Rafa’s Rise Back to the Top

Your Weekly Tennis Update

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By Mason Walling

On Nov. 6, Rafael Nadal clinched the accomplishment of being the world’s No. 1 male tennis player at year’s end.  To get started, let’s just put a couple of things into perspective here.

The last time Nadal ended the year as the No. 1-ranked player in the world was 2010, the same year that the Saints won the Super Bowl over the Colts, the San Francisco Giants ended a 56-year drought by winning the World Series, and LeBron James made the publicly televised decision to “take his talents to South Beach.”

While that might not seem like a long time to some, it was certainly a three-year struggle for Nadal.  The Spaniard’s unmatched agility on the court caused him to developing extreme tendonitis in both knees all the way back in 2009.  Many people thought his career was over at just 23 years old, writing him off as a champion that just pushed the limits of his body too much.

Nadal underwent controversial knee rehabilitation treatments known as platelet-rich plasma therapy, or PRP.  The treatment involves taking a small vial of a person’s blood, spinning the vial in a centrifuge in order to separate the platelet-rich cells, and then re-injecting that blood into the injured area of the body to allow the cells to speed up recovery.

The treatment is controversial because it was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2010 over a fear that thousands of athletes including Kobe Bryant, Troy Polamalu and Tiger Woods have undergone the same therapy.

On-and-off treatments helped Nadal drastically until July of 2012, when he was eliminated in the second round of Wimbledon after playing through excruciating pain.  The outcome was a partially torn patella tendon, and yet again the critics rationally assumed that his playing days were over.

Nadal tried the PRP method like before, but it couldn’t heal this severe injury the way it had previously worked for him.  With no logical recovery strategy, the clay-court specialist was forced into a seven-month hiatus from tennis. 

During this time of resting, Nadal would try to stay fit by exercising on an anti-gravity treadmill machine that allowed him to stay in shape without too much strain on the knees.

At the beginning of 2013, there was obviously a huge question mark on the stability of Nadal’s knee and his readiness to return to tennis.  He went on to shock the world by winning 10 titles in 2013, including his record eighth French Open title and his second U.S. Open title.

This year, Nadal became the first man to ever hold, lose, and then regain the No. 1 ranking twice in a season.  The man that kept taking it from him, Novak Djokovic, still had a shot at ending the year as No. 1 until Wednesday.

After winning his first match of the ATP World Tour finals over David Ferrer, it took Nadal two tight tiebreakers to overcome Stan Wawrinka and clinch the top spot.  These two wins also qualify Nadal for the semifinals of this season’s end tournament, which he doesn’t have to win to remain number one.

Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Juan Martin del Potro, Stan Wawrinka, Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych are still in contention for the ATP World Tour Championship.