It's not between the ears - it never has been, and it never will be. In fact, anyone you're paying good money to teach you or coach you in this game, that tries to convince you that it is between the ears, is wasting your money...big time.
Of course, you need to concentrate - that's essential in any endeavor - but at the end of the day, tennis is not chess: the ball, the court, the racquet, and the other guy, all impact how you play the game, and the results you get. And while those of us who follow tennis intensely (or otherwise) are inclined to focus our evaluations on the big 4, one need only take the curious case of Nico Almagro to see how a player, that had so much going for him, has technically stagnated for 3 years, and as a result, his window of opportunity to make a major impact in the game just may have closed.
Not locked, but definitely closed for now.
Six years ago I extolled the virtues of this swashbuckling, bomb throwing, preening man from Murcia, after watching him bull fight his way to two titles in succession in Costa Do Sauipe and Acapulco. And while any number of players have gone on a hot streak at some point in their careers, there was something about the way he won those titles that made me think we could have been looking at one of the next stars of the game. He didn't just have a good serve, he had one of the best serves on tour. He didn't just have a good forehand, it had variety with the ability to dynamically inject pace into the rally at almost any moment. And that backhand...man, is that ever a beautiful backhand.
And he seemed to have the one element that the pundits place greater value in than any other - balls. Big, elephant balls to go with a big game. When the moment called for a howitzer serve, he delivered. A backhand down the line? No problemo. Not always, of course - he missed those shots as often as he made them, but that in and of itself is better than the vast majority of tennis players, and can be the difference when it is needed to pull out matches that seem out of reach: the ability to put the point, the game, the set and the match on your racquet.
But since then, there's been something missing from his game.
Take a look at the career progression of some of his contemporaries - Wawrinka beefed up his forehand, and improved his volleys, and won the Australian Open this year. Berdych developed a passable (not even good, just passable) net game, also beefed up his serve and suddenly he's more often getting results when he should, than he did in the past, and is a perennial top-10 player. Gasquet has improved his fitness, hits his forehand with a little more purpose, and even though he regularly stands 8-12 feet behind the baseline, still finds his way to the net from time to time, and he too is in the top 10. Tsonga's fitness, always a question mark for the first half of his career, is no longer a serious issue, and he is now more capable of bringing to bear the full suite of skills he is blessed with, resulting in him consistently justifying his seeding and winning the odd title here and there. Even David Ferrer, known essentially as a grinder, has beefed up his serve, plays closer to the baseline, and reached his first major final at Roland Garros last year...and Almagro has one more clay title in his treasure chest than he does.
But what improvements has Almagro truly made in the last 3 years?
His serve is still a howitzer, and he often finds himself near the top of the ATP leader board in aces, but somehow his serve game win percentage is rarely in the top 10. One could point to any number of factors for this, but I think the most telling is the fact that aside from pace, there's very little to his first serve. In order for it to be effective, he's got to hit it like a ton of bricks...all the time...and that usually results in a low first percentage. Combined with his generally erratic play, he is unable to muster the consistency needed to compensate for the tactical frailty of his serve, and his return games suffer from the burden.
His backhand is still beautiful to behold - along with Wawrinka and Gasquet, it's one of the best on tour when he comes over it. But the slice is an atrocity - soft, slow, and with way too much net clearance, he doesn't use it enough to give his opponents the problem of dealing with variety, it doesn't have the bite to keep his opponents from attacking it, and he never uses it to come forward...never.
Speaking of which, the only thing worse than his slice backhand is his net game. A weak and inconsistent overhead causes him to set up too far away from the net to consistently finish points there. His poor volleying technique (from the grip to his point of contact) and the lack of familiarity with covering the angles, means that he is more likely to lose the point when he comes forward than win it. That's a tactical paradox, and a recipe for playing further and further behind the baseline, which is never good.
Speaking of which, his court positioning may work on a clay court, but the moment he plays someone who defends better than he does (which isn't saying much, because he's not the quickest guy on tour, nor does he have particularly efficient footwork) or someone who stands on top of the baseline and dictates, he's lost the plot. Modern tennis is such that even the best movers on tour can't survive conceding the baseline for long, and Almagro has never been known for his movement.
Finally, that forehand - he used to hit it flatter from time to time, when the situation called for it tactically. These days, his forehand is just a tool to keep him in the point, rarely hit for winners or pressure, and often landing short in the court, with a good deal of spin, but not nearly enough to keep the pressure off of himself. This just isn't going to get it done. Murray used to spin the forehand in for the most part, but one of the key components of his game that has improved over the last 3 years is the power and direction of his forehand, and his ability to dictate with it.
No such improvements with Almagro.
If ever there were a case of a player who has stagnated technically, and whose career has stagnated as a result, it's Almagro. And while the pill-pushing charlatans of the tennis punditry will have you believe that his problem is between the ears, I would argue that the symptom is between the ears, but the cause is what he does, or more accurately doesn't do when he practices.
Namely, improve his game.
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Showing posts with label one handed backhand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label one handed backhand. Show all posts
Friday, February 21, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
WHAT KILLED THE ONE-HANDED BACKHAND?
Stan the Man showed us all that the 1-handed backhand still can...beat a 2-hander that is. Every time somebody new with a one-handed backhand succeeds in the modern game, it always seems to inspire a rush of questions about just what killed the 1-handed backhand anyway. To this day, the history of tennis is replete with players with one-handed backhands who have won far more majors than players with 2-handed backhands. As a matter of fact, even if you restrict your research to major winners since the first great 2-handed champions emerged from the primordial ooze of modern professional tennis (Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg in 1974) one could argue that the two-handed backhand is nothing more than an historical anomaly that will be blown apart and scattered to the winds of history, when the game gets its collective head out of its collective arse.
Let the record show that of the four majors, 2-handers have won more than 1-handers only at Roland Garros. This is a little ironic since the place you tend to see the most 1-handed backhands is on slow red clay, where even the smallest and weakest of tennis ingenues can hone this stroke through the imposed patience of the rustic surface. At 26 to 14 titles, 2-handed backhands have had considerably more success in the last 40 years than 1-handers in Paris, but in Australia, the trend is reversed at 23 to 18, 24 to 16 at the US Open, and the trend is most lopsided at Wimbledon where the record is 27 to 13. In total, 1-handers have it over 2-handers at the majors 88 to 73.
And just taking a look at the draw for Rotterdam next week I was curious to see how many of the 32 players in a rich field of players, for this 40 year old ATP 500, had let go of the second hand and, despite the presumed death sentence to their careers, have managed to make it in the game. Of the 32 players in the draw, fully 11 or almost 1/3rd of the draw play with a 1-handed backhand. Of course, 40 years ago, you'd expect the reverse, but not so today, and this begs the question: why?
Well, in truth, we all start out with a 2-handed backhand, particularly those of us who got an early start in the game, and the biggest problem a child faces on the tennis court, besides seeing over the net, is the challenge of maintaining racquet head stability. In the abstract, any good tennis pro will tell you that no matter how weak/strong you are, the best solution to this problem is the quality of your technique - if you do everything right technically before, during and after your stroke, you'll never need that second arm on either side. But there's the rub: you can't make any mistakes technically - not in your footwork, court positioning, your stroke production or your follow through, because if you do it's nearly impossible to hit a 1-handed backhand properly. The same cannot be said for the 2-hander.
The second hand gives the added racquet head stability you need when you haven't quite hit your mark in court positioning or footwork. It allows for that smooth delivery of strings to ball that is essential for a shot even rarer in tennis than the 1-handed backhand - a flat ground stroke. Freed from the need to sacrifice power for control, a 2-handed backhand is more likely to be delivered flat and straight as an arrow - just the sort of thing a modern player approaching the net could take advantage of, but hardly anyone consistently rushes the net anyway, so this advantage is lost on this generation.
So what killed the 1-handed backhand anyway? Was it Bjorn Borg and his Viking-God flowing blonde locks and purple and green pin stripes? Was it Andre Agassi and his rock and roll, gut-busting, gate-crashing brand of Bollitieri bash-ball? Perhaps Jimmy Connors and his crotch grabbing, every-cuss-in-the-book uttering, "this is what they want" extolling, histrionics laden game? No, it was none of these things.
It was the money.
Because there's so much money in the game, and so much of it is committed earlier and earlier in a player's career, the puppeteers have less patience with their marionettes developing the necessary technique to master a stroke as precise, and potentially fruitful, as the 1-handed backhand. If the money's there, just do the minimum technically with a 2-handed backhand, and you'll be up and running in no time. Why bother taking the time (and eschewing the money) to develop a 1-hander?
As such, typically that stroke is reserved for only the most talented of tennis players who are able to make up for what they lack in technique, with pure god-given hand/eye coordination, until that technique is where it needs to be to cease being a liability. That's not to say that the only talented tennis players are those with 1-handed backhands - to the contrary some of the nicest 1-handed backhands I've ever seen have come from players who hit a 2-hander by trade, either in training or in between points, or on the rare occasion where it is technically preferable to do so.
But when entire families hang on every result, and armies of masseuses, and physios, and cooks, and coaches, and fathers and WAGS (and whoever else can successfully impose themselves on the career of a promising young professional) amplify the risk of missing out on the big early paycheck, the future begins to look dark as dusk if you can't fight above your weight class. Thus the 1-handed backhand goes the way of the stick-shift: impressive when you see it, aesthetically far more enjoyable if you can do it, but an unnecessary risk when it's so much easier and safer to simply put it in gear and press "go".
But I have a feeling that this may not be a permanent thing. I think the future of tennis will not change nearly as much as we think. There certainly seems to be a lot of gentle giants out there, that we all predicted would dominate the game, but ironically the optimal size for a tennis champion has remained for the better part of 100 years between 5'11" and 6'3" with very rare exception.
Why?
Because the court is still 27 x 78 feet, you still have to break serve to win sets, and you can't play the game from inside your head or the sofa in your living room. And because of all of these things, I don't think conditions will persist such that a premium on racquet head stability from a very early age forces the game to continue to evolve towards the 2-handed backhand. And when everyone is doing the same thing and hoping for a different result, something's gotta give.
If the ball goes faster and with more spin on it, then the quality of the athlete will have to improve, and as that happens, the physical side of tennis will require tennis players to be in it for the long-haul, rather than the quick buck (because whether they play with one or two hands, no 17-year old in the world will have what it takes physically to win in what is increasingly becoming a man's game). Therefore results at at 13 and 14 should become less important than results at 18 and 19, and by then physically most will have had enough time to develop their ultimate game, rather than the most expedient one.
One way or another, I believe the game will once again belong to the ancient masters of the 1-handed backhand.
Let the record show that of the four majors, 2-handers have won more than 1-handers only at Roland Garros. This is a little ironic since the place you tend to see the most 1-handed backhands is on slow red clay, where even the smallest and weakest of tennis ingenues can hone this stroke through the imposed patience of the rustic surface. At 26 to 14 titles, 2-handed backhands have had considerably more success in the last 40 years than 1-handers in Paris, but in Australia, the trend is reversed at 23 to 18, 24 to 16 at the US Open, and the trend is most lopsided at Wimbledon where the record is 27 to 13. In total, 1-handers have it over 2-handers at the majors 88 to 73.
And just taking a look at the draw for Rotterdam next week I was curious to see how many of the 32 players in a rich field of players, for this 40 year old ATP 500, had let go of the second hand and, despite the presumed death sentence to their careers, have managed to make it in the game. Of the 32 players in the draw, fully 11 or almost 1/3rd of the draw play with a 1-handed backhand. Of course, 40 years ago, you'd expect the reverse, but not so today, and this begs the question: why?
Well, in truth, we all start out with a 2-handed backhand, particularly those of us who got an early start in the game, and the biggest problem a child faces on the tennis court, besides seeing over the net, is the challenge of maintaining racquet head stability. In the abstract, any good tennis pro will tell you that no matter how weak/strong you are, the best solution to this problem is the quality of your technique - if you do everything right technically before, during and after your stroke, you'll never need that second arm on either side. But there's the rub: you can't make any mistakes technically - not in your footwork, court positioning, your stroke production or your follow through, because if you do it's nearly impossible to hit a 1-handed backhand properly. The same cannot be said for the 2-hander.
The second hand gives the added racquet head stability you need when you haven't quite hit your mark in court positioning or footwork. It allows for that smooth delivery of strings to ball that is essential for a shot even rarer in tennis than the 1-handed backhand - a flat ground stroke. Freed from the need to sacrifice power for control, a 2-handed backhand is more likely to be delivered flat and straight as an arrow - just the sort of thing a modern player approaching the net could take advantage of, but hardly anyone consistently rushes the net anyway, so this advantage is lost on this generation.
So what killed the 1-handed backhand anyway? Was it Bjorn Borg and his Viking-God flowing blonde locks and purple and green pin stripes? Was it Andre Agassi and his rock and roll, gut-busting, gate-crashing brand of Bollitieri bash-ball? Perhaps Jimmy Connors and his crotch grabbing, every-cuss-in-the-book uttering, "this is what they want" extolling, histrionics laden game? No, it was none of these things.
It was the money.
Because there's so much money in the game, and so much of it is committed earlier and earlier in a player's career, the puppeteers have less patience with their marionettes developing the necessary technique to master a stroke as precise, and potentially fruitful, as the 1-handed backhand. If the money's there, just do the minimum technically with a 2-handed backhand, and you'll be up and running in no time. Why bother taking the time (and eschewing the money) to develop a 1-hander?
As such, typically that stroke is reserved for only the most talented of tennis players who are able to make up for what they lack in technique, with pure god-given hand/eye coordination, until that technique is where it needs to be to cease being a liability. That's not to say that the only talented tennis players are those with 1-handed backhands - to the contrary some of the nicest 1-handed backhands I've ever seen have come from players who hit a 2-hander by trade, either in training or in between points, or on the rare occasion where it is technically preferable to do so.
But when entire families hang on every result, and armies of masseuses, and physios, and cooks, and coaches, and fathers and WAGS (and whoever else can successfully impose themselves on the career of a promising young professional) amplify the risk of missing out on the big early paycheck, the future begins to look dark as dusk if you can't fight above your weight class. Thus the 1-handed backhand goes the way of the stick-shift: impressive when you see it, aesthetically far more enjoyable if you can do it, but an unnecessary risk when it's so much easier and safer to simply put it in gear and press "go".
But I have a feeling that this may not be a permanent thing. I think the future of tennis will not change nearly as much as we think. There certainly seems to be a lot of gentle giants out there, that we all predicted would dominate the game, but ironically the optimal size for a tennis champion has remained for the better part of 100 years between 5'11" and 6'3" with very rare exception.
Why?
Because the court is still 27 x 78 feet, you still have to break serve to win sets, and you can't play the game from inside your head or the sofa in your living room. And because of all of these things, I don't think conditions will persist such that a premium on racquet head stability from a very early age forces the game to continue to evolve towards the 2-handed backhand. And when everyone is doing the same thing and hoping for a different result, something's gotta give.
If the ball goes faster and with more spin on it, then the quality of the athlete will have to improve, and as that happens, the physical side of tennis will require tennis players to be in it for the long-haul, rather than the quick buck (because whether they play with one or two hands, no 17-year old in the world will have what it takes physically to win in what is increasingly becoming a man's game). Therefore results at at 13 and 14 should become less important than results at 18 and 19, and by then physically most will have had enough time to develop their ultimate game, rather than the most expedient one.
One way or another, I believe the game will once again belong to the ancient masters of the 1-handed backhand.
Friday, February 7, 2014
FEDERER'S HIGH ONE-HANDED BACKHAND PROBLEM
This is the story of two Swiss players - each with a 1-handed backhand who played the same player at the same tournament with two very different results. Considering their all-time pedigree, a casual (and ill-informed) initial assessment would conclude that Federer's backhand ought to have less trouble than Wawrinka's, with the high bouncing, left pulling, heavy spinning forehand of Rafael Nadal.
In fact, the opposite is the case.
While Federer continues to have problems dictating points because of this idiosyncrasy, Wawrinka seems not to have the same, and this is not merely manifested by the results of the 2014 Australian Open. Despite never previously taking a set off of Nadal, Wawrinka has really never had a backhand problem with Nadal - he has other problems, and one could argue that so does Federer...but it's useful to analyze the backhand, as this is clearly problematic for one, but not the other.
Now, I should point out that as often as the high 1-handed backhand problem is cited as a problem for Federer, the two-handed backhand is proposed as the solution, and as a result, the assumption is made that because Federer is the foremost exponent of the 1-handed backhand in the history of the game, its future is necessarily as dead as his recent record against Nadal. After all, who would want to expose themselves to this seemingly insurmountable obstacle?
But an analysis of the fundamentals of a backhand would do much to identify why Wawrinka's backhand is superior to Federer's and may very well be the best backhand in the world. First the fundamentals: a good backhand starts with:
And you can get away with being a little fuzzy with your point of contact because that primarily goes to racquet head stability, which is the whole point of the second hand on the racquet. Most 2-handed backhands are flatter (think David Ferrer and Andy Murray) because the second hand allows you to stabilize the racquet head and still hit through the ball, so you don't have to sacrifice any pace for spin by brushing up against the back of the ball.
Now, as far as the fundamentals are concerned, the 1-handed backhand has little to no margin. Both Federer and Wawrinka turn the shoulders well on the take back; most professionals do. You see this more with club players who reach across their chest on the take back. The exception is when a 1-handed player is stretched, they often switch to a slice or are forced to flick the racquet head through the point of contact. With the flick, because everything is accelerated, the hand-eye coordination required to get the timing right is typically reserved for the most talented players. Think Federer and Dimitrov flicking running backhands down the line. It as beautiful to behold as it is rare.
But the first place Federer and Wawrinka differ is making their point of contact at waist level - primarily from a high looping shot that moves through their strike zone. With Nadal's forehand, for example, as the ball arrives, rather than being at the apex of its arch in the strike zone (thus in a kind of mid-air suspension, like the top of the serve toss) it is, in fact, still moving in three dimensions - (1) up into your chest, (2) towards you and (3) to the left.
We have already discussed how the timing has to be very precise on the 1-hander because your racquet head stability is limited to what you can create with one hand, but with movement in three dimensions, the premium on timing is almost insurmountable. Taller players like Dimitrov or Daniel Brands, whose waists are considerably higher than even slightly shorter players (because most of one's height is in the legs) struggle less because the ball stays closer to their optimal strike zone. Also, most players concede the baseline and play yards behind it, unlike what Federer tried to do, and like what Wawrinka successfully did, against Nadal.
So average height, aggressive players like Federer and Wawrinka must adjust, and they basically have three options in how to handle this corkscrew of a shot.
The first alternative is just try to hit the backhand at shoulder height. This forces them to finish the stroke above the head, which is a problem when you need spin to control that shot (and Federer really does). Spin is generated by going from low to high before and after the point of contact, and it's easy to get low on a high backhand, but very hard to finish high. Furthermore, if you finish too high, you lose forward momentum, pace and control. Often the player looks like he's performing a pantomime of a backhand, with the finish high above and even behind his head. And doesn't that sound exactly like what Federer's backhand looks like against Nadal?
But what about Wawrinka?
His natural backhand finishes further out in front of him than Federer's does, so if he takes the backhand high, whereas Federer's naturally high finish is hard to duplicate, Wawrinka's backhand can finish going through the point of contact even on a high backhand. This is why he is able to generate more pace than his more illustrious countryman, because his fundamentals are better - I know, it's hard to believe that a backhand as aesthetically appealing as Federer's is fundamentally flawed, but in this particular regard, it is.
The second alternative to handle the high backhand is to step back and wait for the ball to fall into the strike zone, but this is problematic for 3 reasons:
First, by moving back you concede the forecourt which makes it more difficult to control and finish the point with subsequent shots. This is a problem Federer has particularly on clay, compounded by his own looping backhand, which lacks the flat trajectory of Wawrinka's and by the time his ball reaches Nadal it now has even less power because it was hit from further behind the baseline.
Second, to be able to come forward through the stroke you have to move back beyond the point of contact, and step into it. This is easier if you set up a little further behind the baseline, like Wawrinka, or even further for most clay court specialists with one-handed backhands (e.g. Carlos Berlocq). They often set up shop 8-10 feet beyond the baseline as their default court positioning. But with this approach, you'll have to defend better...much better...like "Nadal" better.
Good luck with that.
If you don't like to concede the baseline you'll typically move only as far back as the point of contact, but then all your momentum is moving backwards when you hit the ball, and this is a problem Federer has on all surfaces against Nadal, but particularly on hard courts, where he is even more reticent to conceded the baseline.
And third, waiting for the ball to drop into the strike zone does nothing to mitigate the problem of the ball moving in two dimensions - only this time the ball is moving down and towards you rather than up and towards you. Most good 1-handed backhanders would prefer this to the ball coming up, towards them, but it's still harder than a ball that apexes right in the strike zone and stays there just waiting to get belted. 1-handers just love that.
The third alternative to handling the high 1-hander is the most effective solution, it is ironically technically the easiest to do, but by far it is the most difficult tactically. To hit your most natural 1-handed backhand on a heavy spinning ball you can step into the court and catch it on the rise. Doing so will keep the ball in your strike zone, thereby maximizing your racquet head stability - after all, just try keeping the racquet above your shoulder or at your waist for 3 minutes straight and you'll see which is easiest.
The second advantage to taking it on the rise is that, with very little effort, you use the pace of the ball coming to you most efficiently when it has the most energy on the way up - like a drop kick in football - and thus you can keep your shot deep with spin, without much risk.
Of course the risk increases exponentially the harder you try to hit the ball, because everything is accelerated, and the timing has to be just right - so typically only the most talented of players, with the best hand-eye coordination, can do this consistently. But technically it is easier to do this than hit the shot at shoulder height, or move back and wait for it. Also, because you're already moving forward to take it on the rise, you are already moving forward through the stroke, which is always good for power and direction.
Now Federer is extremely talented - moreso than Wawrinka - and he has very consistent technique - he rarely improvises if he doesn't have to, and when he does he makes it look easy. And because tactically he doesn't like to concede the baseline/forecourt, this would seem to be his optimal solution - we've all marveled at how easy he makes it look.
So why the bloody hell doesn't he do this all the time? Well, in the words of Hamlet, "...there's the rub."
Nadal's ball is different than anyone else's ball in tennis. Nadal employs the reverse forehand more often, and puts more spin on his shots on average, than any player in the history of tennis. Measured years ago when he was still using natural gut strings (he has since switched to one of the "poly-est" of polyester strings) his RPM averaged 3200 (vs 2400 for Federer and 1800 for the rest of the field) and maxed out at a whopping 5400 - I mean that's just absurd.
Because of this, Nadal is not only able to hit harder, but he is also able to hit shorter in the court, and as a result, to take the ball on the rise, you'd have to be literally 2-3 feet inside the baseline to make this work on every backhand you hit. And it follows that'd you have to be 2-3 feet inside the baseline on the forehand as well, because moving back, forward, left and right between every shot is impossible even for a player who moves as efficiently as Federer, and especially against Nadal.
But Wawrinka has options that Federer does not. If he takes the backhand on the rise, because his natural stroke is flatter and more relaxed, he is better able to handle the pace and coincidentally hit with more pace and depth himself. As a result, the ball coming to Nadal pushes him further and further back, reducing his ability to impose his will on his next shot, causing his next shots to land shorter and shorter. Then Wawrinka's next backhand is more likely to be in his optimal strike zone and he can really belt it - either safely cross court, or tactically more risky (but because he's into the court and moving forward technically less risky) backhand up the line.
That too is a thing of beauty if you've ever seen his.
This forces Nadal to hit deeper, which ironically makes it easier for Wawrinka to half-volley it safely back - in fact this is, in some ways, an easier shot. It's only on clay that you'll ever see Wawrinka consistently back up to hit his backhand, and obviously his results against Nadal, while generally very bad, are even worse on clay because of this (this despite winning Roland Garros Juniors in 2003, BTW). Furthermore, Nadal has always had problems with hard flat shots into his forehand - this is probably due to being a natural right hander, and manifests in his (over)use of the reverse forehand, and only exacerbated by the hardest flattest shots into that side. Cue the Wawrinka backhand, but as for Federer's?
Fuhgedabouddit!
So if he doesn't have this high 1-handed backhand problem, why has Wawrinka had so much trouble against Nadal in the past? Aside from the obvious - that he's no Roger Federer - there are some other changes he's made which has helped him more now than in the past.
First, he changed racquets, facilitating improvements in his forehand, which always suffered from an imbalance of power and spin - in the past, too much spin. These days, his forehand is almost as good as his backhand. Second, he's fitter which facilitates his movement, allowing him to position himself better on all shots. Third, his volleys, while they've never been great, are better now than they have been - and this allows him to take fewer cuts at his (still at times) shaky forehand. Now he can come forward to the net more and finish his points earlier.
But Federer's backhand doesn't allow him to impact Nadal the way Wawrinka's does, and thus in this particular match up, it is more difficult for him to get into position to control, set up and kill points...and remind us of just how good he really is. In fact, against Nadal, the closer he gets to 20 strokes in the rally, and the more often he does so, the worse it is for him. Not necessarily the case with Djokovic and Murray who defend better than Federer, and can more easily take the backhand on the rise, with that second hand.
Now I'm not saying that Wawrinka is all of a sudden going to dominate Nadal - to the contrary, I don't think that will happen at all, because there's a lot more to Nadal than just a high looping forehand. But if you're looking for a solution to Federer's high 1-handed backhand problem against Nadal, you need look no further than his Davis Cup teammate.
Whether he can or will, at this point in his career, make the necessary adjustments, is an altogether different proposition.
ADDENDUM:
I found an excellent instructional clip here that goes into very specific detail about what Wawrinka does differently from other players on the one-handed backhand, and why his is consistently hit with more power and spin than any of his contemporaries. There are segments of the blogosphere that resist the notion that any player on earth could have a 1-handed backhand that is superior to Roger Federer's. But this clip is an objective analysis showing that the hip/core rotation (which you can accomplish by a pronounced step into the court, with the lead foot pointing towards the target, rather than directly across the body) is more pronounced than anyone.
In fact, the opposite is the case.
While Federer continues to have problems dictating points because of this idiosyncrasy, Wawrinka seems not to have the same, and this is not merely manifested by the results of the 2014 Australian Open. Despite never previously taking a set off of Nadal, Wawrinka has really never had a backhand problem with Nadal - he has other problems, and one could argue that so does Federer...but it's useful to analyze the backhand, as this is clearly problematic for one, but not the other.
Now, I should point out that as often as the high 1-handed backhand problem is cited as a problem for Federer, the two-handed backhand is proposed as the solution, and as a result, the assumption is made that because Federer is the foremost exponent of the 1-handed backhand in the history of the game, its future is necessarily as dead as his recent record against Nadal. After all, who would want to expose themselves to this seemingly insurmountable obstacle?
But an analysis of the fundamentals of a backhand would do much to identify why Wawrinka's backhand is superior to Federer's and may very well be the best backhand in the world. First the fundamentals: a good backhand starts with:
- A closed shoulder on take back
- A point of contact in front and at waist level
- A strong but controlled step into the court upon contact
- A smooth and controlled shoulder turn through the point of contact
- A racquet head that starts below the ball, but flows through it on contact
- A finish out in front, where the body weight is balanced neither leaning too far forward or back (and just like after a good serve, the player should be able to immediately address the next shot).
And you can get away with being a little fuzzy with your point of contact because that primarily goes to racquet head stability, which is the whole point of the second hand on the racquet. Most 2-handed backhands are flatter (think David Ferrer and Andy Murray) because the second hand allows you to stabilize the racquet head and still hit through the ball, so you don't have to sacrifice any pace for spin by brushing up against the back of the ball.
Now, as far as the fundamentals are concerned, the 1-handed backhand has little to no margin. Both Federer and Wawrinka turn the shoulders well on the take back; most professionals do. You see this more with club players who reach across their chest on the take back. The exception is when a 1-handed player is stretched, they often switch to a slice or are forced to flick the racquet head through the point of contact. With the flick, because everything is accelerated, the hand-eye coordination required to get the timing right is typically reserved for the most talented players. Think Federer and Dimitrov flicking running backhands down the line. It as beautiful to behold as it is rare.
But the first place Federer and Wawrinka differ is making their point of contact at waist level - primarily from a high looping shot that moves through their strike zone. With Nadal's forehand, for example, as the ball arrives, rather than being at the apex of its arch in the strike zone (thus in a kind of mid-air suspension, like the top of the serve toss) it is, in fact, still moving in three dimensions - (1) up into your chest, (2) towards you and (3) to the left.
We have already discussed how the timing has to be very precise on the 1-hander because your racquet head stability is limited to what you can create with one hand, but with movement in three dimensions, the premium on timing is almost insurmountable. Taller players like Dimitrov or Daniel Brands, whose waists are considerably higher than even slightly shorter players (because most of one's height is in the legs) struggle less because the ball stays closer to their optimal strike zone. Also, most players concede the baseline and play yards behind it, unlike what Federer tried to do, and like what Wawrinka successfully did, against Nadal.
So average height, aggressive players like Federer and Wawrinka must adjust, and they basically have three options in how to handle this corkscrew of a shot.
The first alternative is just try to hit the backhand at shoulder height. This forces them to finish the stroke above the head, which is a problem when you need spin to control that shot (and Federer really does). Spin is generated by going from low to high before and after the point of contact, and it's easy to get low on a high backhand, but very hard to finish high. Furthermore, if you finish too high, you lose forward momentum, pace and control. Often the player looks like he's performing a pantomime of a backhand, with the finish high above and even behind his head. And doesn't that sound exactly like what Federer's backhand looks like against Nadal?
But what about Wawrinka?
His natural backhand finishes further out in front of him than Federer's does, so if he takes the backhand high, whereas Federer's naturally high finish is hard to duplicate, Wawrinka's backhand can finish going through the point of contact even on a high backhand. This is why he is able to generate more pace than his more illustrious countryman, because his fundamentals are better - I know, it's hard to believe that a backhand as aesthetically appealing as Federer's is fundamentally flawed, but in this particular regard, it is.
The second alternative to handle the high backhand is to step back and wait for the ball to fall into the strike zone, but this is problematic for 3 reasons:
First, by moving back you concede the forecourt which makes it more difficult to control and finish the point with subsequent shots. This is a problem Federer has particularly on clay, compounded by his own looping backhand, which lacks the flat trajectory of Wawrinka's and by the time his ball reaches Nadal it now has even less power because it was hit from further behind the baseline.
Second, to be able to come forward through the stroke you have to move back beyond the point of contact, and step into it. This is easier if you set up a little further behind the baseline, like Wawrinka, or even further for most clay court specialists with one-handed backhands (e.g. Carlos Berlocq). They often set up shop 8-10 feet beyond the baseline as their default court positioning. But with this approach, you'll have to defend better...much better...like "Nadal" better.
Good luck with that.
If you don't like to concede the baseline you'll typically move only as far back as the point of contact, but then all your momentum is moving backwards when you hit the ball, and this is a problem Federer has on all surfaces against Nadal, but particularly on hard courts, where he is even more reticent to conceded the baseline.
And third, waiting for the ball to drop into the strike zone does nothing to mitigate the problem of the ball moving in two dimensions - only this time the ball is moving down and towards you rather than up and towards you. Most good 1-handed backhanders would prefer this to the ball coming up, towards them, but it's still harder than a ball that apexes right in the strike zone and stays there just waiting to get belted. 1-handers just love that.
The third alternative to handling the high 1-hander is the most effective solution, it is ironically technically the easiest to do, but by far it is the most difficult tactically. To hit your most natural 1-handed backhand on a heavy spinning ball you can step into the court and catch it on the rise. Doing so will keep the ball in your strike zone, thereby maximizing your racquet head stability - after all, just try keeping the racquet above your shoulder or at your waist for 3 minutes straight and you'll see which is easiest.
The second advantage to taking it on the rise is that, with very little effort, you use the pace of the ball coming to you most efficiently when it has the most energy on the way up - like a drop kick in football - and thus you can keep your shot deep with spin, without much risk.
Of course the risk increases exponentially the harder you try to hit the ball, because everything is accelerated, and the timing has to be just right - so typically only the most talented of players, with the best hand-eye coordination, can do this consistently. But technically it is easier to do this than hit the shot at shoulder height, or move back and wait for it. Also, because you're already moving forward to take it on the rise, you are already moving forward through the stroke, which is always good for power and direction.
Now Federer is extremely talented - moreso than Wawrinka - and he has very consistent technique - he rarely improvises if he doesn't have to, and when he does he makes it look easy. And because tactically he doesn't like to concede the baseline/forecourt, this would seem to be his optimal solution - we've all marveled at how easy he makes it look.
So why the bloody hell doesn't he do this all the time? Well, in the words of Hamlet, "...there's the rub."
Nadal's ball is different than anyone else's ball in tennis. Nadal employs the reverse forehand more often, and puts more spin on his shots on average, than any player in the history of tennis. Measured years ago when he was still using natural gut strings (he has since switched to one of the "poly-est" of polyester strings) his RPM averaged 3200 (vs 2400 for Federer and 1800 for the rest of the field) and maxed out at a whopping 5400 - I mean that's just absurd.
Because of this, Nadal is not only able to hit harder, but he is also able to hit shorter in the court, and as a result, to take the ball on the rise, you'd have to be literally 2-3 feet inside the baseline to make this work on every backhand you hit. And it follows that'd you have to be 2-3 feet inside the baseline on the forehand as well, because moving back, forward, left and right between every shot is impossible even for a player who moves as efficiently as Federer, and especially against Nadal.
But Wawrinka has options that Federer does not. If he takes the backhand on the rise, because his natural stroke is flatter and more relaxed, he is better able to handle the pace and coincidentally hit with more pace and depth himself. As a result, the ball coming to Nadal pushes him further and further back, reducing his ability to impose his will on his next shot, causing his next shots to land shorter and shorter. Then Wawrinka's next backhand is more likely to be in his optimal strike zone and he can really belt it - either safely cross court, or tactically more risky (but because he's into the court and moving forward technically less risky) backhand up the line.
That too is a thing of beauty if you've ever seen his.
This forces Nadal to hit deeper, which ironically makes it easier for Wawrinka to half-volley it safely back - in fact this is, in some ways, an easier shot. It's only on clay that you'll ever see Wawrinka consistently back up to hit his backhand, and obviously his results against Nadal, while generally very bad, are even worse on clay because of this (this despite winning Roland Garros Juniors in 2003, BTW). Furthermore, Nadal has always had problems with hard flat shots into his forehand - this is probably due to being a natural right hander, and manifests in his (over)use of the reverse forehand, and only exacerbated by the hardest flattest shots into that side. Cue the Wawrinka backhand, but as for Federer's?
Fuhgedabouddit!
So if he doesn't have this high 1-handed backhand problem, why has Wawrinka had so much trouble against Nadal in the past? Aside from the obvious - that he's no Roger Federer - there are some other changes he's made which has helped him more now than in the past.
First, he changed racquets, facilitating improvements in his forehand, which always suffered from an imbalance of power and spin - in the past, too much spin. These days, his forehand is almost as good as his backhand. Second, he's fitter which facilitates his movement, allowing him to position himself better on all shots. Third, his volleys, while they've never been great, are better now than they have been - and this allows him to take fewer cuts at his (still at times) shaky forehand. Now he can come forward to the net more and finish his points earlier.
But Federer's backhand doesn't allow him to impact Nadal the way Wawrinka's does, and thus in this particular match up, it is more difficult for him to get into position to control, set up and kill points...and remind us of just how good he really is. In fact, against Nadal, the closer he gets to 20 strokes in the rally, and the more often he does so, the worse it is for him. Not necessarily the case with Djokovic and Murray who defend better than Federer, and can more easily take the backhand on the rise, with that second hand.
Now I'm not saying that Wawrinka is all of a sudden going to dominate Nadal - to the contrary, I don't think that will happen at all, because there's a lot more to Nadal than just a high looping forehand. But if you're looking for a solution to Federer's high 1-handed backhand problem against Nadal, you need look no further than his Davis Cup teammate.
Whether he can or will, at this point in his career, make the necessary adjustments, is an altogether different proposition.
ADDENDUM:
I found an excellent instructional clip here that goes into very specific detail about what Wawrinka does differently from other players on the one-handed backhand, and why his is consistently hit with more power and spin than any of his contemporaries. There are segments of the blogosphere that resist the notion that any player on earth could have a 1-handed backhand that is superior to Roger Federer's. But this clip is an objective analysis showing that the hip/core rotation (which you can accomplish by a pronounced step into the court, with the lead foot pointing towards the target, rather than directly across the body) is more pronounced than anyone.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
FEDERER'S MENTAL BLOCK WITH NADAL
It's got to be mental - he has all the shots, and he's always cool as a cucumber, so if he has a problem with Nadal, it has to be a mental block. Right?
Wrong.
What exactly constitutes a mental block with someone on the tennis court? As it is described by the tennis punditry it is evidenced by one of two things - for some reason a player can no longer execute shots that he normally does against everyone else, or he tries shots against that player that he doesn't try against anyone else, usually because the guy is in his head and he's second guessing himself. But I would argue that these are both really just symptoms of the same problem, and it has nothing to do with psychology.
Wrong.
What exactly constitutes a mental block with someone on the tennis court? As it is described by the tennis punditry it is evidenced by one of two things - for some reason a player can no longer execute shots that he normally does against everyone else, or he tries shots against that player that he doesn't try against anyone else, usually because the guy is in his head and he's second guessing himself. But I would argue that these are both really just symptoms of the same problem, and it has nothing to do with psychology.
