
Why Nadal is unbeatable on clay - anacleto
https://leonardofed.io/blog/nadal-game.html
======
osrec
Strange article. The point around controlling only 50% - what the heck does
that even mean?! As a tennis player, you know there are many variables at play
in each rally. This sort of simplistic analysis tells us pretty much nothing.

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.

~~~
addicted
Often ignored, but extremely relevant IMO, is Nadals tremendous ability to
return basically anything he can reach is magnified at RG specifically (which
is what we mean by clay, for the most part) by the really deep backcourts. RG
has the most space between the baseline and the stands, and Nadal takes full
advantage of it.

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.

~~~
osrec
Interesting point. Never thought about the area behind baseline, but it's a
very valid point. I think you're correct that it gives him time, which given
his speed lets him return even more.

I'm personally not a fan of the underhand serve (bit traditional in that
regard!), but yeah, it does catch him out sometimes.

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bsaul
A bit off topic, but having followed tennis for the last 3 decades, i think
the most striking thing on nadal and federer compared to previous generation
is how much they improved technically throughout their career, even after
their 30s ( after they both had won numerous grand slams). Nadal has improved
on serve and volley, federer has improved on backend and serve. Watching young
federer or young nadal vs today’s is extremely impressive.

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.

~~~
brookside
There is also quite a bit of incredulity that both Nadal and Federer are
performing as they do without performance enhancing drugs.

Nadal’s one-time doctor was nabbed, but his blood bags were ordered destroyed
by Spanish court:

[http://en.espn.co.uk/tennis/sport/story/205055.html](http://en.espn.co.uk/tennis/sport/story/205055.html)

~~~
thinkpad20
I’m curious to what extent this is just innuendo and FUD, and how much there’s
legitimate speculation (if there could be such a thing) as to Nadal and/or
Federer doping. I’ve never heard even a whisper of doping suspicion with
Roger, and this is the first I’ve heard of Rafa, but I don’t follow the sport
super closely so maybe there are storylines I’ve missed. I know there have
been other high profile tennis players to get caught doping, but my impression
was that it was uncommon among today’s athletes. The way your comment is
worded suggests that many in the know suspect either or both of doping — is
this accurate?

~~~
brookside
I will fully admit to having no inside knowledge, or any concrete beliefs
about the subject, really! I only have read a few blog posts which seemed
reasonable enough. Such as:

[http://tennispurist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-curious-case-
of...](http://tennispurist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-curious-case-of-roger-
federer.html)

------
frereubu
This - "In any tennis match, you can control roughly 50% of the game: when the
ball is in your half of the court." \- which is the main thrust of the post,
seems very simplistic. There are lots and lots of things that you can do to
control more than the time that the ball is in your court. For example,
unusual spin, tactics during a rally, etc.

I'd recommend reading "Roger Federer as Religious Experience" by David Foster
Wallace -
[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20fed...](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html)
\- 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."

~~~
srib
The linked piece is excellent. I had not read it before. Thank you sharing it!

~~~
frereubu
I just love this bit:

'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.'

~~~
brandnewlow
It's a tremendous piece of writing I've enjoyed many times over over the years
but a troubling one.

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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDwG5rJVtdc)

One writer reconsiders the piece: [https://theoutline.com/post/7424/david-
foster-wallace-roger-...](https://theoutline.com/post/7424/david-foster-
wallace-roger-federer-moment)

~~~
frereubu
Yeah, I'd tracked that down as well, but one reason to be lenient perhaps is
that he was writing before everything was available on YouTube, and was
probably just going on memory, which is easy to unintentionally embellish over
the years. Thanks for the link to the article of responses - looks
interesting.

------
vinayan3
Besides being a little off topic for the site...

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.

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3131s
It's all in the spin, and to a lesser extent Nadal's speed and mobility on
clay. A high RPM top spin shot will kick forward and bounce high on clay to a
greater extent than on a hard court, and it's extremely hard to deal with.

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.

------
iamthirsty
Why are lots of blog posts written like this nowadays—like an email, where
every sentence is a new paragraph?

~~~
kartan
> where every sentence is a new paragraph?

Probably because of blog software. Word Press does this by default.

