RE: Rafael Nadal : What Makes Him Great
Broken_Shoelace said:
But you arbitrarily decided that YOU NEED to grow up on clay to be good there, but not grass? Okay...
No, that's not what I said and by no means have I ever considered anything arbitrary here. I think I made it more than clear that it is just my opinion that players have to grow up on clay in order to have a successfull career there. I can't put IMO at the end of every sentence. And of course grass is also a surface where you need to develop step by step in order to gain enough experience. I never claimed otherwise. There are players who are exceptions. Nalbandian played his 2nd (or even his maiden?) grass court tournament in Wimbledon 2002 and reached the final. There are also players who make a smooth transition to clay despite not growing up on it.
Even if we exclude the argument of having to grow up on clay, there is a reason why some of the very best such as Sampras, Becker, McEnroe, Edberg, Connors, Hewitt, Murray, for large parts of his career Agassi as well and even the young Federer (who funnily enough did grow up on clay) suffered on clay despite all of them belonging to the best baseliners the game has ever seen.
Clay is a surface that requires different training methods, an emphasis on special movement, footwork and groundgame and it focuses on different aspects of the game which stand in stark contrast to the training methods and philosophies of instinctive attacking players. Take Sampras for example. He dominated the 90s with incredible first strike tennis and was pretty much a lock for Wimbledon, the US Open, the YEC and the #1 ranking. Why on earth should Pate have even tried to adapt to claycourts? Back then the career slam did not even exist. It wasn't until Agassi accomplished all four that the media found a name for it.
Pete build his career around his attacking talents because it brought him the most success on the unique slam surfaces of the 90s. Nadal build his career around his incredible movement and consistency from the baseline to maximize his strenghts and success on today's extremely homogenized courts. There is nothing wrong with how both approached their careers, in fact it was spot on, but if people seriously complain about Pete's lack of success on clay, I might just as well ask why has Nadal never developed some of Pete's attacking talents? Why has he never developed his attacking game to a level that would have allowed him to enjoy more success Indoors and on fast and low bouncing hardcourts in general? Why has Nadal struggled so often in the first week of Wimbledon?
I'm aware that his special western grip and huge backswing simply suffer on low bouncing, fast or "dead" surfaces where his spin becomes useless. But then again I don't see how one can make a strong case for versatility if a player is so much dependent on one playing style and one way of playing only. Nadal made some very important steps into the right direction over the years and recently as well, trying to be more aggressive and taking the initiative, but quite frankly a player of his caliber should have been able to step inside the courts and take the balls on the rise on many more occasions than he really did.
Broken_Shoelace said:
Again, Nadal is an elite player on all surfaces, and has the results to prove it. Sampras doesn't.
This is debatable. Nadal IMO never was an elite player on Indoors, not even close. He suffered and got badly outplayed as much as Pete on clay. To Nadal's credit, it is a huge testament to his talent that despite his shortcomings he turned and moulded himself from a once one-dimensional clay courter into a solid allround player, winning all 4 slams, making 9 slam finals outside of clay and winning olympic gold on fast hardcourts. But for me that's still nowhere near close to Sampras who was one of the game's best baseliners from 1993-1995 and at the same time (and especially later under Annacone) a deadly S & V machine. For me that's a level of adapting ability and diversity that Nadal never reached.
And the results do prove it. Sampras won 7x Wimbledon, 7 slams on hardcourts and 5x the YEC. That's three different parts of the season he absolutely dominated. I don't see how you can even make a case for Nadal here. If we substitute Pete's dominance on grass with Nadal's in Paris to make it fair, what is left for Nadal? 2 hardcourt slams, 2 Wimbledon titles and an olympic gold medal. That's a very good and fine resume, don't get me wrong, but it's nowhere near close to seven additional hardcourt slams and five Year End Championships on Indoors. How is Pete's resume not a different level of diversity? Not to mention that Nadal is playing in heavily favored circumstances. At least we both put him above Nadal in the all time rankings which is a fresh breeze of balance as opposed to reading that Murray and Djokovic would have crushed Sampras on any surface. Good lord and with all due respect, that's not even funny.
