Nastase's serve today...

[gzhpcu]

Found this video of Nastase serving...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzy2ZIfOt6I

His racket drop is no longer that great either...

to be clear: this is a recent video of his serve....

[stotty]

Nasty had a good serve in his day. Don't think the clip is that revealing re the racket drop. I froze the clip best I could at the vital moment and it didn't seem that far off to me.

[gzhpcu]

Nasty had a good serve in his day. Don't think the clip is that revealing re the racket drop. I froze the clip best I could at the vital moment and it didn't seem that far off to me.

He had a very good drop in his day, but not now....

I froze the clip...

[stotty]

Still doesn't show enough, Phil. The bottom of the drop happens very quickly, in a millisecond. I've filmed lots of players who didn't seem to have a good racket drop, but it turned out they did on the slow-mo replay.

You may well be right, though. But one thing TP has shown me is that things aren't always as they seem when you slow things down and take a good look.

I saw Nasty at Wimbledon in his 50s (or maybe late 40s) hit a 120mph serve.

[gzhpcu]

He had this drop....

[stotty]

Did you ever see Nastase play live, Phil? The man was a genius. It was uncanny the things he could do. He could bend his backhand. Plenty of players can bend their forehands but Nasty is the only player i've seen who could bend his backhand. He's the most talented player I have ever seen. You had to see him live to appreciate just how talented he was.

[EdWeiss]

Nastase

I think the photo is of Orantes, not Nastase. Below is a great link to highlights of the Nastase-Ashe U.S. Open finals. The reflex volley in the point that starts at 1:47 is amazing. Just a great athlete with also incredible feel for the tennis ball - although he won two majors in singles and got to the finals of three others (and won 5 doubles finals in the majors), still somewhat of a wasted talent but always entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf4wrrpzdYc

[tennis_chiro]

awesome 7 minutes

I think the photo is of Orantes, not Nastase. Below is a great link to highlights of the Nastase-Ashe U.S. Open finals. The reflex volley in the point that starts at 1:47 is amazing. Just a great athlete with also incredible feel for the tennis ball - although he won two majors in singles and got to the finals of three others (and won 5 doubles finals in the majors), still somewhat of a wasted talent but always entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf4wrrpzdYc

What a great clip. No question, Nasty was mercurial. I love the way he anticipates and goes for balls seemingly out of reach. He was really fast. But we also forget what a great volleyer Ashe was. Interesting how this clip doesn't make them seem as slow as some of the rest from that era. But they were not the best volleyers of that era. And yet, they sure look better at the net than anyone I can think of today. I think Ashe is using the original Head "rugbeater" but it looks like Ilie is using that 70 sq. in. Maxply! I couldn't play with it then, much less today. I'd like to see how many mishits Rafa or Roger would have with that.

don

[gzhpcu]

Ed,
No it is Nastase, working the foto, I flipped it without noticing.... sorry for the error...

Don,
I saw Nastase playing Roland Garros in 1970. He was playing a first round match against Ony Parun on, who had just won the first set. Parun had an unorthodox service motion, and Nastase started the next set doing a perfect copy of it when he served. The crowd began laughing, Parun got angry, lost his concentrate and quickly folded....

[tennis_chiro]

Hardest working man in tennis

Ed,
No it is Nastase, working the foto, I flipped it without noticing.... sorry for the error...

Don,
I saw Nastase playing Roland Garros in 1970. He was playing a first round match against Ony Parun on, who had just won the first set. Parun had an unorthodox service motion, and Nastase started the next set doing a perfect copy of it when he served. The crowd began laughing, Parun got angry, lost his concentrate and quickly folded....

Tony was one of the hardest working men in tennis. He was entered in events something like 48 weeks a year. He had to work so hard for everything he got. If Ilie had had just a little of his drive, he would have been considered one of the all-time greats. Tough for someone working that hard just to get by to be ridiculed by someone like Ilie in the French Open. Ony would have been lucky to get that set on red clay anyway. And probably a little excited about it, even if he would never have shown it. I'm sure the crowd ate it up, but it had to be a little cruel to poor Ony.

don

[stotty]

Ony Parun worked near me (in the UK) at a David Lloyd tennis centre some years ago. Always a bit sad when you see such a good player ending up coaching housewives. These days players earn so much money life after the tennis tour can be what they want it to be.

He did reach the last 8 at Wimbledon in 1976 where he played Nastase. I was there watching Nastase won in 3 straight sets. Ony was mocked by Nastase there too.

