Why Nadal is unbeatable on clay
leonardofed.io
leonardofed.io
In my opinion, Nadal is great on clay because of his tenacity and ability to play the big points well. The slowness of the court helps him too as it prevents people hitting through him (I'll concede the article does mention that), and allows him to expose a less fit opponent (most are, when compared to Nadal) through extended rallies.
He also has a very reliable 2 handed backhand that he can impart a great deal of spin on (unlike Djokovic or Murray, who hit it relatively flat). This gives him consistency. He is also able to handle high bouncing balls on clay on the backhand much better than others, especially those with a single handed backhand.
For a baseliner, he has a very solid net game, and has a great sense of when to come in and finish the point. In my opinion, he has a better understanding of the "geometry" of the clay court, in that he knows when his opponent is at the point of no return. He then sneaks in to the net and finishes with a slice volley that drops dead on the clay.
Finally, he plays left handed (despite being right handed). Being lefty is a big advantage in tennis in general, because 3 of the 4 game ending point scores will, by definition, be served to your forehand side (40-0, 40-30, A-40). Then there's the southpaw spin, which is harder to handle for most right handed players. Combine the slower court, the point score advantage and Nadal's natural returning abilities (second only to Djok), and you make it very very tricky to win games.
I’ve always wondered why players haven’t tried taking advantage of that, with maybe an underhanded serve, and for the first time Kyrgios tried that this Wimbledon and actually won the point.
It may not be as useful in RG because of the bounce, but the ability to draw Nadal closer to the Net during serve would be huge IMO.
I'm personally not a fan of the underhand serve (bit traditional in that regard!), but yeah, it does catch him out sometimes.
https://sports.theonion.com/rafael-nadal-credits-french-open...
> "I speak, naturally, of clay itself," Nadal added, luxuriating as he worked his handful of clay into his face, neck, and scalp. "Yes. Clay. Yes."
I've not analyzed it in depth, but against Federer on grass the other day he avoided hitting his backhand A LOT. It was as if only 20% of the court was in play for his backhand. His forehand is absolutely excellent, so perhaps that's part of it.
I'd have to watch him on clay again (haven't in a while) to see if the slower court means he can avoid hitting that backhand even more/more easily
Rafa usually runs round anything to his backhand so he can hit up the line to Fed's backhand (Fed's "weakness"). Yesterday this wasn't working due to the quality of Federer's backhand.
In all Federer was just playing too well yesterday - great game plan, executed very well. Rafa couldn't play his normal game against Federer's variety.
But great match overall. Can't believe they play like this at their age.
From what I witnessed, at times, Nadal was actively running around shots placed to his backhand. These were shots placed towards, almost, the corner of the court - perfect for a backhand reply, yet he was still trying to hit forehands. Sometimes it worked out quite well for him, other times not so much
i think that it’s something we should all take lessons from, and is actually very encouraging for everyone in every field: Age limits are being pushed in every dimensions, and no matter where you are in your career, there’s always new things to learn and new limits to overcome.
Nadal’s one-time doctor was nabbed, but his blood bags were ordered destroyed by Spanish court:
http://tennispurist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-curious-case-of...
I'd recommend reading "Roger Federer as Religious Experience" by David Foster Wallace - https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20fed... - which, as well as being a superb piece of sports writing on its own terms, gives an excellent overview of the way that tactics play a huge role in tennis, rather than "the ball is only in your part of the court for 50% of the time, therefore that's what you can work with."
'And there’s that familiar little second of shocked silence from the New York crowd before it erupts, and John McEnroe with his color man’s headset on TV says (mostly to himself, it sounds like), "How do you hit a winner from that position?" And he’s right: given Agassi’s position and world-class quickness, Federer had to send that ball down a two-inch pipe of space in order to pass him, which he did, moving backwards, with no setup time and none of his weight behind the shot. It was impossible. It was like something out of "The Matrix." I don’t know what-all sounds were involved, but my spouse says she hurried in and there was popcorn all over the couch and I was down on one knee and my eyeballs looked like novelty-shop eyeballs.
