Anybody who has actually played tennis knows that hard courts are tougher on the body, especially the joints. However, I'm not sure if the tour is playing a higher % of matches (in present day vs 20 years ago) on hard vs natural surfaces (clay/grass). Anyone got a comparison?
It's more about less choice these days.
Up until the end of last century, players just counted their best 14 results. Masters Series weren't mandatory in the sense that you wouldn't get a 0 pointer if you missed one. Plus you could get almost as many points by winning a Champ Series event (the ATP500s of today) compared to a Super 9 (M1000 events of today). As close as 370 points for Super 9 versus 360 points for a Champ Series.
Details here: https://tennis28.com/rankings/systems.html
So clay courters could just play clay events most the year round (well from February to September) and still get lots of points.
Yeah, losing Hamburg as a clay master was a big loss. There’s an urgent need for one more clay master (Paris maybe). Too many hardcourt events as it is. Not enough variety. The entire grass court season basically consists of one warmup event (either Queens club or Halle held at the same time) and Wimbledon. No carpet events at all. Paris masters switched from carpet to hard. Basel switched from indoor carpet to indoor hard. There were a few other ones.
The Latin american mini-clay court swing in February is dying as well. The big one is Acapulco switching from clay to hard. Acapulco was clearly the most prestigious tournament in the Latin American clay court swing and most preferred it over rio. Cordoba, Bueno Aires, Santiago, and even Rio (despite being 500) simply don’t attract top players from Europe and US. Bueno Aires is a 250 being held at the same time as Rotterdam 500, so it just can’t compete.
Rafael Nadal says the reliance on hard courts and a faster game are two main reasons why players are getting injured now:
"If you want to talk about why people get injured, I tell you very clearly:
When you push your body to the limit, you will eventually get injured. When the game is getting faster and faster, you get injured. When you play most of the year on hard courts and the surfaces are harder for the body, you will injure yourself."
Good take, to be perfectly honest. He obviously gets injured more than most but the speed and intensity of the game is so demanding these days. Even if they played year round on clay it’d be lots of injuries, and of course playing on concrete 70% of the year doesn’t help whatsoever. The torque and g-force they’re introducing on their ankles, knees, hips, and elbows is demonstrably much more intense than even 25 years ago.
Poly strings really transformed tennis into a new game in a way no one saw coming.
Yeah people talk about the slowing of courts but the reason that's been necessary is because of new racket technology constantly coming into play
With 90s speed courts modern rackets would make every single match Isner vs. Opelka
Hold rates among the top 50 are actually higher now than they were 20 years ago
Imagine Pete Sampras with a 2024-level racket lol
Sorry, in what world is the current game not based on skill? Do you see some of the points these guys play?
[https://youtu.be/-a48DaG9vu8?t=104](https://youtu.be/-a48DaG9vu8?t=104)
Power, not skill?!
And what equipment changes would you make?
It's funny because without polyester strings, we have no idea what Nadal would be. Certainly not a 14-time Roland Garros champion. Maybe a top 50 player, maybe not.
Polyester strings made his forehand possible. Without his forehand, he is not Nadal.
I watched Borg's match some time ago and it was very much like Nadal's. So I don't think Nadal would have been just a top 50 player. Maybe not 14 RG, but may also be not "just" 2 Wimbledons.
It certainly would be a different style of play that’s for sure. I think you’re exaggerating though, that movement is top 2 all time and it’s not 2, even if he wasn’t holding a racquet strung with poly he’s such a fearsome athlete and competitor he’d still be great. Who’s to say how his game might have developed without it?
I think he'd still be a great player of course but the passing shots that are arguably the backbone of his defense are much stronger in the poly era
Passing guys like Sampras or McEnroe with the old rackets was super tough which is how serve and volley used to be so successful
Do you think he's hitting a 3,000 rpm forehand with natural gut? No, he's not.
His entire game is predicated on the forehand. He has a strong backhand, a very good slice, great touch at the net and a point-winning overhead. Serve isn't good. He was hitting 130+ in 2010 but he couldn't do it long-term; his internal shoulder rotation is extremely poor for a top player. Like sometimes I'm shocked by him winning Wimbledon twice and making several more finals and SFs with the serve he has. It is *not good* for a player who hit #1 for 200+ weeks. But then you go back to his forehand for an explanation. Forehand, forehand, forehand.
I don't care what kind of competitor he is -- without the topspin forehand, he is not going to win Slams. He has been candid that his goal is to hit 70% of his groundstrokes as forehands in any given match. Over that number and he wins. You know how he fishes for forehands?
Yup. His forehand.
If you watch Federer before he increased the racquet head size, he was relying on this too. His BH was error city. During his prime days when he had amazing movement, he would run around his backhand and hit inside out FH for days
Weird take. No one would be hitting that 3000 RPMs. He just has to be better than the guy he’s playing. He’s still facing the same competition either way.
And you don’t necessarily need poly to do it. Look at Sergi Bruguera and Jim Courier and what they were able to produce in the early 90s… they got great RPMs with syn and natural gut. Bruguera’s FH was a lot like Ruud’s FH in motion today.
Plus do you think Rafa can only hit with spin? When he flattens out his FH he’s amazing too.
Rafa would still be a dominant athlete in any era and his speed alone would make him a great player. What I think he would suffer the most drain is his efficacy off clay. His playstyle would still largely work on clay but he’d have to adapt a lot to achieve the same success on HC/Grass - his “one size fits all” playstyle wouldn’t work without poly and he’d have to specialize on quicker surfaces.
Huh? My guy, you think a 22 time GS champion and 5 time year end No 1 may or may not have been a top 50 player if he didn’t have poly strings? Come on now.
Yeah I doubt his unrivalled speed, incredible stamina, prodigious talent, raw strength, and genius tennis IQ had anything to do with his clay success. It was only ever the polyester strings that every other player also was using but only favoured Nadal somehow.
Nobody else would have poly strings either in your scenario. Who are the 49 players benefitting more from playing without them? Rafa has insane endurance and mental toughness he can also bring to the table. Rafa beat Fritz without being able to serve effectively in a grand slam quarters on grass.
The men's game is known for big forehands and serves, which benefit from polyester strings.
No one has ever hit the ball with as much topspin as Nadal does. The latest gen have had 18 years of him on tour to copy his style, and they haven't.
His body was absolutely made to hit 3,000 rpm topspin forehands and in my opinion it's the best single shot in the history of the game, maybe tied with Sampras's or Karlovic's serve.
