How Rafael Nadal turned the tables on Stefanos Tsitsipas in Rome

Beating Rafael Nadal once during the European clay-court swing is tough. Beating him twice? That’s something only Novak Djokovic knows how to do.

On Saturday in Rome, 20-year-old Stefanos Tsitsipas was trying to join that elite company of one. Seven days earlier, in the Madrid semifinals, he had attacked the net relentlessly and beaten Rafa in three topsy-turvy sets. It didn’t take long to see that things were going to be different this Saturday.

The difference, at first, wasn’t so much in Tsitsipas’s play. He came out on the attack again, and did it well enough to earn break points in Nadal’s early service games. The difference was in the scoreline: Despite Tsitsipas’s best efforts, and his opportunities, he found himself down 0-3 at the first official changeover.

Nadal had learned a simple lesson from his Madrid defeat: He needed to be more aggressive with his forehand, hit it deeper and higher, and open up the court with it. He needed, in short, to make one of Tsitsipas’s strengths in Madrid, his one-handed backhand, into a liability. And that’s exactly what he did.

Live by the one-hander, die by the one-hander: That would make for a decent summary of Tsitsipas’s two clay-court semifinals with Nadal this spring. In Madrid, Tsitsipas used that shot to move Rafa forward with drop shots, and to approach the net himself; having a one-hander, rather than a two-hander, also automatically made hitting his backhand volleys an easier proposition.

Conversely, in Rome, Nadal was able to expose the weaknesses that come with a one-hander. Rafa sliced his serve in that direction, went after it relentlessly from the ground, and forced Tsitsipas to hit it from above his shoulder. Tsitsipas was handcuffed all afternoon; he tried few slices or drop shots, and made fewer forays to the net. What he mostly did with his one-hander today was make errors with it—forced errors, mostly, because of the weight of Rafa’s shots, but errors nonetheless.

In this 6-3, 6-4 win, Nadal played with more energy, confidence, depth, and aggression than he had in Madrid: All of those good things you want to do, if you’re determined not to lose to the same player twice in a row on your way to the French Open. Rafa didn’t miss a volley that I can remember, and he found a simple, dependable, go-to pattern from the ground: Hit the forehand wide to Tsitsipas’s backhand, move forward, and drill the response down the line and into the open court. When Tsitsipas tried to change the pattern and go up the line, he found a brick wall in Rafa’s backhand—another reminder of how much he has shored up that shot over the years. Finally, Nadal didn’t struggle to close: When he went down 0-30 while serving for the first set at 5-3, he bounced right back to win four straight points; when he served at 5-4 in the second, he held, nervelessly, at love.

Nadal, who still may have to play Novak Djokovic in the Rome final, may not be the clear-cut favorite for the French just yet. But whatever happens on Sunday, it will be hard to see Rafa as a clear-cut non-favorite, for a tournament that he has won 11 times. This Nadal, the one who showed up today, and who we hadn’t seen much of this clay season, is going to be hard to beat.