It's come to this. I'm blogging about it. For the longest time I would hold hushed conversations with friends, quietly disagreeing with some of them, the ones that thought otherwise, the ones that didn't understand. I would walk away smiling, all the while thinking them foolish to be so fooled.
I haven't changed my mind. I've just come around to raising my voice.
So I'll just say it: I don't like Rafael Nadal.
It's not that I hate him. It's not that I don't respect him as both an athlete and a person. I simply dislike him as a tennis player, as a strategist, as a practitioner of tennis swings. [Now as a maestro of mental tenacity...admittedly, he's pretty *%#@! good at competing and quieting his mind during battle.]
For those that know me they are aware that I tend to note Roger Federer more often than Rafael Nadal. This is a bias based on the notion that Roger's all-court game, while incredibly difficult to perfect, is more fun to teach than the martial diligence required for the perfecting of Nadal's skill set.
Again I respect Nadal's ability to hit a heavy, heavy, spin ball to all areas of the court--and then to finish of the weak reply with a forehand winner. But personally I enjoy more nuance and variety, more half-volleys and volleys, more of Federer's guile and craftiness than Nadal's brand of Spartan aggression. I find the skill set most perfectly employed by Roger Federer is the more practical skill set for the average club tennis player, even if he/she can't employ it so perfectly.
I should probably stress that Rafael Nadal is completely capable of making mid-court volleys, low slice returns, half-volleys, and multiple other "Doubles"-shots. After all, he has won multiple doubles titles. What I want to draw attention to is the fact that he rarely employs these shots during his singles matches (i.e. the matches that make it onto television). Therefore, I've found that players who focus on Nadal most often focus on his forehand and its spinning helicopter finish.
Of course Nadal's most popular or widely-viewd matches usually occur when Nadal is playing Federer. Most tennis fans know that Nadal likes to repeatedly hit heavy topspin forehands high to Federer's one-handed backhand, thereby fatiguing Federer over the course of a long match. This has been a very successful strategy, allowing Nadal to win 18 of the 27 matches they have played. Because the high backhand is a tiny crack in the Federer facade, Nadal's constant pressure, like water, if allowed enough time, always breaks through the crack.
Nadal's success at beating Federer, a player often cited as the "greatest of all time," leads others to want to copy his game. However, it might not be obvious to all observers that the game plan Nadal uses to defeat Roger Federer does not require one to develop a full arsenal of tennis shots. If you were to copy Nadal's game from the more widely viewed matches against Federer (And remember you are not the World Class Athlete that Rafael Nadal is) and then try to play like at the club, I'm sure you would have moderate success at winning points, if you are able to keep it up. When you hit the heavy, fast spin in over and over and over, you win. You wear the other player down. But then there are the other times when you wear down before your opponent does. And then the subsequent times when you miss early trying to go for a little more.
In my experience, the players I see that attempt to copy Nadal and his ballistic, heavy spin groundstrokes tend to have a one-dimensional quality. Now if their one-dimensional quality is really, really good, (i.e. they move very well as well as hitting the ball very hard) they will usually win since they have a big weapon. However, if a one-dimensional player runs into an opponent that can resist their weapon, the one-dimensional player cannot change strategies or find a different way to beat the opponent.
Again I should reiterate: Nadal is not one-dimensional. In his earlier days on tour he was more one-dimensional than he currently is, but he still has abundant skills in almost all areas of the game. Strategically, however, he rarely looks to use these skills when playing Roger Federer because he doesn't have to. Nadal has found the key to beating Federer, and being a champion competitor, he has stuck to his game plan and executed two out of every three times they've played (and 80% of the time in majors).
Federer, meanwhile, uses more variety during a match -- sometimes to his own detriment. And while I won't argue on behalf of Federer's strategic prowess in his Nadal matches, his skill set and its subsequent strategic use has significantly more practical applications for the average tennis player's game. There is great benefit in knowing how to half-volley a ball from the service line or how to hit a "friendly" groundstroke of varying pace with little spin so as to make it easier to rally with someone. The "Nadal" groundstroke is often difficult to hit in a "friendly" way. Nadal can do it. He can probably hit a "friendly" shot with lots and lots of spin, but he's Rafa Nadal. He beats Federer 67% of the time.
So, yes, Nadal's game is seemingly "better" than Roger Federer's game in the sense that Nadal beats Federer. But in terms of who you (the average club tennis player) should copy, it is the humble opinion of this narrator that Roger Federer's all-court prowess and multifaceted array of shots is more complimentary to club play.
"Club play" could mean a number of things. I like to think that a good "club" player may be able to play 5.0 singles/doubles and regularly serve 100+ mph. But a good "club" player may just as well be a 56 year-old that serves in the 70s and plays a solid 4.0. However, the 17 year-old kid who doesn't practice all that much so he doesn't volley well and can't really bunt the ball back and forth with a continental grip, is not a good "club" player, even if he can knock the cover off the tennis ball, hit his serve 120 and smacks the ball with heavy topspin from all areas of the court.
A good "club player" can maintain a rally with a large scale of tennis players using aggressive, neutral or defensive strokes and a variation of swing speeds. Because the kamikaze play of the 17 year-old above prohibits a rally with the majority of club players, the kamikaze kid is not a club player. [And the kamikaze kid could probably care less.]
I believe Federer's game is more in the spirit of the club player. His comprehensive ability to half-volley, slice, and approach the net off of his serve and short balls is instructive, to say the least. Watching Federer is like watching any great practitioner of art: you learn things you didn't think could be. It's like listening to music and hearing new notes. Seeing a painting and suddenly "things" appear in a new light. Watching Federer play is like seeing what tennis CAN be.
DK