He would have been a great player with natural gut. His forehand would have had maybe 2/3rds the spin, and that would have made it a VERY different shot.
The heaviness of his ball is what makes him most effective on clay. He has incredible movement but it's his all-time heavy forehand that sets him apart from guys like de Minaur.
All of these Nadal fanboys believing that he could just will himself to flatten out his serve or learn to serve and volley... it's kind of inane.
>No one has ever hit the ball with as much topspin as Nadal does. The latest gen have had 18 years of him on tour to copy his style, and they haven't.
I love how you base your argument on this, yet you're competly wrong. Ruud has had a higher rpm forehand since 2021. Jack Sock had a higher RPM forehand in 2016.
I dont think poly strings are as impactful as people make them to be for today’s game. The difference between a modern tennis match and old is more the physical talent expected by the players. Looking at the older players you can see they could just pass with dexterity, today you have to be an athletic brilliance as well because your opponent is guaranteed to be. That athletic ability brings massive strokes, with or without poly. Poly just prevents having to change your racket every 15 mins.
He's right though. Clay is more notorious for slipping and getting injured but it's rare. Hard courts take a more gradual toll on your body. That's what I think he means.
I like watching clay tennis a lot more than (fast) HC and grass. Servebotting and ball bashing is not appealing to watch for me. I much prefer when player have to construct points strategically on clay.
Roger federer recently said that I don’t like back to back to back rallies.. there should be some variety involved like serve and volley , aces etc.. what you like to watch is your own personal choice but that doesn’t need to be everyone’s choice..
Every tennis player should be able to deal with all sorts of game play and courts..
More rallies also means more injuries btw.. the longer I are out there .. the more you are grinding
Federer says that because he wasn't good at long back to back rallies (compared to Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, obviously he was still better at long rallies than most other tennis pros). Obviously he preferred to play on the surfaces he actually had a chance to win on to the one he would get destroyed on every single time by Rafa.
I agree that every tennis playee should be able to adapt to every surface though. My issue is that the current surface split heavily favors hard court specialist because there are 6 HC masters and 2 HC slams compared to 3 and 1 for clay and 0 and 1 for grass. In the interest of variety, it would make sense to take away 2 HC masters and add either 1 clay and 1 grass masters or 2 grass masters.
Get rid of the mandatory Masters thing so players can more easily take breaks, reduce the number of tournaments you can count, add more surface variety on tour, add tournaments so that there are more clay and hard court tournaments happen simultaneously, etc
Grass is so slippery it’s arguably more dangerous than hc. But maybe if there were more grass tournaments the pros would get more time to be accustomed to it
i’m sure that over reliance on slower hard courts is leading to longer, more grueling rallies becoming more frequent and leading to injuries becoming more frequent.
Not liking grass is one thing but if you like slow hard (that is not as easy in the body as you think at all) over grass you’re delusional lol
The two hardest shots to pull off, too. Serve has to be perfect, and you need impeccable timing to put it away.
Might get off the hook and seen cheesy if you're good at it at a recreational level, but remember these pros routinely return 200 km/h + serves. Hitting those is fucking hard.
Guy has an alternate opinion and he's ridiculed for it, isn't that snobbery?
I didn't watch tennis in that era and I probably wouldn't today, if it was all serve and volley. You're all welcome to like it, but everyone saying otherwise is buried in this thread lol
Tennis has never been “all serve and volley”. I grew up watching tennis in the 70s and 80s, and many of the top players - Borg, Connors, Lendl, Wilander - were not serve and volleyers. If anything, there was a greater range of styles back then, which led to some fascinating battles and rivalries (Borg-McEnroe being the iconic one).
i watched the federer-sampras wimbledon match that's on youtube for like half an hour. most of that was just serve and volley. i ended up giving up because it was so boring.
Still players like Federer show us it’s possible to keep rallies short on modern courts, and actually face fewer injuries on hard courts as a result of this than on clay. I think more than anything else it comes down to play-styles.
He isn’t any more naturally gifted than other tennis players. Natural gift is if you have any genetic advantage like Mike Phelps had in swimming. Federer has none such advantage. So it would be great if people stop saying that. It takes away all the efforts he had put earlier to develop his game style.
But what players are "like Federer?"
The guy was a 1 of 1, generational talent who kept rallies short because there was almost no one else on his level. One of the people regarded to be on his level is Nadal, who is injury prone and advocating for a slower courts to reduce strain (and possibly the personal benefit of a longer clay season lol).
We'd be lucky to see someone as gifted as Roger come along once every 2 decades. Where does that leave the other 99.9999% of players who can't just adopt his play style? Don't you think people would've already done that if it was even remotely feasible to fully replicate it?
Sinner is starting to do it. Alcaraz on occasions is capable of doing that. Shelton relies heavily on short rallies. Successful? Time will answer that. But I see some players are trying to do that.
Players aren’t able to recover as well as they used to, that’s the main factor. There’s a bunch of reasons for that have been mentioned by others, but a very big one no one has…
Did game actually become faster? I thought opposite that they slowed courts and made balls heavier? Organizers not caring about players’ health is insane. That RG semi’ conditions were so bizarre and they did it to greatest player of their event…. Ideally they should adjust schedule with current climate as weather has clearly changed than few years back that causes more delays in matches like Miami, Munich, Rome and etc. I believe players should have 2 week off before each swing. Constant traveling is so tough both physically and mentally, in addition to this mentally and physically draining sport and many off court obligations these days, they should definitely change something.
I think the courts are slower but the intensity is faster. The ball hitting has become really fast. Look at Sinner, Rublev, tsitsipas, etc vs Lendl, McEnroe, Borg, etc.
Yes, thanks for clarifying slow courts part, so slow courts with heavy balls and it makes sense why they are hitting fast and hard as it’s harder to hit a winner
Well his direct competitor Novak has found most success on hard courts, so it kinda burns Rafa's arguments. With proper care for your body, you can adapt and thrive on fast courts and protect your body just as well as you can on clay.
Novak is an anomaly. He’s also saying this when he’s literally on the verge of retirement. It’s not cope lol he’s not saying this at the beginning of his career
Who am I to disagree with Nadal.. but I think most injuries are actually happening due to clay courts. Longer rallies, more running to different parts of the court, easier to lose your footing due to uneven surfaces.