Federer's technique, like all players, is tied to his tactical patterns and vice versa. And against 999,999 out of a million possible opponents, that confluence of technique and tactics work perfectly. But if you try to change your tactics without commensurate changes to your technique, or change your technique without commensurate changes to your tactics, the two will fall out of sync, and suddenly everything your normally do easily and so well, are the exact things that get you beat. Thus the solution is a proper change to both technique and tactics that create a new paradigm, one that your bete noire does not have an answer to.
As evidence, I offer the third set tiebreak of their Australian Open semi-final this year because in this game, a full display Federer's inability to win critical points with errors that appear to be the result of some mental block vis a vis Nadal, lie the secrets - the lack of technical and tactical synchronization - to this mystery. Tennis is not chess, it is a physical endeavor that requires a set of skills consistently executed to near perfection, in order to maximize your tactics, compete and achieve at the highest level. If there was a God of tennis, it would definitely be in the details - the technical and tactical details.
So let’s take this game point by point:
0-0: That missed backhand volley was the result of coming in off a HIGH backhand up the line (a shot which he ALWAYS lands short) and having to cover the cross court pass, thus he was too deep to finish the point with his first volley and was dead long before he got to net. Had he flattened it out he may have had a chance, but I don’t know anyone who can take a shoulder height backhand approach shot and hit it deep, flat and up the line.
Had he sliced it deep up the line, which is historically the conventional backhand approach, he'd have more time to close the angles on passing shots, Nadal would have to hit his passing shot from a low height, and somehow get it up and down quickly enough to get past a simple put away volley. The last alternative would be a lob, but again, from a low slice, an offensive lob is difficult to execute, and Federer has a great overhead. As it were, Federer's short topspin approach didn't give him enough time to close the angle on the pass, and because it gets to Nadal quickly, so too does Nadal's passing shot arrive at Federer before he has a chance to reach the optimal position to put away his volley - hence the error.
0-1: Federer goes inside/in on the forehand (not nearly as effective as his inside/out forehand which is flatter and hit at a better angle) and it also lands very short - another common mistake he gets away with against most players because they lack the running cross-court reply on that side. It just so happens that Nadal’s cross-court backhand is one of the best in the game, and Federer’s short reply to it is rife for the drop shot, which Nadal hits well from inside the baseline. But it's important to note that when Federer goes cross court on the forehand from inside or at the baseline, he always puts a lot of top spin on the shot, and it always lands short - this is not something that is reserved for Nadal.
To be effective he also needs a better angle, but at this point he's not doing anything different against Nadal than what he does against everyone. It just so happens that against Nadal it is a high risk play because of his ability to hit passing shots on the run off both wings. So the tactic of taking the short forehand and approaching is correct, but the execution isn't there because Federer isn't accustomed to having to play that shot as close to the line as he would have to in order to be effective against Nadal, who moves and hits on the run better than anyone on tour.
1-2: Federer hits a solid backhand return, but his next two backhands land short (as usual) to Nadal’s forehand, which he easily pulls wider and wider with his next two successive shots. Federer tries to go up the line on the 3rd backhand to break the pattern, but he has problems with his backhand at shoulder height, and it’s even harder to hit up the line. Djokovic, for example, eats that for lunch because he takes that backhand higher, hits it flatter and changes direction a lot better than Federer.
Thus, the issue here is Federer's backhand - aesthetically appealing as it is, it is not as effective against that one shot from Nadal that pulls him to the left and stays up at his shoulders at his preferred court positioning. He could change his positioning and move further back, but that is not a shot a lot of players have - a deep flat backhand up the line with pace that puts Nadal in a defensive position (think Nicolas Almagro or Richard Gasquet). And if he did move back, it would expose him to an inside out forehand, a drop shot or even another cross court forehand pulling him further and further out of position. So the combination of Federer's preferred court positioning, and the technical inability to hit anything but a weak cross court backhand reply costs him this point.
1-3: From a high backhand (not even a forehand) up the line from Nadal, which lands short, Federer still has trouble stepping into the court, even though this time he's going to his preferred cross court backhand. Here the problem is again, that his best backhands are struck at waist level - it's just the way that his shot is produced. And against 99 out of 100 players, he can take that shot on the rise and at waist level at his preferred court position to the baseline and hit a solid cross court shot. But here against Nadal, at that distance from the baseline, the ball remains up around his shoulder - at the same height as the previous backhand…which he also shanked - although not as badly as this one.
Again, Federer could move back and wait for the ball to come into his optimal strike zone, but that alters his positioning and leaves him vulnerable to a lot of things. He could also step further into the court and hit more of a half-volley, but that's one of the hardest shots in tennis, and even the great Federer would have difficulty picking up the right point of contact and still hit it with pace and direction. Particularly difficult against a player who has been recorded as putting the most spin on the ball in the history of the game (according to this tennisplayer.net presentation ). Those numbers alone ought to dispel the myth that the problem is mental - it is clearly a physical challenge, and one that most players have against Nadal, not just Federer.
1-4: Federer is passed off a shallow cross court forehand - it’s important to note that unlike his forehand approach up the line which he hits flat, this one he comes over to keep it in the court, but is easily passed with Nadal’s crosscourt backhand, which I’ve already indicated is one of the best in the game. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Federer hit a flat forehand crosscourt - particularly as an approach - it's just a shot that he doesn't have. Complicating this shot is that the return from Nadal is a mishit that bounces on the center service line - either of which is very hard to deal with, and together nearly impossible to hit an optimal shot. Finally, the previous approach to the backhand elicited a backhand up the line - which you can see Federer lean towards slightly to cover, but Nadal trips him up and goes cross court.
The real question is tactically why Federer chooses to approach on this at all? The answer is that it's part of the patterns of play that he executes almost by rote. Most all-court players taking a forehand inside the baseline will approach the net no matter what - even if it's not optimal to do so - it just doesn't work out here for Federer, but this decision to approach is not unusual. In fact the problem with this decision is that it is too "usual". Despite the opponent and/or the special conditions of this particular shot coming at him, he doesn't alter his playing pattern. Because he doesn't do anything differently (not because he does - as you would expect if the problem was that his opponent is "in his head"), he gets burned.
1-5: Federer’s wide serve in the deuce is too deep and here you can say he choked a little, because he normally spots that serve much further up in the service court. But in this case, it's too deep and Nadal hits a solid return - deep and with pace - pushing him well beyond where he optimally likes to hit that forehand up the line. On grass or on a faster surface, that same serve may be effective, and the natural sequence is to approach on the next shot. But on a slow hard court, or a clay court, the serve sits up. Then from Nadal's well struck return, the change of positioning should force Federer to clear the net at a higher level than he normally does, but he doesn't alter his technique and he pays the price with a ball in the net.
