Remodelled Nadal faces wary Djokovic in ATP semi-final

Novak Djokovic and his team will have watched Rafael Nadal's struggle against David Ferrer here

yesterday afternoon with their usual attention to detail, and will have noticed a dangerous adversary coming out of a slump who is remodelling his game with unexpected daring.

They meet today for the 46th time in the semi-finals of the 2015 Barclays World Tour Finals, the end-of-year bauble Nadal has never won and which Djokovic is defending for the fourth time in a row. It is a reasonable description of the gulf between them on this surface.

Djokovic qualified by beating Tomas Berdych handily on Thursday night, but Nadal had to fight much harder to come out of his group unbeaten, taking two hours and 37 minutes to grind down one of the game's most obdurate opponents, 6-7 (2-7), 6-3, 6-4 – even though he also was assured a weekend gig.

Dead rubber

While a dead rubber might be the height of pointlessness to many, the near-full arena at least saw Ferrer push Nadal way further than he had been tested earlier in the week by

Stan Wawrinka

and

Andy Murray

.

It was the first time in 44 matches this year Ferrer has lost after winning the first set.

There were sufficient incentives for both: from a total pot of $7 million, there is a $167,000 participation fee, plus $167,000 per match win.

There is $510,000 winner- take-all for the semi-final winners, $1,050,000 for the winner of the final, plus a further $2,228,000 for an undefeated champion. So, those are numbers to keep any self-respecting professional athlete interested for a week.

After racing to a 3-0 lead, Nadal was stunned when Ferrer put together a four-game streak and, momentarily bewildered, the world number five was soon serving to stay in the set.

Relieved

He looked relieved to get a break point when Ferrer hit long in the 11th game, and was further encouraged when his opponent’s backhand billowed the net. However, Ferrer stayed doggedly in the fight and broke again to force a tie-break, which he took for the loss of two games. An upset was more than possible.

Nadal historically has found his “real game” after being stretched and there was an inevitability about the fightback. It started with Nadal’s serve, which he repaired quickly enough to level at a set apiece, then further ramped it up in the third to finish with a respectable 74 per cent, winning 39 of 60 first serves overall.

What Djokovic’s eagle-eyed operatives will also have noticed, both on court and in the statistics, is Nadal’s increasing willingness to attack the net, something nobody would have predicted with any confidence even a year ago.

But the clock is ticking on his long career, as it is with Roger Federer.

So, will we get the old Rafa on Saturday or a new version? Djokovic is preparing for a combination of the two. It is unlikely he will be able to take such net-rushing liberties with the Serb but, if his strategy clicks again, it could be lethal. They are all getting a little tired. Guardian Service