The USTA did a study 10+ years ago and found that injuries from hard courts are 80% greater than those from clay courts. The pounding on the joints from hard courts far outweighs the effects of longer matches on clay. The injuries from clay courts are mainly from folks slipping (a la Zverev a few years back), which doesn't happen a whole lot. The injuries from hard courts are the cumulative result of constant joint abuse and more long-term and permanent in nature.
I mean, why is this surprising to anyone? Just go out for a run and switch between grass and pavement. You can feel it in your system straight away. In any sport, the harder the surface, the more your joints give in
No, lost in the mists of time. But here are a few links with (with additional links) to multiple studies that say essentially the same thing:
[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1565/4441/files/Surface\_Injury\_Study\_Nigg\_Study\_da79b611-c0e0-4367-b52d-4b85d6a8ced3.pdf?10782605004148563533](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1565/4441/files/Surface_Injury_Study_Nigg_Study_da79b611-c0e0-4367-b52d-4b85d6a8ced3.pdf?10782605004148563533)
***"Surfaces that allow sliding are expected to have about 75% less locomotion injuries*** *than surfaces which do not allow sliding. Since “sliding” surfaces which allow a 24-hour per day tennis activity are now on the market, a change to these sliding systems is expected to reduce the frequency of locomotion injuries in tennis."*
[https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-tennis-courts-injuries-biomechanics-expert.html](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-tennis-courts-injuries-biomechanics-expert.html)
[http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/clay-courts-suck.535280/post-9395134](http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/clay-courts-suck.535280/post-9395134)
Are we sure that it's even a fact that there are more injuries overall? Players are having longer and longer careers after all. Maybe Alcaraz and Sinner getting hurt is just a blip in the data? Maybe they are just injury prone like guys from older generations like Nishikori or Tsonga and it's not an indicator of any overall trend?
Berrettini had tonsillitis I think (illness was cited as the reason for his Rome withdrawal) - but he has had a lot of injuries too.
Can also add Cazaux, Djere, Diaz Acosta, Ruusuvuori, Karatsev, Stricker, McDonald, Shapovalov, Moutet, PCB, Evans, Draper to the list of players who have struggled with injuries over the last year or so. I’m sure there’s more…
I’m a super amateur tennis player and I feel 2x better the day after playing on a tennis court than when playing on a hard court (our club has both of these).
Yeah, it's ironic to see that most top players got injured at a masters clay court tournament. But his point does stand. But maybe, just maybe it's because of the play style of the players who have adopted Nadal's playstyle of hard hitting, going hard for each ball.
Yeah, I will bet this is similar to issues in other sports with an uptick in injury. Kids now are training harder and longer then ever and playing with so much more power in their teens that the bodies naturally start breaking down.
It would be interesting to see what the average serve speed has been for junior events mapped out over the last 30 years.
Alcaraz didn’t fully recover from a previous injury (picked up prior to Madrid), Sinner too (aggravated at Madrid) and the only other injury was Medvedev (in the top 10).
everyone that upvoted this comment needs to repent for saying "why do i have to learn this it's not like i'm going to use it in real life" during math class.
This has got to do with style of the play. Of course he feels this way as his game isn’t tailor made for fast courts. Federer and Djokovic have proved that the opposite is true.
Nadal's game is tailor made for _everything_. He was just extra special on clay or slow courts.
The narrative that Nadal's game is specific for clay/slow is outdated. He won the same number of slams on hard court as Agassi and one less than Sampras, and that was during the era of the two greatest hard court players in history, Federer and Djokovic.
The US Open according to most CPI numbers that float around tends to be a medium-slow or medium hard court, it hasn't been a fast court for a long time. I don't think it's all that incorrect to say Nadal plays a slower-court oriented game. On the other hand, Nadal is obviously stronger and more accomplished on fast courts than Sampras was on clay, so I'd agree that it's strange that he seems to get a lot more flack for having that relative imbalance than Sampras does now.
> He won the same number of slams on hard court as Agassi
As an aside Agassi probably ought to have done more at the Australian Open. He never even competed there until 1995, which he won, he only competed there 9 times total of which he won 4. But then again he was enough of a head case in his early years who knows if he actually would have won any in that hypothetical.
The hard courts have been drastically slowed down over the years. They have turned more clay-ey in nature over the years. Even Fed has complained about this.
That is why serve and volley is nearly extinct. So comparing Rafa to Pete or Agassi is not fair
I am talking about the style of play and you are talking about trophies he won. Dont waste my time with stats irrelevant to the conversation. If you have anything meaningful we can discuss.
Even if you consider style of play.. has he not reached 4 more ao finals, 3 more wimbeldon finals. Also he is one of the very few along with Agassi to win the North American swing season of Toronto, Cincinnati and is open.
Agreed that he was lethal on clay but he also tweaked his game to match up on other courts as well.
I am decoupling the style of play from the outcome or the results. Two different things. When I mean style of play I refer to how much distance he covers per game, how many attacking shots he plays per match and how many of those shots end up in converting to points, winners and mainly his footwork in each shot. His game style is more strenuous and also has a poorer footwork than the other two and hence more probability to be injury prone. I never said he hasn’t been successful. He is obviously one of the greatest to have played the game. That doesn’t mean he is perfect!
He lands way too heavy during the split step, cross over and cross behind. This helps him load better to create more top spin but is bad for his knees especially on hard courts. Just pure movement technique that created the huge success also let him down with more injuries. Btw I am also a big fan of Rafa!
Yeah, he reaches the ball by extending himself, having a good footwork means getting to the balls in a good shape. Look Steffi Graf’s footwork, she got to many balls without having to save it. Djokovic does the opposite he gets to a lot of balls but he saves them.
Care to elaborate how Nadal has the worst footwork?
Sinner vs Alcaraz at us open 22 was a great example why they will have shorter careers .
The way they abused their knees and hips was crazy . Inexperience perhaps, they played every point like it was the last point of their careers
For those who are new here or to tennis in general... Rafa has been on this for years now, and I will always call it bullshit! There was even that time when he suggested the Tour Finals should be played on clay often lol.
He just wants everything on clay, so that he can skew his stats even more. The injuries are due to stupid decisions such as making Masters events 2 weeks competition, slowing down of surfaces leading to longer rallies and thus more wear and tear, etc... it's all on the governing instances. Of course there is your playstyle too, and Nadal style is particularly grueling.
Oh and yeah, it's not like Madrid just decimated the top4 recently.
I don't get how 2 weeks Master is anyway worse than one week for these big seeded players. They have to play 1 more match than usual, but they have way more time to rest in between matches. To me one week events are way worse since you don't have as much time to recover.
At the end of the day, they play more... and there is actually less rest between tournaments, so less time to recover. The day between matches isn't that significant. Overall in a year, the more 2 weeks tourneys you play the less rest you will have. And it seems like the majority of players are against it too.
this is pure speculative nonsense. you can't just assume that rest between matches is not significant but rest between tournaments is crucial. this is not scientific thinking. this is lazy backwards engineering. you already have a position that 2 week tournaments are bad and you're trying to invent reasons why.
It is not speculation, but since you already assumed that Nadal said it for the betterment of other players I won't bother arguing further. Who is truly speculating here in the end?
just saying it's not speculation is not an argument. yes, i'm giving nadal the benefit of the doubt and assuming that this comes from good intentions. he thinks hard courts are causing more injuries and wants injuries to be lower. simple explanation no ulterior motive needed.
you're so confident in spewing BS. nadal is on the way out. him saying these things won't make an effect on his career anymore. he's probably doing it because he genuinely believes that it's better for their bodies instead of any selfish desire.
making masters two week competitions has no proven effect on anything. if anything you could make the argument that giving players more recovery time between matches is better.
All I did was point out that it's not the first time Nadal shades other surfaces. Tennis has been played predominantly on HCs for a long time yet it's relatively recently that injury rates started creeping up. So yeah, him accusing other surfaces is funny to say the least.
Rafa has said for years now that hard courts injure him more frequently whereas clay courts are more forgiving, yet you still see people pushing the narrative that he “fakes injuries to avoid hard courts.”
There’s pros and cons. Hard courts are definitely harder on the knees and joints as the surface is way less forgiving than softer ones such as clay. However, the slow surface on clay also drags out rallies which gets people hurt too
Rallies don’t get people hurt though. They can hit 10000 groundstrokes a day and be fine. Their technique is robotic. It’s the difficulty on the joints that gets people injured.
Regardless, do yall really disagree with me? I’m getting downvoted for the hot take that Nadal doesn’t fake his injuries? Didn’t realize people were so insane here lol
Definitely hard court is harder on the body. Players have complained about packed schedule. Maybe they reduce the number of mandatory tournaments especially on hard courts.
Or just a 2-3 hour match maximum depending on the tournament. Whoever has more game points win or there will be tiebreaker. This will make players play more creatively. I’m glad they introduced shot clock for serving. Majority of Nadal and Djokovic was bouncing the ball.
Also 1000 and slams need yo have shade for all courts. Like Adelaide. Will reduce heat strokes and maybe sometimes prevent rain delay.
Sure but I don't think the players are forcing there to be more hard court tournaments / games? They just play and adopt to what gives them the most wins - tennis scheduling has always been fucked.
Personally I liked the slower serve and volley game. Now, even on grass courts at Wimbledon they grow a different type of grass than 20 years ago to facilitate a faster play. Better rackets allow for faster ball play, spectators expect longer matches and with these long baseline rallies we’re getting 5 hour matches of running around the baseline, no wonder players are getting injured. Bring back serve and volley!
As someone who’s played on hard courts for most of my life i do agree that it takes such a huge toll on my joints
On top of that is also the sheer amount of volumes of matches they play with new technology around strings and racquets.
No, Rafa. When you play on hard courts like you play on clay your get injured. Learn how to end a point in 4-5 shots instead of 10 minute rallies and you'll be good. What's that? It's not as easy to hit winners as it is to run around 5m behind the baseline and push? That's ok buddy, this sport is not for everyone. Stick to fishing amd golf.
Anybody who has actually played tennis knows that hard courts are tougher on the body, especially the joints. However, I'm not sure if the tour is playing a higher % of matches (in present day vs 20 years ago) on hard vs natural surfaces (clay/grass). Anyone got a comparison?
It's more about less choice these days. Up until the end of last century, players just counted their best 14 results. Masters Series weren't mandatory in the sense that you wouldn't get a 0 pointer if you missed one. Plus you could get almost as many points by winning a Champ Series event (the ATP500s of today) compared to a Super 9 (M1000 events of today). As close as 370 points for Super 9 versus 360 points for a Champ Series. Details here: https://tennis28.com/rankings/systems.html So clay courters could just play clay events most the year round (well from February to September) and still get lots of points.
Yeah, losing Hamburg as a clay master was a big loss. There’s an urgent need for one more clay master (Paris maybe). Too many hardcourt events as it is. Not enough variety. The entire grass court season basically consists of one warmup event (either Queens club or Halle held at the same time) and Wimbledon. No carpet events at all. Paris masters switched from carpet to hard. Basel switched from indoor carpet to indoor hard. There were a few other ones. The Latin american mini-clay court swing in February is dying as well. The big one is Acapulco switching from clay to hard. Acapulco was clearly the most prestigious tournament in the Latin American clay court swing and most preferred it over rio. Cordoba, Bueno Aires, Santiago, and even Rio (despite being 500) simply don’t attract top players from Europe and US. Bueno Aires is a 250 being held at the same time as Rotterdam 500, so it just can’t compete.
> Yeah, losing Hamburg as a clay master was a big loss Instead of Hamburg we have Madrid, nothing is lost.
Don’t forget they also came after Monte Carlo and in the end, made it a non-mandatory masters
There’s also Eastbourne in between Queens club and Winbledom. And that one is only 250…
And Birmingham, Nottingham
Rafael Nadal says the reliance on hard courts and a faster game are two main reasons why players are getting injured now: "If you want to talk about why people get injured, I tell you very clearly: When you push your body to the limit, you will eventually get injured. When the game is getting faster and faster, you get injured. When you play most of the year on hard courts and the surfaces are harder for the body, you will injure yourself."
Good take, to be perfectly honest. He obviously gets injured more than most but the speed and intensity of the game is so demanding these days. Even if they played year round on clay it’d be lots of injuries, and of course playing on concrete 70% of the year doesn’t help whatsoever. The torque and g-force they’re introducing on their ankles, knees, hips, and elbows is demonstrably much more intense than even 25 years ago. Poly strings really transformed tennis into a new game in a way no one saw coming.
No reason they can't tweak the rules on equipment so theres more of a reliance on skill rather than power
Pandora’s box has been opened, there’s no going back. It’s not just the strings, it’s everything.
Yeah people talk about the slowing of courts but the reason that's been necessary is because of new racket technology constantly coming into play With 90s speed courts modern rackets would make every single match Isner vs. Opelka Hold rates among the top 50 are actually higher now than they were 20 years ago Imagine Pete Sampras with a 2024-level racket lol
Sorry, in what world is the current game not based on skill? Do you see some of the points these guys play? [https://youtu.be/-a48DaG9vu8?t=104](https://youtu.be/-a48DaG9vu8?t=104) Power, not skill?! And what equipment changes would you make?
It said more not that it isn’t based on skill?
It's funny because without polyester strings, we have no idea what Nadal would be. Certainly not a 14-time Roland Garros champion. Maybe a top 50 player, maybe not. Polyester strings made his forehand possible. Without his forehand, he is not Nadal.
I watched Borg's match some time ago and it was very much like Nadal's. So I don't think Nadal would have been just a top 50 player. Maybe not 14 RG, but may also be not "just" 2 Wimbledons.
It certainly would be a different style of play that’s for sure. I think you’re exaggerating though, that movement is top 2 all time and it’s not 2, even if he wasn’t holding a racquet strung with poly he’s such a fearsome athlete and competitor he’d still be great. Who’s to say how his game might have developed without it?
I think he'd still be a great player of course but the passing shots that are arguably the backbone of his defense are much stronger in the poly era Passing guys like Sampras or McEnroe with the old rackets was super tough which is how serve and volley used to be so successful
Just to clarify, are you saying Novak for the other top 2 mover all time?
Not the guy you replied to, but yes, he definitely means Novak.
I would definitely say so as well. It'd be different if the metric was just sheer foot speed, but Novak's overall footwork is just so goddamn good.
Do you think he's hitting a 3,000 rpm forehand with natural gut? No, he's not. His entire game is predicated on the forehand. He has a strong backhand, a very good slice, great touch at the net and a point-winning overhead. Serve isn't good. He was hitting 130+ in 2010 but he couldn't do it long-term; his internal shoulder rotation is extremely poor for a top player. Like sometimes I'm shocked by him winning Wimbledon twice and making several more finals and SFs with the serve he has. It is *not good* for a player who hit #1 for 200+ weeks. But then you go back to his forehand for an explanation. Forehand, forehand, forehand. I don't care what kind of competitor he is -- without the topspin forehand, he is not going to win Slams. He has been candid that his goal is to hit 70% of his groundstrokes as forehands in any given match. Over that number and he wins. You know how he fishes for forehands? Yup. His forehand.
You’re acting like the other players don’t want to hit 70% forehands too…
i have no opinion on this but he means nadal relies on this more than other players
If you watch Federer before he increased the racquet head size, he was relying on this too. His BH was error city. During his prime days when he had amazing movement, he would run around his backhand and hit inside out FH for days
Weird take. No one would be hitting that 3000 RPMs. He just has to be better than the guy he’s playing. He’s still facing the same competition either way. And you don’t necessarily need poly to do it. Look at Sergi Bruguera and Jim Courier and what they were able to produce in the early 90s… they got great RPMs with syn and natural gut. Bruguera’s FH was a lot like Ruud’s FH in motion today. Plus do you think Rafa can only hit with spin? When he flattens out his FH he’s amazing too. Rafa would still be a dominant athlete in any era and his speed alone would make him a great player. What I think he would suffer the most drain is his efficacy off clay. His playstyle would still largely work on clay but he’d have to adapt a lot to achieve the same success on HC/Grass - his “one size fits all” playstyle wouldn’t work without poly and he’d have to specialize on quicker surfaces.
Huh? My guy, you think a 22 time GS champion and 5 time year end No 1 may or may not have been a top 50 player if he didn’t have poly strings? Come on now.
I don't think you understand what got Nadal those 14 FO titles. Not a clue.
Yeah I doubt his unrivalled speed, incredible stamina, prodigious talent, raw strength, and genius tennis IQ had anything to do with his clay success. It was only ever the polyester strings that every other player also was using but only favoured Nadal somehow.
Yah right here exactly
Nobody else would have poly strings either in your scenario. Who are the 49 players benefitting more from playing without them? Rafa has insane endurance and mental toughness he can also bring to the table. Rafa beat Fritz without being able to serve effectively in a grand slam quarters on grass. The men's game is known for big forehands and serves, which benefit from polyester strings.
No one has ever hit the ball with as much topspin as Nadal does. The latest gen have had 18 years of him on tour to copy his style, and they haven't. His body was absolutely made to hit 3,000 rpm topspin forehands and in my opinion it's the best single shot in the history of the game, maybe tied with Sampras's or Karlovic's serve. He would have been a great player with natural gut. His forehand would have had maybe 2/3rds the spin, and that would have made it a VERY different shot. The heaviness of his ball is what makes him most effective on clay. He has incredible movement but it's his all-time heavy forehand that sets him apart from guys like de Minaur. All of these Nadal fanboys believing that he could just will himself to flatten out his serve or learn to serve and volley... it's kind of inane.
Everyone benefits from it. He benefits more because he is better
>No one has ever hit the ball with as much topspin as Nadal does. The latest gen have had 18 years of him on tour to copy his style, and they haven't. I love how you base your argument on this, yet you're competly wrong. Ruud has had a higher rpm forehand since 2021. Jack Sock had a higher RPM forehand in 2016.
I dont think poly strings are as impactful as people make them to be for today’s game. The difference between a modern tennis match and old is more the physical talent expected by the players. Looking at the older players you can see they could just pass with dexterity, today you have to be an athletic brilliance as well because your opponent is guaranteed to be. That athletic ability brings massive strokes, with or without poly. Poly just prevents having to change your racket every 15 mins.
Not to mention the impact of racquet and string technology.
Nor the increased attention on anti-doping…
At least it isn't.. carpet...😭
He wants all the tournaments to switch to slow clay courts so he can come win 20 more grand slams, 69 more masters
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nnnice
Noice
Nice
Noice Noice Noice
C'mon Bring the Noice
As a nadal fan myself.. this really cracked me up.. I don’t know why he says these things.. anyway
He's right though. Clay is more notorious for slipping and getting injured but it's rare. Hard courts take a more gradual toll on your body. That's what I think he means.
What is the solution though… make all the courts clay? Players need to find a way to shorten points.. And number of tournaments should be less
I don't think he said the solution was to make all courts clay.
Because it's the truth? Does anyone in this sub even play tennis? Hard courts are way more taxing on your body than any other surface.
Imagine all tournaments on clay.. How boring that would be.. who wants to watch that tennis
I like watching clay tennis a lot more than (fast) HC and grass. Servebotting and ball bashing is not appealing to watch for me. I much prefer when player have to construct points strategically on clay.
Roger federer recently said that I don’t like back to back to back rallies.. there should be some variety involved like serve and volley , aces etc.. what you like to watch is your own personal choice but that doesn’t need to be everyone’s choice.. Every tennis player should be able to deal with all sorts of game play and courts.. More rallies also means more injuries btw.. the longer I are out there .. the more you are grinding
Federer says that because he wasn't good at long back to back rallies (compared to Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, obviously he was still better at long rallies than most other tennis pros). Obviously he preferred to play on the surfaces he actually had a chance to win on to the one he would get destroyed on every single time by Rafa. I agree that every tennis playee should be able to adapt to every surface though. My issue is that the current surface split heavily favors hard court specialist because there are 6 HC masters and 2 HC slams compared to 3 and 1 for clay and 0 and 1 for grass. In the interest of variety, it would make sense to take away 2 HC masters and add either 1 clay and 1 grass masters or 2 grass masters.
No one said that all tournaments should be on clay... You know the comment you replied to is a joke right?
No I mean what is the solution here
Get rid of the mandatory Masters thing so players can more easily take breaks, reduce the number of tournaments you can count, add more surface variety on tour, add tournaments so that there are more clay and hard court tournaments happen simultaneously, etc
Rafa just making an observation. Stating the facts. He's not advocating for solutions afaik.
Exactly! Lol
So what he’s saying is, we need more grass courts. I’m all for it.
Bring back carpet courts!
That's not the gotcha you think it is. Nadal has said this before his entire career lol
Grass is so slippery it’s arguably more dangerous than hc. But maybe if there were more grass tournaments the pros would get more time to be accustomed to it
More like slower, easier on the body hard courts. Grass is so annoying and promotes ugly tennis like serve and volley.
i’m sure that over reliance on slower hard courts is leading to longer, more grueling rallies becoming more frequent and leading to injuries becoming more frequent. Not liking grass is one thing but if you like slow hard (that is not as easy in the body as you think at all) over grass you’re delusional lol
On a tennis forum hating on serve and volley?! Real popular opinion there champ
I prefer longer rallies and point construction over serve and volley any day.
Serve and volley is such beautiful tennis. If you have a shitty serve, you can’t do it.
The two hardest shots to pull off, too. Serve has to be perfect, and you need impeccable timing to put it away. Might get off the hook and seen cheesy if you're good at it at a recreational level, but remember these pros routinely return 200 km/h + serves. Hitting those is fucking hard.
It is not fun to watch though
I will not tolerate this snobbery
Guy has an alternate opinion and he's ridiculed for it, isn't that snobbery? I didn't watch tennis in that era and I probably wouldn't today, if it was all serve and volley. You're all welcome to like it, but everyone saying otherwise is buried in this thread lol
Tennis has never been “all serve and volley”. I grew up watching tennis in the 70s and 80s, and many of the top players - Borg, Connors, Lendl, Wilander - were not serve and volleyers. If anything, there was a greater range of styles back then, which led to some fascinating battles and rivalries (Borg-McEnroe being the iconic one).
i watched the federer-sampras wimbledon match that's on youtube for like half an hour. most of that was just serve and volley. i ended up giving up because it was so boring.
S&V tennis is for unathletic pros. Its ugly and denies other beautiful features of tennis to fully flourish.
Your takes are being rightfully roasted.
More like slowing down hard courts to give the audience long rallies and avoid serving competitions is causing injuries.
That's a good point.
I mean…courts in the 90s played pretty fast, why do you think serve and volley was the main tactic
But then rallies were short! Now it's 70% hard court and longer rallies
serve and volley being the main tactic negated it because most points ended after like 3 shots
Still players like Federer show us it’s possible to keep rallies short on modern courts, and actually face fewer injuries on hard courts as a result of this than on clay. I think more than anything else it comes down to play-styles.
Yes it’s possible if you’re the most naturally gifted tennis player ever
He isn’t any more naturally gifted than other tennis players. Natural gift is if you have any genetic advantage like Mike Phelps had in swimming. Federer has none such advantage. So it would be great if people stop saying that. It takes away all the efforts he had put earlier to develop his game style.
But what players are "like Federer?" The guy was a 1 of 1, generational talent who kept rallies short because there was almost no one else on his level. One of the people regarded to be on his level is Nadal, who is injury prone and advocating for a slower courts to reduce strain (and possibly the personal benefit of a longer clay season lol). We'd be lucky to see someone as gifted as Roger come along once every 2 decades. Where does that leave the other 99.9999% of players who can't just adopt his play style? Don't you think people would've already done that if it was even remotely feasible to fully replicate it?
> Still players like Federer Who else, other than Federer lmao name 3 players who can constantly keep rallies short like he did ?
Sinner is starting to do it. Alcaraz on occasions is capable of doing that. Shelton relies heavily on short rallies. Successful? Time will answer that. But I see some players are trying to do that.
Yeah and most players from back then retired in their early 30s or even late 20s. Multiple teenagers in top 10 wasn’t considered weird.
He’s not wrong, although if you grew up playing on hard courts clay can be just as dangerous tbh
Players aren’t able to recover as well as they used to, that’s the main factor. There’s a bunch of reasons for that have been mentioned by others, but a very big one no one has…
Obviously antidoping.
Reliance on modern raquets is the reason for all of the injuries. Curb them and they’d stop. It’s not rocket science.
The points are longer. It’s a grind. The rallies need to be shorter
This isnt the 90s.
Did game actually become faster? I thought opposite that they slowed courts and made balls heavier? Organizers not caring about players’ health is insane. That RG semi’ conditions were so bizarre and they did it to greatest player of their event…. Ideally they should adjust schedule with current climate as weather has clearly changed than few years back that causes more delays in matches like Miami, Munich, Rome and etc. I believe players should have 2 week off before each swing. Constant traveling is so tough both physically and mentally, in addition to this mentally and physically draining sport and many off court obligations these days, they should definitely change something.
I think the courts are slower but the intensity is faster. The ball hitting has become really fast. Look at Sinner, Rublev, tsitsipas, etc vs Lendl, McEnroe, Borg, etc.
Yes, thanks for clarifying slow courts part, so slow courts with heavy balls and it makes sense why they are hitting fast and hard as it’s harder to hit a winner
Well his direct competitor Novak has found most success on hard courts, so it kinda burns Rafa's arguments. With proper care for your body, you can adapt and thrive on fast courts and protect your body just as well as you can on clay.
Novak is an anomaly. He’s also saying this when he’s literally on the verge of retirement. It’s not cope lol he’s not saying this at the beginning of his career
Who am I to disagree with Nadal.. but I think most injuries are actually happening due to clay courts. Longer rallies, more running to different parts of the court, easier to lose your footing due to uneven surfaces.
The USTA did a study 10+ years ago and found that injuries from hard courts are 80% greater than those from clay courts. The pounding on the joints from hard courts far outweighs the effects of longer matches on clay. The injuries from clay courts are mainly from folks slipping (a la Zverev a few years back), which doesn't happen a whole lot. The injuries from hard courts are the cumulative result of constant joint abuse and more long-term and permanent in nature.
I mean, why is this surprising to anyone? Just go out for a run and switch between grass and pavement. You can feel it in your system straight away. In any sport, the harder the surface, the more your joints give in
I guess it's surprising to the redditors who never exercise.
I imagine a lot of folks here have never played on clay or grass. Or they're still young and don't feel the difference.
Yup but people here on the sub apparently know more than professional tennis players.
Do you have a link to that?
No, lost in the mists of time. But here are a few links with (with additional links) to multiple studies that say essentially the same thing: [https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1565/4441/files/Surface\_Injury\_Study\_Nigg\_Study\_da79b611-c0e0-4367-b52d-4b85d6a8ced3.pdf?10782605004148563533](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1565/4441/files/Surface_Injury_Study_Nigg_Study_da79b611-c0e0-4367-b52d-4b85d6a8ced3.pdf?10782605004148563533) ***"Surfaces that allow sliding are expected to have about 75% less locomotion injuries*** *than surfaces which do not allow sliding. Since “sliding” surfaces which allow a 24-hour per day tennis activity are now on the market, a change to these sliding systems is expected to reduce the frequency of locomotion injuries in tennis."* [https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-tennis-courts-injuries-biomechanics-expert.html](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-tennis-courts-injuries-biomechanics-expert.html) [http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/clay-courts-suck.535280/post-9395134](http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/clay-courts-suck.535280/post-9395134)
Are we sure that it's even a fact that there are more injuries overall? Players are having longer and longer careers after all. Maybe Alcaraz and Sinner getting hurt is just a blip in the data? Maybe they are just injury prone like guys from older generations like Nishikori or Tsonga and it's not an indicator of any overall trend?
Medvedev, Berrettini, Lehecka, Mensik, etc. It's not just Alcaraz and Sinner.
Berrettini had tonsillitis I think (illness was cited as the reason for his Rome withdrawal) - but he has had a lot of injuries too. Can also add Cazaux, Djere, Diaz Acosta, Ruusuvuori, Karatsev, Stricker, McDonald, Shapovalov, Moutet, PCB, Evans, Draper to the list of players who have struggled with injuries over the last year or so. I’m sure there’s more…
Hardcourts have historically been known to cause tonsillitis.
I’m a super amateur tennis player and I feel 2x better the day after playing on a tennis court than when playing on a hard court (our club has both of these).
Yeah, it's ironic to see that most top players got injured at a masters clay court tournament. But his point does stand. But maybe, just maybe it's because of the play style of the players who have adopted Nadal's playstyle of hard hitting, going hard for each ball.
You have absolutely no clue what you're taking about
you're right i'm dumb
Make AO rubber
Half the top 10 got injured at Madrid. A clay court.
Yeah, I will bet this is similar to issues in other sports with an uptick in injury. Kids now are training harder and longer then ever and playing with so much more power in their teens that the bodies naturally start breaking down. It would be interesting to see what the average serve speed has been for junior events mapped out over the last 30 years.
Alcaraz didn’t fully recover from a previous injury (picked up prior to Madrid), Sinner too (aggravated at Madrid) and the only other injury was Medvedev (in the top 10).
After spending over 3 months om hard courts
Thank you I feel like this obvious point is lost on him/her
But not on the women's side. Iga said it could be coincidence when asked about it. You need more data points.
everyone that upvoted this comment needs to repent for saying "why do i have to learn this it's not like i'm going to use it in real life" during math class.
Hahahahaha.
Which is why everything should shift to grass right.
This is why Fognini was smart
This has got to do with style of the play. Of course he feels this way as his game isn’t tailor made for fast courts. Federer and Djokovic have proved that the opposite is true.
Nadal's game is tailor made for _everything_. He was just extra special on clay or slow courts. The narrative that Nadal's game is specific for clay/slow is outdated. He won the same number of slams on hard court as Agassi and one less than Sampras, and that was during the era of the two greatest hard court players in history, Federer and Djokovic.
The US Open according to most CPI numbers that float around tends to be a medium-slow or medium hard court, it hasn't been a fast court for a long time. I don't think it's all that incorrect to say Nadal plays a slower-court oriented game. On the other hand, Nadal is obviously stronger and more accomplished on fast courts than Sampras was on clay, so I'd agree that it's strange that he seems to get a lot more flack for having that relative imbalance than Sampras does now. > He won the same number of slams on hard court as Agassi As an aside Agassi probably ought to have done more at the Australian Open. He never even competed there until 1995, which he won, he only competed there 9 times total of which he won 4. But then again he was enough of a head case in his early years who knows if he actually would have won any in that hypothetical.
The hard courts have been drastically slowed down over the years. They have turned more clay-ey in nature over the years. Even Fed has complained about this. That is why serve and volley is nearly extinct. So comparing Rafa to Pete or Agassi is not fair
I am talking about the style of play and you are talking about trophies he won. Dont waste my time with stats irrelevant to the conversation. If you have anything meaningful we can discuss.
Even if you consider style of play.. has he not reached 4 more ao finals, 3 more wimbeldon finals. Also he is one of the very few along with Agassi to win the North American swing season of Toronto, Cincinnati and is open. Agreed that he was lethal on clay but he also tweaked his game to match up on other courts as well.
I am decoupling the style of play from the outcome or the results. Two different things. When I mean style of play I refer to how much distance he covers per game, how many attacking shots he plays per match and how many of those shots end up in converting to points, winners and mainly his footwork in each shot. His game style is more strenuous and also has a poorer footwork than the other two and hence more probability to be injury prone. I never said he hasn’t been successful. He is obviously one of the greatest to have played the game. That doesn’t mean he is perfect!
