Rafael Nadal has always analysed his performances with great perspective. After a disappointing 6-3, 6-2 defeat to Nuno Borges on Sunday in the Nordea Open final, the Spanish legend saw both sides of the coin when looking back on his week in Bastad.
While the 38-year-old was not happy with his tennis overall, despite grinding his way to his first final since Roland Garros in 2022, Nadal was boosted by the way his body handled the heavy load of match play on the ATP 250’s clay courts.
“The level was so far from what it should be,” he said of his display on Sunday. “Probably the energy too. It has been a long week with long matches. Even if my body, I don’t have damage, that’s important — but mentally and physically, I am not used to playing four days in a row and playing long matches.”
After beating fifth seed Cameron Norrie in straight sets on Thursday, Nadal won three-set marathons against fourth seed Mariano Navone and Duje Ajdukovic over the next two days. Those battles appeared to take their toll on Sunday, when Nadal was flat against Borges.
“I need to analyse well and find the reason why I played that way, even if the energy was not right,” he said. “A lot of things that can’t happen on court if you want to play at the level that I want to play. Things like this can happen today, and that’s the situation. I don’t have to lie or hide anything.”
Despite his disappointment, Nadal gave full credit to Borges, who will move to a career-high PIF ATP Ranking of No. 42 his first ATP Tour title: “I have to give the credit to him,” Nadal said after their first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting. “He did a lot of things well, missed not much, returned well. He converted opportunities, so well done for him, happy for him. He deserved it more than the rest of the players who played in this tournament. I wish him to enjoy this great moment.”
As he looks ahead to the Paris Olympics at Roland Garros, where Nadal will play singles and compete in doubles with Carlos Alcaraz, the Spaniard is hopeful that he can translate his high level in practice to the match court. Even when he was winning in Bastad, he was not fully happy with his tennis.
“I played the final, that’s positive,” he said, looking at the big picture this week. “I was able to play long matches without having an injury, that’s good.
“In some way I felt that I arrived here practising much better than what I played on the tournament during the whole week. That’s something that I am not satisfied with. I arrived here with the feeling that I was playing a good level and I was not able to show that during the whole week. That is something that I am not happy with.
“Anyway it’s a final, so I can’t say it’s a bad result because it’s the first final since a long time ago. But I was not able to feel myself comfortable enough during the whole week to be satisfied with the week of tennis that I played.”
