Rafel Nadal was eliminated in the third round of Miami after being defeated by fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, in what was his fifth lose in 2015 in only twenty matches. The early goodbye in the second Masters 1000 of the season also meant Nadal will lose the third spot in the rankings in the hands of Andy Murray.
Nadal hasn’t found his best form since he won an unprecedented ninth Roland Garros title back in June last season and his level seems to drop even more each passing week. The triumph in Buenos Aires, his first title in eight months, was an opportunity to build on and restore his confidence, but his poor showings in the US hard court Masters 1000 showed it was just a flash in the pan. For the first time since 2004, when he was only 17 years old and in his second season in the ATP tour, he failed to reach the semi finals in both Indian Wells and Miami. His losses in both events came against players he usually beats with ease, against Milos Raonic he leads the H2H 5-1 and against Verdasco 13-2.
The last time Nadal beat another TOP 10 player was in the aforementioned Roland Garros final, when he defeated Novak Djokovic in four close sets. The fact the only faced two top ten players since then (Raonic and Berdych) proves he has even struggled to advance into the latter stages of the tournaments to had the chance to meet said players. Most of his defeats since then came against players with vastly inferior ranking such as Dustin Brown (85th at the time), Martin Klizan (56th) and Michael Berrer (127th). His ranking can keep plummeting even more this week. If Raonic reaches the semi finals and Nishikori the quarter finals, or if Ferrer wins the tournament while either of those happens, Nadal will be out of the top 5 for the first time since May 2005.
While he is still relatively young (will turn 29 in June), injuries seem to be taking its toll since 2012 and he keeps struggling to stay healthy for a full season. As worrying as his performances lately have been, there were other cases in which he seemed to be done and came back even stronger than before. In 2009 he lost in Roland Garros for the only time in his career and struggled with injuries since then until March of the following year, but then became the only player in the history of the game to win slams in three different surfaces that very same year. In 2012 he was out of the tour for eight months after a second round defeat to Rosol in Wimbledon, and came back in 2013 winning two slams, five Masters 1000 and regaining the world #1. Only time will tell if this is just a rut in Nadal’s career or this time his definitive decline has started.