Wimbledon 2015: Why Rafael Nadal's 'shock' exit is no shock
The great shock of Rafael Nadal's shock exit from Wimbledon at the hands of previously anonymous qualifier Dustin Brown was that in some ways it was no shock at all.
Nadal is a 14-time Grand Slam champion. He triumphed in the greatest Wimbledon final of all time. He has a forehand that is less a groundstroke than a superpower.
And his past four Wimbledons now look like this: 2012, loses to world number 100; 2013: loses to number 135; 2014: loses to number 144; 2015: loses to number 102.
And yet. For all that we should be used to the sight of the once invulnerable giant of the game reduced to the role of ancient monument to be repeatedly defaced, there is still fresh astonishment in watching it happen once again.
Nadal had never lost to a qualifier at a Grand Slam in 21 meetings. Brown had never before beaten a seed at a Grand Slam event.
Brown may have won the only previous meeting between the two in straight sets, just over a year ago and also on grass. But this was his first time on Centre Court. He played four hours of doubles (and lost) the day before.
Nadal has earned almost £50m in prize money alone. Brown has no coach and has to pay for his own racquets.
Even as the Centre Court crowd thrilled to Brown's extravagant serve-and-volley game, there was a parallel sense of mourning for the death-spin of a former darling.
Nadal has lit up this court like very few others, his escalating grass-court rivalry with Roger Federer culminating in one fabulous final in 2007 and then, a year later, a match that quite comfortably went further still.
To watch a man famed for his relentless defence pulled apart by a 30-year-old who has only won four matches at Grand Slam tournaments in his entire career was simultaneously exhilarating and wretched.
But it was in the demise of that once-wonderful forehand that the passing years were most clearly visible.
This was always the great bedrock to Nadal's game, a weapon that could dismantle the best and intimidate the pretenders. Its whipped power and top-spin drove opponents back. Its depth left them reeling on the ropes.
On Thursday it was instead a virus, a flaw that opened great holes in his own defences. Too often it was short. Frequently it was mistimed. Repeatedly it sat up when before it had fizzed past chins or crashed into corners.
When Nadal lost to Steve Darcis in the first round here in 2013, he did so having secured his eighth French Open title a few weeks earlier. A few months later he would win his second US Open title and reclaim the world number one ranking.
Even last year, in crashing out to Nick Kyrgios, then a teenager, he did so having won his 14th Grand Slam in Paris in the same month.
Now? Now Lukas Rosol, his unexpected assassin in this same arena in 2012, no longer feels like the answer to a pub quiz question of the future. How can he be, when he is no longer the man who toppled the king but merely the first of four?
