Rafael Nadal didn’t manage to conquer a historical 12th title in Barcelona after he lost to Dominic Thiem in the semifinal.
However, the world no.2 wasn’t as depressed as he was the week before where he lost in Monte Carlo since he was well aware that he played rather good tennis in Barcelona.
Why Nadal was happy
During the press conference following his defeat in the semifinal, Rafa commented
“After this week my confidence is back. I really believe that I made very good improvements to create a good base to try to achieve my goals during the next couple of weeks.
He played great. He did all the things that he had to do very well and with big success. I am happy the way that I played from the baseline. Starting the point in good position or in bad position, changed a lot, but the rest of the things have been positive and as I said before, congrats to him, he played great.
He’s a great guy and great player and I’m happy for him. I wish him all the best.”
“Today I was competitive”
The Rafa added
“A big difference. Against Fognini I played the worst match probably in 14 years on clay. Today I played a good match of tennis. A good level of tennis this afternoon. I played against a great opponent.
Fognini is a great opponent too but I was not a competitive player. Today I was competitive, and I enjoyed the match. I really felt that I was competitive for the first time in a way that I want to feel myself. And as I said before I am happy and I am confident that I made a big improvement this week.”
1 thing that was NOT good for Nadal
Finally, Rafa stressed what went wrong against Thiem to reveal
“The serve was an important part of the match this afternoon.
I didn’t serve well at all, especially the second serve. So when I started to miss the second serve, I really lost a little bit of the confidence on trying to go for a good first serve, because I was without confidence on the second, so that affects the first.”
Rafa crushed only 1 ace while he committed 5 double faults.
CONFIDENT AGAIN
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