[stotty]

I agree with don about the speed of the game in the clip. The players look athletic and the ball is moving quickly. Many old clips show the players seeming slow and the balls hardly moving. Now I know it simply wasn't like that because i've been watching tennis at Wimbledon for years.

The video clips doesn't always show the truth and lie just like a camera shots.

[GeoffWilliams]

His form looks like a 4.0 player. What a king size ahole he was to so many.

[don_budge]

Nasty's Service Motion and Men's Singles...

I'm back after a much needed rest and a change of attitude. Nice to be back everyone! Hope all is well...

Ille Nastase's service motion is still really classic after all these years. Of course he cannot get into the "coveted pro drop" position that he used to be able to accomplish with unmatched grace, eloquence and limberness. He has aged. He no longer has that boyish look about him either. Nasty, in his prime, had an absolutely beautiful service motion and served with equal parts spin, speed and placement. Slice, over, twist and flat. Change of speeds. He served with the guile of a savvy baseball pitcher. Up and in. Down and away. Blazing down the middle! Now you see it, now you don't. Right out of the Gonzales book on serving motion and tactics.

In spite of the perceived more abbreviated pro drop in his swing...more importantly, he still manages a nice backswing and he manages to create a nice big loop in back of him with his racquet head, where the real acceleration is taking place. This serve would be too much for any 4.0 player on this planet...that is for sure. When Mr. Nastase was at his prime, in the waning days of classic tennis, there were no such rating systems. Back then things were a bit tougher in the food chain of the game of tennis. There was a little less compassion, shall we say, for the "weaker in their struggle to eat or be eaten"...in the words of one of our esteemed posters on the forum. Those were tougher days...there was only Men's Singles. Winners and losers. Players that needed "ratings" to compete were just cat food. Nastase won 57 titles. Not bad for a misbehaving guy from Romania.

Well...his behavior was questionable to say the least. Even though it was funny at times...there are no excuses. I wonder where he learned to behave like that. Afterall, nothing like it had ever been witnessed on the stage of the tennis court. He was breaking new ground. For some reason I have this picture of him in my head taunting Borg's second serve when he first played Wimbledon. Björn had a real patty cake second serve the first time I saw him play. That may be my imagination. I do remember, though, watching him and fellow bad boy Jimmy Connors playing doubles at South Orange, New Jersey. Connors slipped on the damp grass and ended up sprawled face down on the court. Nastase without hesitation jumped on top of him and gave him a good humping...right in front of everyone. The crowd roared with laughter! Or was it out of shock?

There were, of course, some rather ugly displays that showed some rather poor judgement, lack of taste and a general disregard for the civilized spectator observers and his opponents. Obviously he delighted in offending the faint of heart, the demur and the establishment. He was truly a genius with a tennis racquet. The Mercurial One...he was mercury on wheels. He was never short of charisma. The Nastase style was truly beautiful, unique and creative. He possessed feathery touch and could summon lethal power at will, he moved with the quickness and the agility of a cat and knew just where to position himself...he played a lot of "cat and mouse" with his opponents and sometimes he got carried away. It would start out that he was moving them around the court and manipulating them tactically, but sometimes it ended up that he was just screwing with their minds. His ability to retrieve was magical and unbelievable...watching him play tennis was like going to the Russian ballet in a lunatic asylum...Nureyev dancing in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" comes to mind.

It was sheer poetry, between the fits of madness. Some might even call it artistic license...even if it was painful to watch at times, there were displays of sheer and utter genius. It seemed as if he was making it up as he went along, without any thought, without premeditation. He was sort of innocent in a way...an idiot savant with an impish grin. Don Quixote fighting windmills. You never knew what to expect from him on any given day...I suspect he didn't know half of the time as well. It could get away from him in a hurry, though, at the drop of a hat or the toss of a coin. Maybe a bad line call. A spectator moving about. Hangovers? Any perceived injustice could shatter his fragile psyche. It was as if he lost all of his sanity (can you lose what you never had in the first place?)...there was no semblance of control limits. Unpredictable...that would be an understatement to say the least. A poor role model? Just ask McEnroe...his understudy, the prize pupil, the protege. But Nastase is a classic nonetheless...at least in my book. Certainly, one of a kind...a real enigma.

And besides all that, he had a truly beautiful serve...in my opinion.

[gzhpcu]

IMHO, he had a beautiful serve too.

Remember Nastase against Stan Smith, the leaning tower of Pasadena in Wimbledon?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRWmC1EzdJE