Sometimes tennis players are considered mimosas.

You feel called upon to hit hard and make great rallies, but oh, always these disturbances: the wind, the sun, balls that are too soft or too hard, the surface that has too much sand or is too little or bumpy.

Rafael Nadal, although very sensitive when setting up his drinking bottles and in other matters of order, is not suspected of using any adverse circumstances to excuse himself after defeats.

Thomas Klemm

sports editor.

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On Sunday evening, when the Spaniard played his first match at the ATP Finals, every spectator in Turin or in front of the TV set could see that the indoor court in the Pala Alpitour is damn fast.

Too fast for the Grand Slam record winner, who saw American Taylor Fritz's serves rushing past him and often hit the ball too late in rallies.

"You don't have time on this surface"

"I had a lot less time than him to be able to do what I would have wanted with the ball," said Nadal after losing his opening match at the end-of-year tournament of the eight best tennis men against Haudrauf Fritz 6: 7, 1: 6.

"You don't have time to think about tactics on this surface." The Turin hard court is a far greater challenge for the clay court king than the Paris main court, on which Nadal won the French Open for the fourteenth time in June.

In addition, the botched start to the ATP Finals, which Nadal has never won, was also due to other adversities.

On the one hand due to a lack of match practice, as the 36-year-old Mallorquin had only been able to play two matches in the past two months due to an abdominal muscle injury: one at the Laver Cup, when he played a last double with the Swiss to say goodbye to Roger Federer, one at the Masters Tournament in Paris, where Nadal lost to American Tommy Paul two weeks ago.

In addition, the Spaniard spent weeks worrying about his wife's complicated pregnancy before she recently gave birth to a healthy son.

Playing against one of the best players in the world under these circumstances is "not normal," said the Spaniard.

All is not lost for Nadal in Turin.

If he wins his second group game this Tuesday against the in-form Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (2 p.m. CET, on Sky), he could end the year as number one in the tennis world.

For that, the Spaniard would have to win the ATP Finals.

But there is a great danger that the last highlight of the season for Nadal will end like the match against Fritz: too fast.