Rafael Nadal has admitted he needs to raise his game in time for the US Open after losing to Mardy Fish in the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati Masters.

Nadal has been some distance away from his best over the past fortnight, with some of his performances giving his fans plenty of cause for the concern, the most recently being his defeat to Fish in Cincinnati this past week.

Nadal's uncle and coach Toni is scheduled to arrived in the United States in the next few days to try and get the Spaniard prepared as best as possible ahead of the start of play at Flushing Meadows later this month.

"I have to play my game. I have to play aggressive," admitted Nadal. "I have to move faster.

"I have to play with more intensity and less mistakes. You know, sometimes [I] play well - is not the first time in my career that I am not playing that well, no?"

Speaking after his defeat to the in-form Fish, the world number two continued: "Last year I played terrible here, probably worse than this year.

"The important thing is [to] be ready to change the situation and for sure be fresh mentally and physically, too, to have the view about what you really need to change the situation."

Reflecting on his US Open win last year, Nadal said that his serve had been crucial to his success in New York.

"I didn't change my game a lot last year to play the US Open," he explained.

"My serve worked really well, but I played well. I played well a lot of times on hard courts, not only in the US Open last year. I won the Olympics; Montreal; I won Toronto; I won in Indian Wells twice; [a] few finals in Miami.

"So it's nothing that you think I played something very different last year in New York. No, I played well. That's what happened. I played well and the serve worked better than other times."

The US Open gets underway on August 29th.

Courtesy: Crunchsports