life easier by yielding the momentum in the mini-rivalry.
What struck me on both of these recent occasions is how unfit and dispirited Blake looked at the tail end of each clash. In Indian Wells, I simply thought, James definitely has fitness issues. It was the same as I watched Blake teeter, tooter, and finally collapse here today. This one had to hurt, I thought, after Blake sealed his fate at 1-2 and break-point down in the third. He misplayed an easy smash and then compounded the error by spearing a volley into the net to give Nadal a 3-1 lead. But hurt or no hurt, that happened early in the third set in a match of consequence. It was hard to rationalize Blake's subsequent listlessness.
I wondered how I might approach this glaring and - to Blake - potentially insulting issue. But I remembered something a number of great athletes have taught us. Fitness is will, and fitness is game. If you're fit and strong enough (and I'm not sure you can ever simply work your way to the required level in a gym, because it isn't just about the reps squats), your game and spirit are better protected against incursion, and your will isn't forced to carry around the extra baggage of a tired body. So I phrased my question like this: Is there a physical solution to dealing with him? Staying with him? Staying in the match all the way through? Is it the kind of thing maybe with some different training technique or whatever, you could change?
Blake's reply was eloquent and insightful, so much so that I'll quote it almost in its entirety:
