Comments on: Roland Garros and the Prospect of a New Champion

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By: Of Wimbledon, Edberg, Chang and Ivanišević | Critical Twenties

Of Wimbledon, Edberg, Chang and Ivanišević | Critical Twenties — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 08:24:09 +0000

[...] Grand Slam tournament. The honour belongs to Roland Garros for reasons explained in an earlier post. It represents, though, something more. It isn’t merely about the tennis currently on display but [...]

By: v.sundararajan

v.sundararajan — Sun, 22 May 2011 15:28:09 +0000

Excellent Post, Suhrith
Your English is very grand
Keep it up
UGITH

By: Suhrith

Suhrith — Sun, 22 May 2011 03:09:02 +0000

Thanks a lot for the comment, Rohan. It’s a very valid point you make, about Nadal struggling against players with strong double handed backhands. He has also struggled on the odd occasion against Murray, who I am still hoping can muster some kind of championship form.

By: Rohan Sahai

Rohan Sahai — Sat, 21 May 2011 14:57:55 +0000

Excellent Post Suhrith.
In addition to the prospects of a new champion in Djokovic, this and the next few tournaments are going to have an important bearing on the standing of Nadal amongst the all time greats. Till now, Nadal’s most effective weapon was his high topspun forehand to the opponents’ backhand forcing errors and weak returns he could easily finish. Clearly, Djokovic has found the most effective response to this tactic through his strong double hander combined with the phenomenal use of the court geometry. Additionally, his aggressive returning has put Nadal’s serve under the gun, a long-standing unexploited weakness in Nadal’s game.
Nadal therefore, needs to re-align his game, possibly be more aggressive in his groundstrokes and serve, and come forward more often. Additionally, Djokovic’s recent mastery of Nadal might rub off on others as well. I see a pattern in Nadal’s losses to players with heavy groundstrokes and strong double handed backhands (Del Potro, Soderling, Davydenko, and Djoker of course).
Incidentally, something similar happened to Roger Federer as well. Seemingly having no weaknesses in his early years at least until 2006 (Agassi writes about it in his book), Nadal exposed Federer’s inconsistent backhand in the series of their meetings on clay. While Federer tried to counter the problem initially by running around it, declining fitness levels and slower movements have made it impractical and often ugly in his later years.
Lets see how Nadal responds! Interesting times for tennis – I can’t wait for RG to start !