Wimbledon 2010: Nadal Restarts his Cycle

Last year, Rafael Nadal looked to be on his apparent downfall, after he suddenly withdrew from the 2009 Wimbledon Championships. His ranking dropped, and all seemed lost to the fast-paced player nicknamed "El Toro".

However, when walking into the 2010 French Open, the expectations for Nadal were low, even though he was the tournament champion four times and known as the "King of Clay". Then, as we know it, he won in a seemingly easy fashion, winning back the attention of people and the glorious number one rank.

In the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, Nadal seemed to get off on the wrong foot, needing 5 sets to dispatch unseeded Robin Haase and 33 seeded Philipp Petzschner, both won after trailing 2-1 in sets. Yet the close losses in the 2nd and 3rd rounds seemed to wake up the long lost "El Toro" who once again showed his dominance like he did in 2008 and early 2009, where if you count the 2009 Australian Open, he won 3 of the 5 grand slams. After just losing one set in the next four rounds, Nadal once again was named Wimbledon champion after his straight set victory of Tomas Berdych in the finals.

Now walking off the courts as once again the most dominating player in tennis, Nadal is looking like he will repeat what he did in 2008 and continue to chase down Federer's 16 titles. However, Nadal with his frantic playing style to never give up on any point has proven to let him down. Most of 2009 was plagued by injuries, which led to his eventual withdrawal from Wimbledon. I believe that we are seeing a spike of greatness that what I am calling the "Nadal Cycle".

Nadal has until the 2011 Australian Open to dominate tennis until his knees start to "give up". His style of play is to hit shots with incredible top spin after running down every shot, even if it includes running from one side of the court to the other for 10 consecutive shots. To see an example of Nadal's type of play, look at this video, that features both winning and losing rallies from Nadal.

Here are 2 reasons why Nadal will disappear after the Australian Open in 2011.

Nadal has not changed his style of play - Since his comeback to tennis, Rafael has maintained the same style of his frantic running and top spin techniques. During his win against Philipp Petzschner, Nadal needed to see the trainer to see his knees, which has shown that Nadal is still not in condition to handle 5 setters. Even with the injury still going, he still is trying to fight through it heroically... or foolishly...

Nadal is at his peak - Right now, we are seeing the peak of Rafael Nadal, and that is a good thing and a bad thing. It's bad because he will not get any better than we see him right now, but slowly get worse and worse. Rafael Nadal has sacrificed his body to become the most dominating player in tennis, similarly to Del Potro. This will mean he will have one peak where he will be the absolute best in the world, but then die away quickly.

But for now, congratulations to Nadal for his new title and Berdych making it that far in the tournament. With Federer's time of greatness coming to an end, we can hope to see new faces in tennis.