What’s the problem with Rafael Nadal’s tennis game of late? The Spaniard admitted in a weekend press conference that he’s lost confidence and feels anxiety during certain points in the match, which has, in turn, led to this dismal tennis slump he’s in.

Nadal is 15-5 on the season, which is a fine record for anyone who isn’t a 14-time Grand Slam champion. Those 15 wins tie Nadal with Gilles Simon, a fine player currently ranked No. 14, but one who’s never made it past the fourth round in any of the 35 majors he’s played. (And that run ended in the quarterfinals.) Nadal won a tournament in February against a weak field in Buenos Aires and lost in the semis of another clay tournament in South America. But he’s struggled mightily off the clay. On every other surface so far this year, Nadal is 8-4.

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Rafa’s results from his 2015 tournaments: Lost opening round in Doha, beat in straight sets by Tomas Berdych in the Australian Open quarters, lost in the semifinals of Rio’s clay tournament to No. 28 Fabio Fognini, won in Buenos Aires after not playing a single opponent with a top-5o ranking, lost in quarterfinals of Indian Wells to Milos Raonic and won one match in Miami before falling to fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco in straights. That loss speaks volumes. Prior to the 2012 Masters event in Madrid, Nadal was 13-0 against his countryman. Since then, he’s lost two straight to Verdasco.

Whatever troubles Nadal has had on hard or grass courts before, he’s been almost unbeatable on clay. Nadal’s career winning percentage is 93% and his 46 titles are more than the players who rank second, third, fourth and fifth combined. But here’s the most staggering stat of all, one that clearly proves all is not right in the Nadal camp.

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Over the past 52 weeks, Novak Djokovic has a better winning percentage on clay than Rafael Nadal. It’s a razor-thin margin; Djoko has won 87.5% of his matches on Nadal’s dominant surface while Nadal is at 87.1%, but it’s still a lead and Nadal being behind anyone in any clay statistic has been unthinkable for the past decade.

Other rough stats:

• Nadal has barely won more than half of his matches against top 10 opponents, which puts him behind the likes of Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori. Djokovic and Federer are 1-2 in that category, respectively.

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• The worst stat of all is Nadal’s record on hard courts. He’s 13-7 over the past 52 weeks, for a winning percentage of .650. That’s .03 ahead of David Goffin and behind Viktor Troicki, Gael Monfils and Bernard Tomic. Yes, you read that correctly. Bernard Tomic has won hard-court matches at a better clip over the past year than Rafael Nadal. Bernard Tomic, I said!

• Nadal is at a logjam in fourth place on the list of most titles over the past year. Novak Djokovic (8), Roger Federer (6) and Kei Nishikori (4) are the top three, while Nadal’s three titles tie him with Pablo Cuevas, Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka and David Ferrer. And because this stat is a 52-week rolling one, it includes the entire 2014 clay-court season, Nadal’s usual stomping grounds.

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• Since winning his ninth title at Roland Garros last year, Nadal has made it to just one final (his win in Buenos Aires). He’s only been in two semifinals since then too. (Of course, Nadal missed some time at the end of last year with various injuries, so he hadn’t played as many tournaments as others, but the stat is remarkable nonetheless.)

So what’s eating at Rafael Nadal? The always-introspective Rafa had these revealing quotes after the loss to Verdasco:

“You know, I am not saying [choking] didn’t happen in the past because happened, but happened for a very small — for one point, two points. […] Today my game in general improved since a month and a half. But at the same time, still playing with too much nerves for a lot of moments, in important moments, still playing with a little bit of anxious on that moments. […] I have been able to control my emotions during, let’s say 90 percent, 95 percent of the matches in my career — something that today is tougher, to be under self-control.”

Nadal after his QF loss in Melbourne. (Reuters)

Tennis is the most mental of sports, even more so than golf when a player at least has a caddie by his side to give advice or say calming words. Out there on the court, Nadal is all alone and this revelation that he’s finding himself nervous is both honest and, I think, helpful for his future. Realizing the issue is the first step. That’s why Nadal expects to come out of this on-court funk and with the European clay-court season ahead of him, he has the perfect opportunity to do so.

Rafael Nadal is down, but he’s far from being out.

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