// After Nadal’s first grass court title in five years at the ATP 250 event in Stuttgart, there were a fair amount of people who thought we could soon witness another miraculous comeback from Nadal, myself included. Given the strange unpredictability of Nadal’s career trajectory you can never count that possibility out. But it looks like at least for the time being that possibility has come to an abrupt end after Nadal was defeated 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-4 by Dolgopolov at Queen’s today.You’d always give Dolgopolov a chance against Nadal given how talented he is, especially on a faster surface like grass. But I figured Nadal would be confident after his title in Stuttgart too. That was hardly the case at Queen’s though because he lost despite being a break up in the third set and having two break points again at 4-4 and 40-15 on the Dolgopolov serve. And still it seems to be the forehand that is letting him down. His form still very much reminds of Roger’s 2013 season.

It’s the strings they make these days, no?

Hi, folks. I hope you are all doing very well. Nadal won his 9th Barcelona title last week and in doing so equaled Vilas for the most clay court titles at 49. This after he won Monte Carlo last week.

Of course, his fans will claim that is another sign that he is back. But what does that even mean? That Nadal is going to start winning slams again? When is he back? When he wins the French Open?

He did that nine previous times as well. I don’t even think if he wins the French Open that it necessarily means he is back. One more French Open was always a possibility. For me, he would be back if he can win a slam off of clay.

I watched some of Nadal’s matches against Fognini and Nishikori. And yes he played well. I couldn’t see much difference between his current self and his old self. But for me, the real test was always going to be when Djokovic is back.

So finally after a long drought Nadal has won a big title again, defeating Monfils 7-5, 5-7, 6-0 in the final. In doing so he tied Djokovic on 28 Masters titles after Djokovic surpassed him in Miami. It was also Nadal’s 9th Monte Carlo title.

If Nadal was ever going to find form again it was going to be during the clay court season. But I wouldn’t get too excited just yet if I was a Nadal fan. Nadal didn’t have to face Djokovic after all and winning one Masters doesn’t mean he is officially back.

But at least he seems to be playing his best tennis since the 2014 clay season. You always kind of figured he’d eventually win something noteworthy again and that it would be on clay. The days of winning anything big off of clay seem to be long gone.

We will see how it goes from here. If he really wants to prove that he is back he needs to win more clay events. Madrid will be interesting when Djokovic is back. He will have something to prove as well after losing his first match in Monte Carlo.