What does Wawrinka need to do to beat Nadal and win the French?

[GeoffWilliams]

Come on Wawrinka: Please listen to this thread! Someone show it to him and work on these tactics:


#1. Take advantage of nadal's weak short shots and hurt him with stronger shots most of the time. Play close to the base line in anticipation of those short shots coming in most of the time.

#2. Win most of his second serve points by going wide deuce court most of the time with fast slices: Go after Nadal's fh sometimes on the wide side, with fast slices not just a kick serve. Back up the second shot off any weak short return Nadal gets away with so often. Mix up the kick with a fast slice to the fh dtl on the ad side, and don't hit many slower kicks/twists. Goal: 56% of 2nd serve points won.

#3. Go after nadal with his first serve, mixing it up, hitting high pace towards the lines, and adding a few body shots, with a high first serve percentage: 65%. Win most of his first serve points. Goal: 80% of first serve points won.

#4. Attack Nadal's fh with his cross court back hand, until he gets a short ball weak enough to pound down the line and come into the net off nadal's bh.

#5. Do more than chip his bh against Nadals' serve, esp. 2nd serve points, and use his topspin return to attack with, not just a sliced block.


#5. Use his fh to attack nadal to both sides, off any short shot.

#6. Use his volley to volley short after a deep down the line approach off cross court rallies.

#7. Don't hit many sliced bhs, as Nadal just eats those up and hurts Wawrinka after just about any slice he hits.


#8. Approach deep, volley short dtl. Look for nadal to go cross court on any short response to a short volley.

#9. Show disrespect for nadal's serve, by moving up close to the service line on seconds, and some firsts, and not just show him one return position, and get into his head that he can't just hit lefty slice serves about 108mph and get away with it. Show close, and scuttle back, like Gasquet does. Follow Delpos move against fed, when he changed up his return position and came back to win.

[gzhpcu]

Best of five will be tough. He needs to believe in himself and fight for every point the same as Nadal does. Consistency is needed.

[bottle]

Judgement at Nuremberg

Come on Wawrinka: Please listen to this thread! Someone show it to him and work on these tactics:


#1. Take advantage of nadal's weak short shots and hurt him with stronger shots most of the time. Play close to the base line in anticipation of those short shots coming in most of the time.

#2. Win most of his second serve points by going wide deuce court most of the time with fast slices: Go after Nadal's fh sometimes on the wide side, with fast slices not just a kick serve. Back up the second shot off any weak short return Nadal gets away with so often. Mix up the kick with a fast slice to the fh dtl on the ad side, and don't hit many slower kicks/twists. Goal: 56% of 2nd serve points won.

#3. Go after nadal with his first serve, mixing it up, hitting high pace towards the lines, and adding a few body shots, with a high first serve percentage: 65%. Win most of his first serve points. Goal: 80% of first serve points won.

#4. Attack Nadal's fh with his cross court back hand, until he gets a short ball weak enough to pound down the line and come into the net off nadal's bh.

#5. Do more than chip his bh against Nadals' serve, esp. 2nd serve points, and use his topspin return to attack with, not just a sliced block.


#5. Use his fh to attack nadal to both sides, off any short shot.

#6. Use his volley to volley short after a deep down the line approach off cross court rallies.

#7. Don't hit many sliced bhs, as Nadal just eats those up and hurts Wawrinka after just about any slice he hits.


#8. Approach deep, volley short dtl. Look for nadal to go cross court on any short response to a short volley.

#9. Show disrespect for nadal's serve, by moving up close to the service line on seconds, and some firsts, and not just show him one return position, and get into his head that he can't just hit lefty slice serves about 108mph and get away with it. Show close, and scuttle back, like Gasquet does. Follow Delpos move against fed, when he changed up his return position and came back to win.

This will work.

[stotty]

What does Wawrinka need to do to beat Nadal and win the French?

A miracle...

[lobndropshot]

does anyone else feel like Wawrinka is playing a little more like Robin Soderling?

[stroke]

The player who reminds me of Soderling, even the very high toss on serve, is Berdych.

