Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

Rafael Nadal looks like he is coming, perhaps faster than he thought.  The Spaniard wasn’t even sure he would win a match at the ATP World Tour Final, but now the No. 5 Nadal has won both contests, beating Stan Wawrinka and Andy Murray. It is likely that he  will reach the semifinals.

The 14-time Grand Slam event champion has yet to win a major tournament this year, but the big boys have been saying all year long that eventually, he would come back to where he belongs.

“[Rafa] obviously played better than he did when I played him earlier in the year,” said  Murray.  “I think Rafa always practices pretty hard from what I see. Obviously he’s won a lot more matches in the second half of the year. He’s clearly playing better tennis now than a few months ago.”

During the summer, the 30-year-old Nadal didn’t go deep in the hard courts, but in the fall, he began to turn it around. In Beijing, he beat Fabio Fognini in the semis before he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final. He beat Wawrinka in Shanghai in the quarterfinals before he lost to Jo Tsonga. In Basel, he upended Richard Gasquet before he lost to Roger Federer in the final. In Paris/Bercy, Wawrinka did overcome him in the quarters in two tight sets. But here in London,  Nadal smoked Wawrinka and Murray.

At the very least, Nadal has a real shot to win the tournament.

“I think he always is at the big events. Obviously for a few months this year he was struggling for form a little bit. But I think almost every player goes through that at some stage during their career,” Murray said. “I think a lot of the media had a lot of doubts about him. I think a lot of the players still felt like, providing he stayed injury-free, that he would raise his game again and compete at the top of the game. So I’m not really surprised by that.”

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.