The Oxymoron

Watching Rafael Nadal take a cleaver to some guy the other night (I can't even remember his name anymore) got me thinking along a track that, ultimately, brought Nadal into sharper and clearer perspective for me. It all started with this intuitive flash that while Rafa is the natural descendant of  Bjorn Borg, it's much more instructive to compare him with that other great baseliner, Jimmy Connors.

The trouble with the Borg comparison is that it's so basic and self-evident that you don't learn much from it. By contrast, the comparison with Jimbo goes to the heart of Nadal's game and raises interesting issues about it. The exercise is fun because it shows that Connors and Nadal are vastly different players who had a whole lot in common. How can you resist the oxymoronic?

For starters, here is what they have in common:

• Both are left-handed, with a two-handed backhand.

• Tremendous anticipation and retrieving ability.

• Excellent clay-court records (If you don't believe that of Connors, look it up)

• Failure to capitalize on being left-handed when it comes to the serve. Like Connors', Nadal's service motion is, if not exactly "flawed", then poorly designed and inefficient. You don't even need to know why, precisely; all you need do is look. Like Connors', Nadal often seens to hunch. You can just see how neither of them learned how  to open his arms, throw out his chest, and git right after that sucker, in the manner of a Sampras, Djokovic, McEnroe  or Federer.

• Aggressive games from the back court.

• Enormous fighting spirit.

Now, here are the major differences between the two:

• Physically, Nadal is a heavyweight, while Jimbo is a middleweight; this means Nadal has more firepower and muscle, while Connors was more nimble.

• Connors was always looking to come in to knock off the volley; Nadal is far less interested in advancing to the net.

• Connors played primarily from a closed stance on his forehand as well as his side (that is, given the time, he tended to set-up for his forehand, even when on the run, with his shoulders at a right angle to the net). Nadal is more prone to play "open stance", with his shoulders parallel with the net). But both men have significant rotation on the two-handed backhand.

• Connors had exquisite balance; like The Mighty Fed, he almost always seemed to be prepared for the shot - and the next one. By contrast, I am always amazed at how often Nadal looks off-balance, like a window-washer who just feel off the scaffolding, desperately taking a swipe at the safety rope with his squeegee. This has less to do with "talent" or "skill" per se than technique.

• Connors hit a relatively flat ball; Nadal uses a lot of spin.

So how does all this help me when it comes to trying to understand Nadal? Mainly, that Rafa's technique and style present built-in obstacles to Nadal developing a key ingredient to all-surface, all-purpose tennis. Although his shotmaking ability, speed and strength enable him to go from defense to offense in the blink of an eye, they are not built on a platform that lends itself to the transition game. And the transition game is the grail for anyone who would enjoy great success on the hard courts that are so ubiqitious today.

Borg, of course, did well on hard courts without having much of a transition game, but this is one of those cases where I think that the times, and the basic menu of styles the players embodied, really do make a difference. To wit, there hasn't been a period in tennis when the transition game is more important than it is right now, because there hasn't been a time when there has been less variation in surface speed, tournament-to-tournament. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that three of the four majors were on grass; today, two of them are on neutral hard courts, and Wimbledon itself has been significantly slowed.

Connors was the master of the transition game, less because of surface-related issues than his lightness of foot and groundstroking technique.  How often did we watch him take that hammer-throw backhand from somewhere around the baseline and rumble to the net behind it, ready to set himself for the winning volley or overhead? Off both wings but the backhand in particular, a Connors shot catapulted him toward the net. It was just one of the advantages of great rotation combined with a willingness to go forward. He hurled himself into the ball, and hit it relatively flat. The momentum carried him forward and the fllatness of shot ensured that his opponent would have less time to hurt Connors as he rolled in for the kill.

By contrast, Nadal is a "straight-up" player - more of a Borg, or, more vividly, Ivan Lendl. Even on that backhand, the shoulder turn isn't used to start Nadal toward the net as much as to create force and weight as he swings up and over the ball. This effect is even more pronounced on Nadal's bolo forehand.  Images in this case, is everything; just look at the photos to see how often Nadal finishes looking like the momentum might cause him to fall over backwards. Connors, by contrast, was always in danger of falling over - forwards.

The stance each man uses is also germane. With the closed stance (shoulders at a right-angle to the net), Connors was able to take more balls more-or-less on the run, and continue to the net, while the open-stance practically demands that Nadal stop, hit his shot, and recover from the long, high follow-through before he can advance. You can't hit effectively from the closed-stance on either side without automatically gaining forward momentum, while you can't hit effectively from the open stance without winding up with your momentum heading somewhere stage right (for a lefty). The closed-stance starts you at 90-degrees to the net and leaves you facing the net; the open stance does the opposite when you factor in trunk rotation.

The last element I'd consider in this discussion is the serve. Connors's so-so serve made his life much more difficult; Nadal's own lack of a serve with real sting and trademark lefty spin also keeps him from earning cheap or free points. It isn't so much a matter of how much energy or labor Nadal could save if his serve were more of  weapon; he has the same relish for running and fetching and rallying as Connors did. But Nadal would have more options launching a point if he could really set guys back on their heels with his delivery. Everything a player does (or can do) flows from his serve, and how effective it is. Everything. That players fail to capitalize on that in this era doesn't make it any less true.

I suppose that these all might sound like criticisms of Nadal's game; I prefer to think of them as the quantifiable reasons for why his hard court results haven't matched his productivity on clay and grass. I don't think that these impediments are deal-breakers for Nadal - not by a long shot. The strengths that offset his weaknesses, such as they are, are formidable, starting with his will to win, his stamina, and his combination of quickness and strength - a combination that may be unprecedented in the era. And in the end, contemplating the elements that hold Rafa back, instead of merely those that make him the clear world No. 2, leads to a richer understanding of his game.

We'll give Roger a similar if less comprehensive treatment tomorrow.