Each tennis fan felt compelled to select in the course of a latest golden period for the game. Who was one of the best: 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 longer term 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 facet 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 typically included damaged rackets and screams of indignation. He wore cool headbands as an alternative of hats, and his one-handed backhand was clean. When he would play Djokovic, I nicknamed him “Roger Higher-er” towards “Novak Choke-ovic.”
Djokovic spent the final 12 years convincing me I picked the unsuitable facet, declaring himself the Best of All Time with essentially the most Grand Slams, most weeks at No. 1 within the rankings, and Olympic God, harking back to Napoleon crowning himself emperor to indicate 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 probably essentially the most bodily proficient males’s tennis participant in historical past.
He was nearly excellent, and he’ll go down because the icon he was. The following technology of tennis terminators all owe Nadal for the blueprint he wrote, and for the stature he maintained. However I’ll additionally bear in mind the almosts, and I ponder if he may 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 sooner than anybody else’s, permitting him to tee off on slow-bouncing balls on springy clay courts with the drive 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 widespread — 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 event. Between 2005 and 2022 Nadal gained it 4 occasions in a row three totally different occasions, 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 occasions. 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 may all the time hit the ball more durable than his opponents, and so he found out the way to maximize that benefit. Nadal proved that working 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 may 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 towards his greatness. Nadal gained a Grand Slam on each floor not less than twice amongst his 22, however it did typically really feel low-cost that he had the French Open in his pocket yearly. Nadal knew this — in direction of the top, he would skip different majors to verify he was wholesome sufficient for July. Whereas Djokovic and Federer had been locked in a warfare for each event they entered, Nadal would seize a spare exhausting court docket title right here and there whereas calmly accumulating French Opens and growing 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 via totally different calculations. It might be correct to name Nadal “one of many best” 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 unique method than the Swiss maestro’s all-around portfolio.
And due to his bodily prowess, his sport shone via 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, exhibiting 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 really, really nice ultimately, regardless of the diploma. He was the bringer of his personal future; fully inevitable as he marched to extra French Opens, worldwide fame and finally to the top. He confirmed that tennis was cool, explosive and passionate. Nadal was distinctive, but additionally the forerunner to as we speak’s technology of bodily gamers with forehands-of-mass-destruction. Federer and Djokovic captured my creativeness, however Nadal might have executed extra to make the sport the gorgeous battlefield it’s as we speak than both of them. For that, I’ll bear in mind him fondly.
