A blocked return of serve by Federer
A comment today by Gilbert:
"A blocked return of serve by Federer is more effective on grass comparing to clay"
Do u agree?
Originally posted by gsheiner
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Say you are a Nadal's coach.
What kind of advice would you give him
in his prepation for Wimbledon and a possible match vs Federer?
julian
This is a fascinating subject. We all focus on Federer's patterns against Nadal on clay but pay less attention to Nadal's patterns against Federer and others on grass and hard court.
There is no question that Nadal has dominating clay court patterns.
I think it all starts with his service philosophy.
Nadal stands closer to the center line than any other lefthander I'm aware of. I checked every leftie in the archives including Andres Gomez, Leconte, Laver, and his Spanish lefty contemporaries Verdasco and Lopez.
Nadal hugs the center line in the deuce court so much that his knees actually seem to cross over the center line.
I believe this gives him a vicious slice angle down the T. It's either a winner or forces righties to hit a weak backhand return from which Nadal can dominate with his forehand.
From this position however it is harder for him to serve wide in the deuce court. Watch him carefully, he hardly ever serves wide in the deuce court and when he does he doesn't get it up the line like the great lefties like Mac.
On clay, this tradeoff obviously works but I don't think it works as well on other surfaces.
Since I have no charting data to substantiate what I just stated, let me just say that this is a supposition.
However, it's obvious that his patterns don't work as well on non-clay surfaces. ( Many reasons obviously -- height of bouce etc)
So, the first thing i would do as Nadal's coach is have him work on a better serve wide in the deuce court.
This may mean experimenting with standing a little further off the center line to get a better angle.
However, I don't think Nadal will do this as he doesn't appear to be an experimenter. He may believe, and rightly so, that if his knees hold up he can win a a major on any surface.
Where you will see a change in the Nadal serving strategy is in the ad court. On clay against Federer at the French Open, he went almost exclusively to the backhand ( why not, it worked beautifully) but on grass at Wimbledon he has changed this pattern.
Two years ago in the first final at Wimbledon, I charted the Nadal serving pattern. He started off by going almost exclusively to the Federer backhand in the ad court and he was quickly down 5-0.
However, from then on in the match he made an adjustment and started to hit a lot of hard serves down the middle in the ad court. As a matter of fact, it was almost 50-50. This also made his wide serve more effective.
However, he never could adjust in the deuce court.
I saw him lose to Thomas Berdych 2 years ago here at the Canadian Open and he tried early in the match to serve wide in the deuce court. He couldn't get it wide enough and Berdych was able to rip forehands off this serve.
The other thing is see in the Nadal game is an over-reliance on crosscourt forehands on non-clay surfaces. When he lost to David Ferrer last year at the Open, Ferrer was sitting on Nadal's crosscourt forehand and taking it on the rise for winning backhands down the line.
I think Nadal has to hit more inside out forhands and down the line forehands to rightie's forehands on non-clay courts to stop them from cheating to cover his crosscourt forehand.
I believe Nadal adjusts his return position on non-clay surfaces but without watching and charting his matches, it would be impossible for me to make any comment about return strategy.
I get the feeling that Nadal is quite clever with his understanding of patterns. It will be very interesting to watch his play the next few months.
Just my two cents.
By the way, if you're coaching Verdasco or Lopez and you see Nadal dominating with his positioning for his deuce court serve, wouldn't you be tempted to try it and see what it's like?
What kind of advice would you give him
in his prepation for Wimbledon and a possible match vs Federer?
julian
This is a fascinating subject. We all focus on Federer's patterns against Nadal on clay but pay less attention to Nadal's patterns against Federer and others on grass and hard court.
There is no question that Nadal has dominating clay court patterns.
I think it all starts with his service philosophy.
Nadal stands closer to the center line than any other lefthander I'm aware of. I checked every leftie in the archives including Andres Gomez, Leconte, Laver, and his Spanish lefty contemporaries Verdasco and Lopez.
Nadal hugs the center line in the deuce court so much that his knees actually seem to cross over the center line.
I believe this gives him a vicious slice angle down the T. It's either a winner or forces righties to hit a weak backhand return from which Nadal can dominate with his forehand.
From this position however it is harder for him to serve wide in the deuce court. Watch him carefully, he hardly ever serves wide in the deuce court and when he does he doesn't get it up the line like the great lefties like Mac.
On clay, this tradeoff obviously works but I don't think it works as well on other surfaces.
Since I have no charting data to substantiate what I just stated, let me just say that this is a supposition.
However, it's obvious that his patterns don't work as well on non-clay surfaces. ( Many reasons obviously -- height of bouce etc)
So, the first thing i would do as Nadal's coach is have him work on a better serve wide in the deuce court.
This may mean experimenting with standing a little further off the center line to get a better angle.
However, I don't think Nadal will do this as he doesn't appear to be an experimenter. He may believe, and rightly so, that if his knees hold up he can win a a major on any surface.
Where you will see a change in the Nadal serving strategy is in the ad court. On clay against Federer at the French Open, he went almost exclusively to the backhand ( why not, it worked beautifully) but on grass at Wimbledon he has changed this pattern.
Two years ago in the first final at Wimbledon, I charted the Nadal serving pattern. He started off by going almost exclusively to the Federer backhand in the ad court and he was quickly down 5-0.
However, from then on in the match he made an adjustment and started to hit a lot of hard serves down the middle in the ad court. As a matter of fact, it was almost 50-50. This also made his wide serve more effective.
However, he never could adjust in the deuce court.
I saw him lose to Thomas Berdych 2 years ago here at the Canadian Open and he tried early in the match to serve wide in the deuce court. He couldn't get it wide enough and Berdych was able to rip forehands off this serve.
The other thing is see in the Nadal game is an over-reliance on crosscourt forehands on non-clay surfaces. When he lost to David Ferrer last year at the Open, Ferrer was sitting on Nadal's crosscourt forehand and taking it on the rise for winning backhands down the line.
I think Nadal has to hit more inside out forhands and down the line forehands to rightie's forehands on non-clay courts to stop them from cheating to cover his crosscourt forehand.
I believe Nadal adjusts his return position on non-clay surfaces but without watching and charting his matches, it would be impossible for me to make any comment about return strategy.
I get the feeling that Nadal is quite clever with his understanding of patterns. It will be very interesting to watch his play the next few months.
Just my two cents.
By the way, if you're coaching Verdasco or Lopez and you see Nadal dominating with his positioning for his deuce court serve, wouldn't you be tempted to try it and see what it's like?
"A blocked return of serve by Federer is more effective on grass comparing to clay"
Do u agree?
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