Rafael Nadal announced his retirement last year, drawing curtains to a glittering career which also saw him 22 major titles (including a record 14 French Open titles). Nadal’s departure from the ATP circuit also saw Novak Djokovic being left alone as the only active member of the Big Three.
The Spaniard recently appeared on Andy Roddick’s YouTube podcast, where he weighed in on his Big Three rivalries with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
Roger Federer rivalry vs Novak Djokovic rivalry
Nadal’s rivalry has gone down the annals of history as one of the best in sports folklore. Explaining why it was more attractive than his rivalry with Djokovic, Nadal said, “In my opinion that’s why the rivalry with Roger was a little bit more attractive for the fans, than Novak against me. Even if I played more times with Novak, and we played exactly the same number of important matches, or even more. Because with Roger I think the strategy was more clear.”
Revealing his tactics for the Swiss tennis legend, he said, “I was trying to do one thing, he was trying to do another. In some way I was trying to kill his backhand all the time, and even for me, if I had the chance to play the shot down the line, I was saying to myself: Okay, when I have to play the shot down the line it’s only for two reasons: one, for the winner. The other is because I need to get him away from that side to create more space again.”
“And he was trying to avoid that.
“He was trying to play aggressively. Everytime when he was hitting his forehand I felt like I had to step back, because his forehand, for me, is the best that I played against. It was a little bit more like a chess match. Everybody knew what was going to happen, everybody knew what the strategy was going to be. And then when he was playing very well, he beat me, when I was playing well I beat him. At the beginning of my career, I beat him more on clay and on hardcourts it had been much more difficult.”
Then we labelled Djokovic’s rivalry as ‘a little bit different’, and that strategy wasn’t a decisive factor. “Against Novak it was a little bit different. We can have a strategy, but at the end it is about… I need to play well. We don’t play the same style of course, but there was not a clear strategy like I had against Roger, where I would damage his backhand. Against Novak I didn’t have that feeling. The feeling was that I would need to play very well for a long time, and know that I had to adjust things,” he said.
Also hailing the Serbian as the player with the best ball control ever, Nadal said, “I couldn’t play too many times against his backhand, especially high balls because then he takes the ball quicker and puts you in a very difficult position, so I started to use the slice more against him, and sometimes it worked for me well, and sometimes against Novak it was good for me to play to the middle. Don’t give him a lot of angles. With Novak when you were able to open him, if you don’t really create a lot of damage, he was able to open you more. In terms of control – ball control – I think he is the best I ever played, and that I ever saw.”
