Kevin
Nostrodamus of football
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2002
- Messages
- 13,813
What is this Djokovic style we speak of that gives him such an advantage over Nadal? When you analyze purely the style of tennis he is basically an athletic fast footwork type who usually tries to take his returns fast and primarily works from the baseline with hard shots and tries to hit the angles. There are hundreds Who practice this type of tennis On the pro tour but these have all fallen to Nadal in his prime. I mean, are there even serve and volleyers left in world tennis? Maybe hundreds was an understatement.Nadal's game is essentially built to beat Federer. It is virtually impossible for Fed to beat Nadal, there was nothing he could really do to change that. On the other hand Djokovic's game is built very well to beat Rafa. It's just the way the match-ups worked, I don't place a lot in the idea that there is genuine difference in quality between them.
Djokovic is simply better than him as a player, the style isn't even an advantage vs Nadal. at best it could be said that he hasn't the weaknesses the Spaniard can exploit since he is also a confortable baseliner who is comfortable on both sides and has the athleticism to bring back balls to make an opponent hit that extra shot and risk unforced errors.
This isn't a similar case to Nadal vs Federer where one truly possesses major advantages thanks to him being a left hander who therefore can use his forehand to perform a natural cross court stroke filled with top spin to feck up The weakness of the one handed backhand (difficulty in maintaining power and control with high jumping spin balls, he can try taking it earlier but that is a harder riskier shot). Although I am sure some left handed pros have tried this before against Federer and failed.
Bottom line is that I believe it is wrong to simply dismiss one player's dominance over the other with "oh his style matches up well so it's normal" arguments.
You have to be a better server, a faster runner, a better hitter or whatever it is that you are doing to differentiate yourself from the millions others on this world who play a similar style as you, to build on a minimal advantage such as a clash of styles and that advantage grows smaller against top top players. These guys match up against all types of opponents with different tactics all career long.
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