The 2012 Monte Carlo Masters final (which I have seen four times now) was a somber affair and a disappointment to those of us who were looking for a dog fight. Novak Djokovic showed up for a set and two games with his relatively impaired form (compared to 2011), after which he decided to check out every so often. This was a tough match to take apart and draw conclusions from, as Rafa Nadal cruised to a 6-3, 6-1win in just 78 minutes for his record 20th Masters title.

There’s mental strength, and then there’s mental strength against Nadal. The second one is a whole different plane compared to the first.

Mental strength is coming back from behind against a player that you know you can beat (Murray is still dancing around this). Mental strength against Nadal is to handle the intensity of the game at its worst. Your opponent will play every point like it’s his match point. You need to pry the win from his cold, dead hands. Very few can claim to have beaten him easily, but you’d think that after seven times, Djokovic might have the trick honed.

Except, that wasn’t the case.

We all saw an improved Nadal on the cusp of victory at the Australian Open, only to have it taken away by Djokovic. But it also felt like a turning point, a la Wimbledon 2007. We were shown that if Nadal could maintain depth of shots, and the rally could go either way.

This was different from 2011 where we saw Nadal consistently hitting short, thereby tipping the scales in Djokovic’s favor. This match was supposed to show us where they currently stand. But due to the untimely (I know—they are never timely) demise of Djokovic’s grandfather, we saw a partial Djokovic against an eager Nadal on clay. If there ever was a recipe for disaster, this would be it.

Nadal served better, returned better, and played much more within himself. Simply put, he controlled the match. This was expected given Djokovic’s situation going into the match. But no one expected the extent of it.

Everyone (Djokovic included, I think) was expecting a much more mediocre performance from Nadal given the matchup between the two players. All of last year, Nadal would perform exceptionally to reach the finals, only to fall rather sadly against Djokovic. Their last real dog fight in 2011 must have been the finals at Miami Masters.

To put Djokovic’s performance in perspective, we need to compare it with his performance against Tomas Berdych in the semifinals. The new and improved Berdych has been sporadically pushing top-four players thus far in 2012. You need to outplay him because he is solid from the baseline and has flat and penetrating ground strokes. After the first set, Djokovic was able to win many more baseline battles and really open up the court with his ability to swing freely against the Czech. This was the key to Nadal’s win.

I made a list of unforced errors by Djokovic in the first five games of the match, and they were extremely telling. Nadal’s ball placement kept jamming Djokovic’s swing motion. My theory is that Djokovic went into the match expecting short balls and was completely surprised. The depth of Nadal’s ground strokes kept pushing the Serb back, leading to unforced errors that seemed almost uncharacteristic.

This is because as exquisite as Djokovic’s movement on court is, it is based on forward acceleration. If you take away his time, and force him to move backwards, you can either jam his swing or get him to yield court position. The deep returns from Nadal leveled the rallies, after which both men fought to control the baseline. Djokovic was still able to capitalize every time he had the opportunity to swing freely.

But the surprise story here was the serve of Nadal. By his fifth service game, Nadal had earned eight points on unreturned serves. His three aces were from the two types of serves he has been perfecting: “down the T and “slice wide.” But a majority of his eight unreturned serves were strategically placed body serves that tied Djokovic up on his swing.

He was able to generate decent pace (for Nadal’s standard) consistently, giving him weak returns that he was able to put away with forehand winners. The 25-year-old Nadal also rarely missed the opportunity to force his way into the court, usurping court position to hit a winner or force an error from Djokovic.

Djokovic did manage to get in two solid return winners and win a few baseline battles himself. But the undercurrent of the match was that Nadal had clipped Djokovic’s wingspan with depth and placement on both the serve and ground strokes.

We won’t know how successful this strategy really is until these two men meet again under better circumstances. But, for now, things are looking a bit better for Nadal’s future. Even if this was a a simple and “easy” win capitalizing on Djokovic’s lack of form and mental aptitutde, it could mean that Nadal has stopped the bleeding and will have a match to draw confidence from versus his rival going forward.

As a Nadal fan, all I can say at the moment is, “happy for the win.”

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