Each tennis fan felt compelled to choose in the midst of a current golden period for the game. Who was the most effective: Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal?
By 2012, the three horsemen of males’s tennis gained all the pieces, couldn’t be crushed by anybody however one another, and dragged the game into the long run with whirling top-spin forehands and impossibly exact backhands. They expanded what tennis perfection might be, and I felt I wanted to decide on a aspect within the arms race.
I in the end selected Federer, the oldest however most profitable to that time. He by no means appeared to get too upset or too excited, the aspirational reverse of my sport, which generally included damaged rackets and screams of indignation. He wore cool headbands as a substitute of hats, and his one-handed backhand was easy. When he would play Djokovic, I nicknamed him “Roger Higher-er” in opposition to “Novak Choke-ovic.”
Djokovic spent the final 12 years convincing me I picked the incorrect aspect, declaring himself the Biggest of All Time with essentially the most Grand Slams, most weeks at No. 1 within the rankings, and Olympic God, paying homage to Napoleon crowning himself emperor to point out the place he believed his energy got here from. Federer retired as maybe essentially the most dominant over any 10-year stretch, however Djokovic stood the take a look at of time.
The odd man out was Nadal, who retired Thursday morning after a 23-year skilled profession through which he gained 22 Grand Slams, second solely to Djokovic. He’s both the second or third-greatest of all time and dominated any clay court docket he stepped foot on. He had explosive reactions, vibrant and likable aura, and is maybe essentially the most bodily gifted males’s tennis participant in historical past.
He was nearly excellent, and he’ll go down because the icon he was. The subsequent era of tennis terminators all owe Nadal for the blueprint he wrote, and for the stature he maintained. However I’ll additionally keep in mind the almosts, and I’m wondering if he might have, and even ought to have, been higher
At his peak, Nadal was a beast even Djokovic and Federer couldn’t deal with. His picturesque left-handed forehand spun quicker than anybody else’s, permitting him to tee off on slow-bouncing balls on springy clay courts with the pressure of a thousand suns with out committing too many errors. He grew up enjoying on clay in Spain, and it’s unfair to the remainder of the world — the place exhausting and grass courts are extra frequent — that the Nadal’s expertise was loosed on this floor.
Of his 22 Grand Slams, 14 of them got here on the French Open, the lone clay main match. Between 2005 and 2022 Nadal gained it 4 instances in a row three totally different instances, and selecting anybody to beat him there was as clumsy because it was silly. He didn’t simply really feel inevitable, he truly was. His 81 match clay win streak stands alone because the longest of anybody on any floor, but it felt three-times longer. It was absurd, unbeatable and even boring at instances. No one else had an opportunity. Ever.
His physique was constructed on a lab bench to play tennis on clay. His legs had been lengthy and versatile however nonetheless constructed like tree trunks, permitting him to slip to balls he had no enterprise reaching. But his shoulders and torso are compact, permitting his higher arms free-range of movement to hit quite a lot of angled-shots whereas sustaining energy. Whereas Federer and Djokovic beat everybody by enjoying completely for longer and extra usually, Nadal simply pulled out a shotgun and destroyed you.
He might all the time hit the ball tougher than his opponents, and so he discovered how you can maximize that benefit. Nadal proved that operating round your backhand to get to your forehand was a viable transfer, all however inventing a tactic that has come to dominate trendy males’s tennis. Why hit a weak, difficult-to-control backhand when you’ll be able to contort your upper-third to grip, rip and ship a 100 mile-per-hour forehand proper the place you need it to go?
Nadal might maintain his bodily benefit above his two contemporaries till his physique started to surrender on him, when the chilly, plodding model of Djokovic was too environment friendly to withstand. However he saved successful the French Open, over and time and again.
His single-surface dominance is a double-edged sword; each an unprecedented achievement and an argument in opposition to his greatness. Nadal gained a Grand Slam on each floor no less than twice amongst his 22, however it did generally really feel low cost that he had the French Open in his pocket yearly. Nadal knew this — in direction of the tip, he would skip different majors to verify he was wholesome sufficient for July. Whereas Djokovic and Federer had been locked in a battle for each match they entered, Nadal would seize a spare exhausting court docket title right here and there whereas calmly accumulating French Opens and rising his slam rely.
Ought to that detract from his greatness, making him 2B to Federer’s 2A, a person he has two extra Grand Slams than? Maybe, although it’s fairer to say the 2 males achieved their stature by way of totally different calculations. It might be correct to name Nadal “one of many biggest” grass and exhausting court docket gamers and “by far the best” clay court docket participant within the historical past of males’s tennis, arriving at “second-greatest” from a special components than the Swiss maestro’s all-around portfolio.
And due to his bodily prowess, his sport shone by way of the lengthy march to perfection that Federer and Djokovic had been having. No picture of Nadal is full with out his highly effective roars and full-body fist-pumps after spectacular winners, nor with out his infectious smile, displaying his tennis-body prolonged to speaking the proper-level of happiness after a win.
Nadal’s retirement might have jogged my memory of all of the issues he nearly was, however he was actually, actually nice ultimately, irrespective of the diploma. He was the bringer of his personal future; utterly inevitable as he marched to extra French Opens, worldwide fame and ultimately to the tip. He confirmed that tennis was cool, explosive and passionate. Nadal was distinctive, but additionally the forerunner to right now’s era of bodily gamers with forehands-of-mass-destruction. Federer and Djokovic captured my creativeness, however Nadal might have completed extra to make the sport the attractive battlefield it’s right now than both of them. For that, I’ll keep in mind him fondly.