[https://wordpress.org/support/article/wordpress-
editor/](https://wordpress.org/support/article/wordpress-editor/)

~~~
paulcole
Wordpress most definitely does not do this by default. Typing a period, a
space, and then a capital letter to begin the next Steven ever does not start
a new paragraph.

You can even see in the screenshots on the link you provided that new
sentences do not become new paragraphs.

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billforsternz
I remember a Time magazine front cover article on Bjorn Borg in the late
seventies (get off my lawn). One quote that stuck with me went something like
this: "Borg's dominance is really exaggerated on clay courts. Borg v an
average tour player on clay is like the Detroit Lions v a high school football
team". Maybe there's something about clay that encourages individual
dynasties.

Edits: not any tour player, an average tour player, plus typo plus _late_
seventies. Sorry

~~~
addicted
Clay and grass to a lesser extent are more extreme surfaces, and they benefit
certain types of players. Hard courts are far more neutral and allow for a
wider range of styles to be competitive.

~~~
billforsternz
Indeed. And as the original article mentioned, clay rewards a player who can
"be a wall" and just keep getting the ball back and not beat himself. The
article mentioned Nadal's heavy topspin, and I think Borg actually pioneered
that. It's the only way to to hit powerful strokes with a margin of safety.
The ball clears the net easily but then dips and doesn't go long.

------
Havoc
Not sure how this is original enough to warrant a cross areas post to hn of
all places let alone get up voted.

Every soccer fan on every corner ever has a theory as to why his fav player is
the best ever.

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toyg
This is hardly original, Nadal's game has been well-analysed for ages now.
However, this is also why a lot of (most?) people prefer Federer to him:
because Roger's game is more original and creative. It's a bit like Toyota vs
Tesla: one will always sell more cars and make more money because it executes
better, but that's not always the point.

~~~
likeabbas
Highly disagree with your analysis of why most people prefer Federer to him.
Most people prefer Federer because Fed was successful first, then Nadal. So,
people were used to seeing Federer dominate and then Nadal came in.

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.

~~~
greatpatton
Yes but if you remove the French open victories from Nadal total (down to 6)
total both Djokovic (down to 14) and Federer (down to 19) have more than twice
(or even 3x times) the number of grand slam Victories. (Same for M1000)

~~~
sachdevap
Selectively removing clay court titles is not good statistics. Djokovic has 10
hard court victories, and Federer has 11. You don't call Djokovic a hard court
specialist.

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.

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exogeny
This basically describes Nadal as a pusher, which is a wild overstatement
relative to his creativity and shotmaking.

------
crusso
"Players’ speed matters more on clay than other courts, and Nadal is the
fastest on tour"

That's an odd thing to say. I would think that Djokovic is the fastest of the
major players.

~~~
3131s
Not in Nadal's prime, but maybe now.

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.

------
thom
Would be interested to see more in-depth numbers backing this up. Anyone know
the state of publicly accessible tennis (shot-by-shot) data?

~~~
jsackmann
Shot-by-shot stats for almost 6,000 pro matches, including over 300 of Nadal's
and 400 of Federer's:
[http://www.tennisabstract.com/charting/meta.html](http://www.tennisabstract.com/charting/meta.html)

Raw data for a large subset of those matches:
[https://github.com/JeffSackmann/tennis_MatchChartingProject](https://github.com/JeffSackmann/tennis_MatchChartingProject)

~~~
necovek
Wow, great source, thanks.

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goatlover
Djokovic has a case for best tennis player ever with his winning record head
to head over Federer and Nadal. Federer has a losing record against both. He
racked up a lot of his titles before Nadal and Djokovic became world champion
players.

Of course Nadal is best on clay.

~~~
i_am_proteus
Federer is significantly (5/6 years) older than Nadal and Djokovic, which
makes it difficult to compare them in "all time" terms based on head-to-head
results.

~~~
goatlover
Federer and Djokovic have played 47 times and 15 times in grand slams. That
ties Djokovic-Nadal for most ever grand slam meetings. That should be enough
head to head to make a comparison.

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marknadal
Why thank you, thank you!

Yes, unbeatable, finally glad to hear HN admit it!

Ah, tennis? Pssh.

My son's name is Rocklin Clay Nadal.

------
pg_bot
Funnily enough I think the best player of all time is Novak Djokovic. He has
15 major titles to his name and currently holds a winning record vs both Nadal
and Federer. All three have comparable winning percentages over their careers.
I think people pencil in Federer as the best just because he is older than
Nadal and Djokovic.

~~~
davidivadavid
They do it because he's currently won more majors than they have. A case can
be made for each of them that they all should hold the GOAT title, but it's
hard to settle right now.

