Rapid fall of Rafael Nadal continues

— -- When Andy Murray made a backhand error to fall behind 15-30 while serving with a 6-3, 5-2 lead over Rafael Nadal in the Madrid final on Sunday, an electric rustle raced through the partisan Nadal crowd stuffed into the Caja Magica. The King of Clay wasn't finished yet. They chanted his name, they stomped their feet, willing a comeback.

Then reality intervened. There was no magic left in the box. Unlike the Nadal of even a year ago, the defending champ botched a serve return to lose the next point. He mangled the next serve even more egregiously, and his response? A shake of the head and a bewildered smirk. Then, at match point, Nadal drove yet another serve return into the net. He trotted to the net, a smile of self-mortification on his lips.

Murray may not have won the French Open by winning Madrid on Sunday, but Rafael Nadal almost surely lost it. Sunday's loss will drop Nadal to No. 7  in the rankings, which will impact his seeding at the French Open (where he is defending champion and winner of nine of the past 10 championships, including the last five). More importantly, Nadal now has just one scheduled event (the ATP Rome Masters 1000, which is already underway) to regain the confidence that he lost after missing a good portion of last summer and fall. It may be too little, too late, no matter how well Nadal plays next week.

The ongoing writhings of the "King of Clay" have been compelling, partly because he's been so open about his self-doubts and partly because his struggle has been so overwhelmingly mental. It's no longer about Nadal getting matches under his belt, growing comfortable with his fitness, or about becoming familiar with a new racket. The red clay court that was once a killing field on which he practiced his assassin's art with a mind like a steel trap and a cold heart has become a psychiatrist's couch upon which he can't explain anything. It seems that watching a king rise to power is an experience matched only by observing his fall.

That's too bad, because it takes a little luster away from what Murray achieved these past two weeks. He's morphed, seemingly overnight, into a threat on clay. He was quick out of the gate against Nadal on Sunday, winning 12 of the first 14 points of the match -- not all of them those inexplicable errors Nadal now donates so frequently. Nadal had two opportunities to break Murray (two break points in the seventh game and another in the ninth), but he was unable to convert any of them.

While Nadal kept it relatively close in the first set, it also seemed clear that, while Murray remained out front, he might have had an even easier time of it had he been more aggressive. In addition to making more errors, Nadal just isn't hitting with the same depth these days. Plus, when a player is down on his confidence putting pressure on him is never a bad idea.

Play the clay game on Nadal's terms and the outcome has been predictable: Nadal was 46-7 in clay-court finals going into this one. But from the outset, Murray found that he was actually able to get the better of Nadal in the rallies, and he had the courage to stick with that game plan even during those periods -- and there were a few, mostly in the first set -- when it seemed that Nadal might dial in that familiar, brutal game that once earned him a kingdom.

Large portions of that kingdom seem to be slipping away from him now. Murray took a chunk of it on Sunday. Murray, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and others are preparing to take what he has left, which is the best and biggest part, in Paris. These are tough days for the King of Clay.