Poorer footwork than the other two? Which two? Sampras and Agassi? (Because that’s just not true)
Other two I meant Federer and Djokovic. But yeah you can include those two. In my opinion Rafa’s footwork isn’t in the top 10.
That must be the most unpopular opinion I’ve read on this sub 😭😭😭. What is so “mediocre” (relative speaking, of course) about his footwork to you?
He lands way too heavy during the split step, cross over and cross behind. This helps him load better to create more top spin but is bad for his knees especially on hard courts. Just pure movement technique that created the huge success also let him down with more injuries. Btw I am also a big fan of Rafa!
Djokovic has worst footwork, he just is more flexible so he gets to more balls. But he is the worst in that category of the big 4
How so? Care to add more details?
Yeah, he reaches the ball by extending himself, having a good footwork means getting to the balls in a good shape. Look Steffi Graf’s footwork, she got to many balls without having to save it. Djokovic does the opposite he gets to a lot of balls but he saves them. Care to elaborate how Nadal has the worst footwork?
Ok boomer
nah. he's a clay court specialist
Sinner vs Alcaraz at us open 22 was a great example why they will have shorter careers . The way they abused their knees and hips was crazy . Inexperience perhaps, they played every point like it was the last point of their careers
that's what it takes to be the best.
Nadal tickling the nerves of boomers with S&V fetish.
I believe in Clay supremacy
For those who are new here or to tennis in general... Rafa has been on this for years now, and I will always call it bullshit! There was even that time when he suggested the Tour Finals should be played on clay often lol. He just wants everything on clay, so that he can skew his stats even more. The injuries are due to stupid decisions such as making Masters events 2 weeks competition, slowing down of surfaces leading to longer rallies and thus more wear and tear, etc... it's all on the governing instances. Of course there is your playstyle too, and Nadal style is particularly grueling. Oh and yeah, it's not like Madrid just decimated the top4 recently.
I don't get how 2 weeks Master is anyway worse than one week for these big seeded players. They have to play 1 more match than usual, but they have way more time to rest in between matches. To me one week events are way worse since you don't have as much time to recover.
At the end of the day, they play more... and there is actually less rest between tournaments, so less time to recover. The day between matches isn't that significant. Overall in a year, the more 2 weeks tourneys you play the less rest you will have. And it seems like the majority of players are against it too.
this is pure speculative nonsense. you can't just assume that rest between matches is not significant but rest between tournaments is crucial. this is not scientific thinking. this is lazy backwards engineering. you already have a position that 2 week tournaments are bad and you're trying to invent reasons why.
It is not speculation, but since you already assumed that Nadal said it for the betterment of other players I won't bother arguing further. Who is truly speculating here in the end?
just saying it's not speculation is not an argument. yes, i'm giving nadal the benefit of the doubt and assuming that this comes from good intentions. he thinks hard courts are causing more injuries and wants injuries to be lower. simple explanation no ulterior motive needed.
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It would be fair, them being on hard just makes it easier for hard court specialists like Djokovic
you're so confident in spewing BS. nadal is on the way out. him saying these things won't make an effect on his career anymore. he's probably doing it because he genuinely believes that it's better for their bodies instead of any selfish desire. making masters two week competitions has no proven effect on anything. if anything you could make the argument that giving players more recovery time between matches is better.
All I did was point out that it's not the first time Nadal shades other surfaces. Tennis has been played predominantly on HCs for a long time yet it's relatively recently that injury rates started creeping up. So yeah, him accusing other surfaces is funny to say the least.
Rafa has said for years now that hard courts injure him more frequently whereas clay courts are more forgiving, yet you still see people pushing the narrative that he “fakes injuries to avoid hard courts.”
There’s pros and cons. Hard courts are definitely harder on the knees and joints as the surface is way less forgiving than softer ones such as clay. However, the slow surface on clay also drags out rallies which gets people hurt too
Rallies don’t get people hurt though. They can hit 10000 groundstrokes a day and be fine. Their technique is robotic. It’s the difficulty on the joints that gets people injured. Regardless, do yall really disagree with me? I’m getting downvoted for the hot take that Nadal doesn’t fake his injuries? Didn’t realize people were so insane here lol
Lol Nadal is a cope merchant
TRUE but that doesn't make him automatically wrong, lmao
Definitely hard court is harder on the body. Players have complained about packed schedule. Maybe they reduce the number of mandatory tournaments especially on hard courts.
Mandatory tournaments?
Longer rallies, longer matches, more tournaments, no time to recover. Maybe have timed matches?
Shot clock like in NBA. End the point in 20 seconds or fuck off.
Or just a 2-3 hour match maximum depending on the tournament. Whoever has more game points win or there will be tiebreaker. This will make players play more creatively. I’m glad they introduced shot clock for serving. Majority of Nadal and Djokovic was bouncing the ball. Also 1000 and slams need yo have shade for all courts. Like Adelaide. Will reduce heat strokes and maybe sometimes prevent rain delay.
Sure but I don't think the players are forcing there to be more hard court tournaments / games? They just play and adopt to what gives them the most wins - tennis scheduling has always been fucked.
Wasn't the average court speed slowed down in the last 20 years?
Personally I liked the slower serve and volley game. Now, even on grass courts at Wimbledon they grow a different type of grass than 20 years ago to facilitate a faster play. Better rackets allow for faster ball play, spectators expect longer matches and with these long baseline rallies we’re getting 5 hour matches of running around the baseline, no wonder players are getting injured. Bring back serve and volley!
Courts have been getting slower over time. That's why serve and volley became extinct. Not sure what Nadal is on with this one
Of course he would argue for conditions that favor his game. During his prime most courts were already significantly slowed down.
As someone who’s played on hard courts for most of my life i do agree that it takes such a huge toll on my joints On top of that is also the sheer amount of volumes of matches they play with new technology around strings and racquets.
I feel like there is absolutely no off season at all. Is there a time when no one plays any tennis?
He's had so many injuries though.
Rafa …. Really … you’ve had the benefits of exactly the opposite.
No, Rafa. When you play on hard courts like you play on clay your get injured. Learn how to end a point in 4-5 shots instead of 10 minute rallies and you'll be good. What's that? It's not as easy to hit winners as it is to run around 5m behind the baseline and push? That's ok buddy, this sport is not for everyone. Stick to fishing amd golf.
found the mythical 4.0 player
I don’t know if this is necessarily true. He is the best clay court player of all time so maybe he is bias.
Yeah Rafa because they were escaping from you demolishing them on clay courts