CAMELOT FANTASIES

General, Rafa has been knocking on the door on hard courts, but coming up short.  And the latest loss was against Querrey.
But playing constantly on hard courts takes its physical toll. 
Rafa has not won a title on hard courts in 30 tournaments, not since the 250 Doha event in 2014 over 3 years ago.

My biggest fear is that he is going to damage his body again before the biggest part of the year for him - the clay season.
Don't be fooled by anyone, last year he first damaged his wrist on hard courts, not on clay.  He left Miami and went straight to his doctor in Madrid and had his arm bandaged from the hand to forearm.  It got better prior to Monte Carlo, and he won a couple of titles  on the clay, but he was definitely struggling physically even before Roland Garros came, losing to Murray of all people in Madrid, and Djokovic in Rome, and then he was sadly forced to withdraw from his favorite slam.

The game is just played at a different pace on hard courts.  It is not as tactical and many players are bashing the ball these days, and Rafa trying to counter that and get his Rafa spin on the ball is just a recipe for injury and more unnecessary losses.  Each loss digs into his confidence bank.

If I were on Rafa's team, Indian Wells would absolutely be his last hard court event until the summer.  Forget Miami, and start practicing on the clay.

Rafa has a lot of intelligent people on his team, but for some reason, he and/or they seem infatuated with the hard courts.

I'm not sure what it is, do they think Rafa is getting too old to succeed on clay?  They avoided the Latin American clay circuit this year for some reason.
He simply has to get on his favorite surface before the window closes on him. He will turn 31 this year and he has almost 1000 matches under his belt.

Respectfully,
masterclass