SkiStar Swedish Open, Bastad

[13] David Ferrer (ESP) vs. [35] Albert Ramos-Vinolas (ESP)

Ramos-Vinolas had never defeated Ferrer in six previous attempts.  Although he had taken a set in three of those encounters, Ferrer always found a way to resist his challenge.  That was the Ferrer of old.  Today we saw the Ferrer who is struggling with his confidence and ultimately his form.   Ferrer served for the first set and lost it.  He had a break lead in the second set and lost that as well to lose the match.  Ramos-Vinolas reaches his second singles ATP final with the 7-5, 6-4 defeat of the number one seed.  He is showing his improved confidence and it translated in him being more patient and willing to work the points.  He out-played Ferrer and I was quite surprised, I kept waiting for Ferrer to take control of the match.

You can never overstate the importance of confidence in the life of an athlete, especially those involved in individual sports.  While we saw the negative effects of low confidence in Ferrer’s game; we also saw how Ramos-Vinolas’ improved confidence helped him finally get over the mental barrier of never beating Ferrer.  Today, even when he dropped his serve, he did not panic; he truly believed that he had enough game to defeat Ferrer.  What does this mean for Ferrer?  It is too soon to make much of this loss.  Every player at some point in their career suffers a crisis in confidence.  The question that Ferrer and his team will want to answer is whether Ferrer truly believes he physically has enough left to fight through this patch, because he will have to fight harder than he has ever fought before to regain his top ten form.