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发帖数: 5101 | 1 What Fish Needs to Do Against Nadal
By GEOFF MACDONALD
Mardy Fish has never beaten Rafael Nadal, and will have to play the match of
his life to win on Wednesday. He has to formulate a shrewd game plan,
matching his strengths against Nadal’s one or two less than stellar
tendencies, then quickly recalibrate when Nadal makes a subtle adjustment.
For, more than any top player, Nadal taxes you mentally as well as
physically. He not only exhausts his opponents by running them coast to
coast, but also constantly wears down the concentration and the will as the
match progresses. He is a master at securing an early service break after a
particularly brutal set. The tendency to want to rest, to take a game off
and regroup, is a siren call to Nadal’s opponents. For Fish to beat Nadal,
he cannot succumb to such lapses.
What else can Fish do to win against Nadal? I think he will look to attack
Nadal wide to the forehand early in the point. The great Bill Tilden liked
to attack his opponent’s strength, and Fish will go hard at Rafa’s
forehand. This opens up Nadal’s backhand side. Fish could do very well if
he makes as many points as possible about Nadal’s backhand passing shot.
Another ploy that would work is for Fish to sneak in and play a volley
whenever Rafa looks to play a chip. It often floats, and it would put
pressure on Nadal whenever he tries the shot. I would also not be surprised
if Fish serves and volleys to take advantage of Nadal’s deep returning
position. Nadal often moves closer to the baseline to return on grass, but
Fish has a fine volley and will need to play shorter points to deprive Nadal
of rhythm.
One other tactic that Fish uses well is to play his groundstrokes deep and
down the middle. Robin Soderling used this tactic when he beat Rafa at
Roland Garros two years ago. He would pin Nadal deep, then hit a heavy
angled crosscourt just past the service line to put Rafa on the defensive.
But Nadal will be ready to counter any successful Fish advance. Uncle Toni
Nadal has helped Rafa develop an incredible grasp of tactics. Toni Nadal, in
addition to being a fine tennis player in his youth, is fascinated by the
game of chess. He has coached his nephew to the top of the men’s game, and
he has shaped Nadal into a tactical genius.
Often the shift in tactics is barely noticeable. Against Juan Martín del
Potro on Monday, Nadal was down set point, serving at 5-6 in the first set
tie breaker. Where to serve? Wide to the backhand is Nadal’s signature
serve to the ad court, and I think del Potro was expecting to be stretched
wide. But Nadal served a slice up the T that curved into del Potro’s body
on the forehand side. He netted the return, and the momentum in the tie
breaker swung over to Nadal. It was an inspired change.
A subplot in the match is the injury to Nadal’s left foot. He called both
the doctor and the trainer to the court just before the first-set tie
breaker. This miffed Del Potro, who thought the umpire should have denied
the injury timeout. This is a gray area in the rules, and Nadal is a master
at pushing a few rules to the limit. He regularly exceeds the time allotted
between points, and his long looks at Uncle Toni remind me of a batter
stepping out of the box to get a sign from the third-base coach. Coaching is
not allowed on the ATP Tour, but the rule against it has never been
enforced.
Nadal’s wily ability to push the envelope with certain vague rules is
another way that he is supremely difficult to beat. He is adept at changing
the battlefield for brief periods if he senses that his opponent is on a
roll. John McEnroe was famous for doing this, complaining about a close line
call for several minutes while his opponent stood there and cooled off.
Nadal is way subtler, but he is a genius at getting — and then keeping —
psychological control of a match. The late David Foster Wallace wrote a
scathingly funny take on Nadal making Federer, the umpire and a terminally
ill child with cancer wait a few long minutes for him before the coin flip
at the 2007 Wimbledon final. But Nadal wanted to establish control and
dominance on court right away.
For Fish to win, he will have to get by all of these facets of Nadal’s game
, his awesome strokes, his tactical acuity and his ability to do whatever it
takes to control and dominate. Nadal understands that tennis is civilized
war. For Fish to have a chance, he will need to be ready to battle Nadal
with every fiber of his being. Killing the king is never easy, nor is it
clean. |
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