Nadal: ‘I Was Not Good Enough’

Rafael Nadal found one big positive to take away from his surprise 6-2, 6-4 defeat to Alexander Zverev on Monday night at the Nitto ATP Finals: The Spaniard is pain-free.

The World No. 1 pulled out of his Rolex Paris Masters semi-final on 2 November after feeling a strain in his abdominal while serving in the warm-up. But Nadal said he didn’t feel any such pain during his first match at The O2 since 2017.

“No complaint about the physical condition. No pain in abdominal. That’s the only positive thing, honestly. That’s all. Happy the way that [the] abdominal [felt], and hopefully I can continue like this, because it’s true that I was not able to create a lot of practice and a lot of effort on that part of the body since last Saturday,” Nadal said.

“The physical issue was not an excuse at all. The only excuse is I was not good enough tonight.”

Nadal fell to 5-1 against Zverev in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series and was unable to get much going against the offencive-minded German, who is trying to become the first player to win back-to-back Nitto ATP Finals titles since Novak Djokovic in 2014-15.

Zverev, with 28 winners, more than doubled Nadal’s total (13).

“I stay positive. I stay competitive, something that today I was not,” Nadal said. “That’s the thing that I am more disappointed [with], because knowing that I will not be at my 100 per cent in terms of feelings, in terms of movement, in terms of confidence or hitting the ball, I needed my best competitive spirit this afternoon, and I was not there in that way.”

Nadal is looking to finish year-end No. 1 for the fifth time and draw even with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. The top seed currently leads Novak Djokovic by 440 points in the battle for year-end No. 1.