Anyway, that’s one example of a Federer Moment, and that was merely on TV — and the truth is that TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love.'
As best I can tell, this is the actual shot described in the excerpt you quoted. It's great but perhaps DFW embellished a bit in the retelling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDwG5rJVtdc
One writer reconsiders the piece: https://theoutline.com/post/7424/david-foster-wallace-roger-...
[1] https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david...
Another key and massively important point with clay is that you can slide. Sliding properly where you stop as you hit the ball is a really tough skill to learn. Rafa has absolutely mastered this and it's a beauty to see.
Sliding combined with the ball slowing and bouncing higher lets you get balls much further out. It makes it possible to defend more balls and not be out of court as much.
On other surfaces like hardcourt, and grass it's really hard to slide. If you sprint out to a ball on those surfaces you will hit it on the run and end up a couple of steps beyond where the ball bounced. On clay with sliding you can really minimize these plays and maintain your position on court. Also, you can run so much harder on clay without fearing having to stop really hard which hurts on hard courts and significantly increases injury risk.
Rafa's movement on clay just makes him unbeatable.
I have hit with some pro tour players on clay, once even a former world #1 player, and it's near impossible to play offensively against their spin unless you want to take every ball on the rise.
Also Nadal's flat serve is probably the weakest of the 3 greats, but the importance of a good flat serve is somewhat de-emphasized on clay.
At one online publication I write for sometimes, the tool I use to enter my articles is always whining at me to drop the reading level down.
I don't usually go as far as single sentence paragraphs but I've generally learned to shift most of what I write towards easier consumption.
Probably because of blog software. Word Press does this by default.
You can even see in the screenshots on the link you provided that new sentences do not become new paragraphs.
Edits: not any tour player, an average tour player, plus typo plus late seventies. Sorry
Every soccer fan on every corner ever has a theory as to why his fav player is the best ever.
Nadal is far from a clay court specialist. 2x Wimbledon champ, 5x finalist. 3 US open titles, 1 Aussie open title and 4x finalist.
Your metaphor of car manufacturers really doesn’t do Nadal justice. It’s more like incumbents always have the advantage, and the challenger always has a harder fight.
6 non-clay grand slam titles - Only 20 people across history, other than Nadal, have more than 6 grand slams on any surface. If you add 2 for RG averaging 2 a grand slam, only 7 people other than him in history have 8 GS titles. I think that is enough proof that he is much more than a clay court specialist.
If you take clay stats out of Nadal’s career, he’d go from being an all time great, to simply a very good player. His unrivalled dominance on clay is the defining element of his career.
Federer on the other hand has a much more well rounded career. He had more titles, more grand slams, and was dominant on both grass and hard courts. His clay stats are underwhelming, but it’s hard to tell if that’s because he’s not great on clay, or whether he was just unfortunate enough to be active at the same time as the greatest clay court player in history.
Clay is undoubtedly Federer's worst surface regardless of Nadal, but he has lost to Nadal in the French Open all 5 times they've met, and they've met in the final most of those times, so probably without Nadal he would have even more grand slams.
With that reasoning, we would still be worshiping Pete Sampras.
No, Federer's ball skills are just something else. Which is why his spiritual home is Wimbledon, where skill tends to win over doggedness, and why I suspect he will keep playing longer than Nadal - who is already struggling with serious physical injuries at a much lower age, because his game has to abuse the body more. That does not mean Nadal is not superb at what he does (his stats on returns are incredible), but it's something that's a bit harder to appreciate.
> Your metaphor of car manufacturers really doesn’t do Nadal justice.
Toyota makes excellent and reliable cars, their production and distribution skills changed the history of manufacturing, and they periodically innovate in big and small ways. Anyone who knows anything about making cars, knows they are excellent at what they do and maybe the best manufacturer ever by a number of stats. They just don't warm the heart in the same way as more creative makers.