[bottle]

It's bad enough to want replacement of knee or hip but brain? In the latest Wawrinka-Berdych match in Madrid, the allegedly best announcing team in the world applaudingly described Berdych's decision to hire a "mental" person.

In the third set, as Berdych was headed for the barn, he went mental as Wawrinka lifted and won four games in a row to take the match.

What is the moral here? No brain replacement just before a match. But I'm sure that somebody telephoning the Czech Psychiatric Association will learn that the new brain didn't have time to settle down yet.

Well, too bad the Nadal-Wawrinka final people here have been talking about will be premature, in Madrid.

[klacr]

Did someone say Berdych?

(Cue my entrance music...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLuW-GBaJ8k)

Berdych has grown in his mental game by leaps and bounds. I watched that Madrid match from as well that they replayed on Tennis Channel. He does have a tendency to go on walkabouts. Czechs do mature and hit their peak relatively late. With that said, many big things in store for Berdych this year. I can feel it. He has become much more professional in his fitness, nutrition and practice intensity. Berdych will continue to rise and when he hits the jackpot of a grand slam title, a tennis teaching professional in South Florida will be smiling ear to ear.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[bottle]

Oh, I see. So it was a replay then. Nothing for Berdych to worry about.

Oh, now I've played the music. Started an English class with it in the early seventies sixties at the University of Rhode Island. The students weren't allowed to speak. We all touched hands. The prettiest girl loved it. But she quit after I made the mistake of outlining the course on the second day.

[DougEng]

Come on Wawrinka: Please listen to this thread! Someone show it to him and work on these tactics:


#1. Take advantage of nadal's weak short shots and hurt him with stronger shots most of the time. Play close to the base line in anticipation of those short shots coming in most of the time.

#2. Win most of his second serve points by going wide deuce court most of the time with fast slices: Go after Nadal's fh sometimes on the wide side, with fast slices not just a kick serve. Back up the second shot off any weak short return Nadal gets away with so often. Mix up the kick with a fast slice to the fh dtl on the ad side, and don't hit many slower kicks/twists. Goal: 56% of 2nd serve points won.

#3. Go after nadal with his first serve, mixing it up, hitting high pace towards the lines, and adding a few body shots, with a high first serve percentage: 65%. Win most of his first serve points. Goal: 80% of first serve points won.

#4. Attack Nadal's fh with his cross court back hand, until he gets a short ball weak enough to pound down the line and come into the net off nadal's bh.

#5. Do more than chip his bh against Nadals' serve, esp. 2nd serve points, and use his topspin return to attack with, not just a sliced block.


#5. Use his fh to attack nadal to both sides, off any short shot.

#6. Use his volley to volley short after a deep down the line approach off cross court rallies.

#7. Don't hit many sliced bhs, as Nadal just eats those up and hurts Wawrinka after just about any slice he hits.


#8. Approach deep, volley short dtl. Look for nadal to go cross court on any short response to a short volley.

#9. Show disrespect for nadal's serve, by moving up close to the service line on seconds, and some firsts, and not just show him one return position, and get into his head that he can't just hit lefty slice serves about 108mph and get away with it. Show close, and scuttle back, like Gasquet does. Follow Delpos move against fed, when he changed up his return position and came back to win.

Glad someone is saying don't slice against Nadal. It just gives him too much time. Was Federer's biggest problem. He'd have Nadal in trouble and let him off with a slice. Stan has a big game to disrupt Nadal. Like Soderling but remember Isner also went to 5 sets against Nadal at Roland Garros. The big game certainly can beat Nadal. Even on clay. So actually Stan has a better chance at Rafa than Murray or Federer. But not as good as Nole.

Stan doesn't need a complex game. Just believe in himself, hit big whenever he can, keep moving and keep Nadal under pressure. And believe the animal in him can sustain it…the hardest part...