This is normally his best approach shot because he’s usually hitting at a right hander’s backhand, typically takes it closer to the middle of the court (because the spotting of the serve is better), and doesn't have to clear the net at as high a point on the approach - if he were two feet to his left, that exact same shot would have easily cleared the net. But since he doesn't alter his technique here, the exact same tactic that he would employ in this situation requires a technique that he doesn't adjust to, and thus the error.
1-6: Federer hits a solid deep return which pushes Nadal back. From this Nadal hits a slow cross court forehand which lands at the service line, and although the point of contact is high, Nadal’s shot is so short and slow Federer can easily step in and go cross court (his best backhand by far), over the lowest part of the net, for a winner. It’s important to note here that the quality of Federer’s return forces Nadal back and elicits a weak reply, versus in a neutral rally where Nadal can step into the forehand, pull him wide and force a weak reply, as he did at 1-2, and generally always does against Federer.
But in this case, a change of tactics (to be more aggressive with the backhand return), with a commensurate change in technique (by coming over the backhand thereby hitting it with more pace and pushing Nadal back) elicits a return that he can easily hit for a winner. Against most players in the past, Federer would simply chip this backhand return and wait for a short reply, either from a player who can't handle a short slice, or at some point later in the natural course of a rally. But against Nadal, he must tactically force himself into control of the point, and alter his technique to do so, to excellent effect in this point. In other words, the winner got an assist from a tactical and technical change in his return of serve.
2-6: Off a short backhand up the line from Nadal, Federer easily hits his backhand at waist height with power and depth, eliciting an error from Nadal. But the key is Nadal’s shot before the approach. It is so short and weak that Federer appears to have no problems with a backhand approach up the line. Not immune to the pressure, Nadal is timid with his shot, and by playing a different shot to Federer's backhand, (and not Federer playing differently than he normally does) Nadal allows Federer to play the way we all expect him to. There is no change in either his tactic of approaching to Nadal's backhand, or the execution thereof, which he is able to do at waist height which is his optimal point of contact. The result - the same as it is against everyone else on tour - a forced error.
3-6: Federer hits (almost) the same shallow cross court forehand as at 1-4, off a backhand return from Nadal. This one Nadal hits flush on the strings, no where near a service line, but even shorter inside the service court. Federer could probably hit this shot with his eyes closed, and it doesn't matter who’s on the other side of the net because the return is short, weak and has a straight trajectory. But again, I reiterate that it is the change in Nadal's execution that elicits the shot from Federer that we see him hit easily with (almost) all other players, and not a change in Federer's tactics or execution.
5-6: This is a great (and classic) one-two combination from Nadal - a solid wide serve in the ad court (which is his favorite) and since Federer’s backhand return is not naturally aggressive (as Djokovic’s for example) he does little to prevent Nadal running around his own backhand and hitting a fairly standard inside out forehand winner. Nothing new from Federer and thus nothing new from Nadal. And while Federer has improved his backhand return, it’s still just an improvement over his chip return, and not nearly the weapon that it would have to be to consistently counter that particular serve from Nadal. Djokovic, on the other hand, devours this return because tactically he is almost always aggressive on the return, and he has the quickness and the racquet head control to execute. Federer clearly does not.
It's a long analysis, but at the end of the day, the elements of Federer's game that Nadal exposes, and exposes in general when they play, are problems with a high backhand, both as an approach shot or a shot in a neutral rally (resulting from an inability to step back and wait for the ball to come into his optimal point of contact, or step in and take it on the rise), a cross court or inside/in forehand which lands too short and/or has too much spin to be effective as an approach, and finally a wide serve in the deuce court that wasn't spotted particularly well for this surface. A few small things, but they made the difference in this game, set and ultimately in the match.
The most important thing to note from this tiebreak is that if Federer's problems with Nadal were strictly mental, you would expect him to do things differently against Nadal than he does against everyone else. Strange drop shots, ill-advised attempted winners from difficult positions, or strange serves that he normally doesn't spot well. As you can see from this game, he did none of those things. Patrick McEnroe goes to great length to point out that Nadal isn't doing anything differently in this tiebreak, but he fails to recognize the obvious - neither does Federer, and that is precisely why he loses it. As matter of fact, if Federer makes no tactical or technical changes against Nadal, why would Nadal, if his results have been so much better in the rivalry? Federer's patterns don't change against Nadal, and as a result, neither do his results - because Nadal is his bête noire. Everything Federer normally does well, Nadal has an answer for it. And everything Nadal does well, Federer has very few.
Not mental, but technical and tactical.
I think putting things down to Nadal being “in his head” is taking the easy way out, to be honest. In a round about way it’s saying, “Federer has the game to consistently beat Nadal, but because of his mental block he can’t execute”. But that, in my opinion, doesn’t do much in the way of analysis. If I were Federer, and a coach started delving into the psychology of beating Nadal, I’d fire him immediately, because there are shots he doesn’t have, that he needs, to consistently beat Nadal. Strangely, the psychology of beating Nadal is all anyone seems to want to talk about in the broadcast booth. There is some tactical analysis from McEnroe and Cahill (why does he approach the forehand, why isn't he more aggressive on the return), but a surprising dearth of technical analysis of why he can't make those changes.
It is also possible that Federer realizes the tactical changes he needs to make, and doesn’t want to re-engineer his strokes just for Nadal. For example he could take the racquet head back further away from his body on his backhand and force him to bring it forward through the point of contact (like Almagro and Haas) as opposed to across his body which causes a weak reply and inconsistent point of contact resulting in errors. He could also take a step further behind the baseline and really belt it (like Gasquet, who certainly has a better topspin backhand than Federer), but that would mean a big change in his court positioning that would make his forehand less effective. Also, he many not have the quickness to cover drop shots and short angles from further behind the baseline. And given that he may, or may not even have to face Nadal in a major (which he hasn't had to in any of his major wins since 2007), he could be tinkering with what works against almost everyone, in exchange for what may or may not work against Nadal, and could ironically cost him against everyone else along the way.
But I believe that if he doesn't make both technical and tactical adjustments he’ll always have the same problems against him, and unless Nadal's game changes significantly, will likely continue to get the same results.
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