That Rafael Nadal accepted the offer of a wild card for this week’s Hamburg Open says much about the state of his mind and game. Not once in the past decade has the Spaniard arrived at this point in the season without gnawing on a major piece of silverware, as is his wont. But after a wretched run of form since his January return from the wrist injury and appendectomy that effectively wrote off the final six months of last year, sightings of that idiosyncratic victory celebration have been few and far between.
He desperately needs matches, and to get those matches he needs wins.