If he was still playing. Until he retired, Sampras was far and above the crowd favorite in every match after he reached 8 slams.
>hat does not mean Nadal is not superb at what he does (his stats on returns are incredible), but it's something that's a bit harder to appreciate.
Federer's skills are far and above, but I completely disagree that it's harder to appreciate Nada's play style. I find it hard to appreciate something that comes so easy to someone like Federer, compared to Nadal who works harder than anyone else in the sport to win every single point; he's always fighting till his last breath, chasing down every ball that he can. I appreciate his determination and attitude far and above Federer's pure talent.
Federer is presented as this sublime talent, to whom tennis is effortless and natural. Someone who is calm and collected, and is the suave beatiful exponent of the sport. Nadal is presented as the fighting underdog who is extremely passionate and managed to overcome his natural talent and skill limitations with grit, determination, and hard work.
Which is kind of ironic, because once you set aside their playing styles, they both are almost exactly the opposite of their images. Federer was a highly volatile young player who greatly underperformed when he first turned pro, to the point he wanted to quit the sport, and took a long time to win his first GS. Nadal, on the other hand, burst into the scene almost immediately with a GS win, stuff came extremely naturally. Federer also puts far more hours into training and the gym, and has modeled his entire life aroundtennis, while Nadal, until recently didn’t come close. In fact, Nadal is famously quoted as saying that he didn’t go to the gym at all (I personally believe this was exaggerated, but it does have a grain of truth, in that his off court efforts, at least initially in his career, wasn’t close to the other guys).
You're taking it way out of context. That quote was referring to his arm muscularity, not how much he trains.
Everyone in the sport know that Nadal and Thiem are the hardest working tennis players outside of the court. They put in way more time than any other players.
Federer is the definition of "tennis comes easy". His movement, anticipation, and technique are just far above everyone elses. It's why he can return Isner's 145mph serves while standing right on the baseline.
Nadal is the definition of determination. He works hard for every single point, and never gives up. He will chase after every single ball, and play every point like it's his last. He's the John Wick of tennis.
I don't know what tennis you're watching because you are seriously delusional
I would think the reason most people prefer Federer (if there's even concrete evidence to back this up -- has anyone really done a survey of this question?) is that Federer plays the most aesthetically pleasing tennis. It's obviously subjective, but I suspect most people who like tennis like Federer's elegant style of one-handed backhand (which most plays don't do nowadays), his movement, his serve is devastating because of it's accuracy, his fakes and drop shots. It's just elegant to watch.
Nadal of course plays elegant and great shots too, but just less so in my opinion. Nadal has got a lot of wins by steamrolling his opponents with power and athleticism, particularly on clay.
I'd rather watch Federer destroy an opponent than Nadal, basically
Nadal has adapted his game a lot over the years, and people just don't give him the deserved credit. The good thing is that he doesn't really care, and the record speaks for itself.
That's an odd thing to say. I would think that Djokovic is the fastest of the major players.
The primary reason is that Nadal simply generates more topspin, which has been known for a long time, and the spin of the ball has more impact on a clay court. Nadal's grip is "full western" while Federer and Djokovic both have more traditional forehand grips.
It's obvious that it simply has good baseliners (players likelier to win a point once the ball is in play) and big 2nd servers at the top. But there's no data to support this, other than my gut feel of seeing big3 and Isner in there. But what about Kohlschreiber?
While I am sure he does better work for his clients, he seems to have access to shot-by-shot data which I think is most valuable.
If anyone knows of shot-by-shot data for just a single tournament, that'd be great to see and explore :)
Raw data for a large subset of those matches: https://github.com/JeffSackmann/tennis_MatchChartingProject
Of course Nadal is best on clay.
Yes, unbeatable, finally glad to hear HN admit it!
Ah, tennis? Pssh.
My son's name is Rocklin Clay Nadal.