Best,
Doug

[GeoffWilliams]

Glad someone is saying don't slice against Nadal. It just gives him too much time. Was Federer's biggest problem. He'd have Nadal in trouble and let him off with a slice. Stan has a big game to disrupt Nadal. Like Soderling but remember Isner also went to 5 sets against Nadal at Roland Garros. The big game certainly can beat Nadal. Even on clay. So actually Stan has a better chance at Rafa than Murray or Federer. But not as good as Nole.

Stan doesn't need a complex game. Just believe in himself, hit big whenever he can, keep moving and keep Nadal under pressure. And believe the animal in him can sustain it…the hardest part...

Best,
Doug

Listen to this guy yet again. Short, concise, and pointing out stan's bad habit of slicing to nadal, just as fed does, allows him to build an awful lot of steam and confidence. Why don't these guys see that?

[bottle]

Because they've let other people do their thinking for them?

[DougEng]

Thinking

Because they've let other people do their thinking for them?

Research actually shows that the best athletes do far more thinking than we thought. Not surprised. Sports are problem-solving exercises with the body. But for years, we teach automaticity. Too much automaticity leads to dumb plays. The whole concept of deliberate practice in expertise theory is to break the automaticity constantly and adapt it. One never lets automaticity completely form. It's constant challenge to become better. But regarding automatic players, we see ball strikers who can't win or perform as well as they should (e.g, Nicole Vaidisova was a well-known tennis case, great ball striker but didn't develop a champion's sense of tactics; maybe James Blake was another example which is weird since he went to Harvard but he played too one dimensional without that tactical edge he should have had. Or Boris Becker. Like Agassi would know where Boris was serving by looking at his tongue. The average hacker would never pick up that cue in a lifetime). Tennis, like many other sports, is thinking in emergencies, rapid semi-conscience processing of information, far faster than the average person. Consciously it is short, simple cues, but deeper down, more complex. Fascinating how complex the human brain is...

[GeoffWilliams]

Federer knew the cue Roddick gave off and read his serve. I once was attacking the net against a guy I played regularly. All of a sudden, I was inside his body, seeing through his eyes, thinking his thought: "Go cross court.", and knew he was going to pass me cross court. I moved early but not too, and stuck my volley about 80mph cross court. Never happened again. Strange seeing myself as a blur across the net. This was not an easy volley, about net height, and I still utterly powdered it. My weight transferred perfectly into a simple fh block volley.

This happens more to martial arts experts, monks of military training, levitation experts.

There are energy flows, and pathways, we know nothing about, cannot measure, cannot verify, and cannot replicate. Just by studying a molecule, we change it's construction.

There is so much more to energy fields than we realize or cover on any level. Those who play most often in the zone know this.

[klacr]

Research actually shows that the best athletes do far more thinking than we thought. Not surprised. Sports are problem-solving exercises with the body. But for years, we teach automaticity. Too much automaticity leads to dumb plays. The whole concept of deliberate practice in expertise theory is to break the automaticity constantly and adapt it. One never lets automaticity completely form. It's constant challenge to become better. But regarding automatic players, we see ball strikers who can't win or perform as well as they should (e.g, Nicole Vaidisova was a well-known tennis case, great ball striker but didn't develop a champion's sense of tactics; maybe James Blake was another example which is weird since he went to Harvard but he played too one dimensional without that tactical edge he should have had. Or Boris Becker. Like Agassi would know where Boris was serving by looking at his tongue. The average hacker would never pick up that cue in a lifetime). Tennis, like many other sports, is thinking in emergencies, rapid semi-conscience processing of information, far faster than the average person. Consciously it is short, simple cues, but deeper down, more complex. Fascinating how complex the human brain is...

One of the many reasons why tennis is so great. And also a reason why I'm against on-court coaching at the pro level. Thats the beauty of tennis, figuring it ut on your own. Letting those wheels churn and figuring out a rubik's cube-esque conundrum that you need to sway in your favor. Sure, all the other sports have in game coaching, but why should tennis succumb to peer pressure and do it? A good tennis player is a good problem solver. The greatest tennis players are greatest problem solvers who can can also execute their plan and turnaround with incredible precision.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton