Nadal's Anticipation

As I'm not particularly a Nadal fan the only times I really watch him play is against Federer, Djokovic or Murray. One of the things that does strike me about his game other than the rpms on his forehand is his ability to anticipate where the opponent is going to hit the ball when they are putting it away for what should be a winner thus winning some points at the last second that you were sure he was going to lose. So many times his opponent is going for a forehand put away at the net, a volley or even an overhead smash and he positions himself to get the ball back past the bemused player on the other side of the net. Obviously other players have their moments like this aswell where they chose the right direction in the last instant and it goes their way but Nadal seems to do this so often that it has to be down to some natural ability he possesses of taking in all the information about what the other player is going to do and processing it in less than a split second to make a decision.

He's well known for the energy he brings to the court and the psychological effect this can have on the other player. I think this ability of his plays a massive role in his success and really does leave whoever he's playing wondering what they need to do to win a point especially when it comes down to the big points. Can you think of another player past or present with a similar level of anticipation. The only two I can think of from the present players is Murray when he used to play well, he'd often instinctively move in the right direction and used to get the better of Rafa in reflex situations on many occasions. He seems to have lost some of this now though. The other one I can think of is Federer back in his prime, his anticipation in these situations came close to Nadal's.

Good post...again! Though I disagree the content partly.

I think Coria and Murray have for instance a better anticipation sense. Simply because they stand closer to the baseline, generally, giving themselves less time to anticipate but still doing as well as Nadal in my view.

However, it's important not to mix anticipation and court placement.

The way someone positions himself on the court is extremely important to help "anticipating" where the ball is going. For instance Nadal covers his BH by staying very much on his BH side most of the time and therefore teasing the player to go for his FH and his mind is already anticipating going there.

Too me Nadal is standing too far back to be a proper (anticipater). He is simply amazingly fast and that is what really surprise the crowd most of the time but his strength is also being able to generate power while extremely stretched when most players would just have the power to push the ball back to the other side of the court.

Just look at his return of serve, he doesn't gamble on the anticipation, he stays further back than most and uses his legs and power to compensate for his 3m-behind-baseline standing.

Its true that most of the time he does stand further back though I would still say it takes a lot of anticipation to retrieve an opponents shot from at the net. His speed undoubtably helps with all this but I think his anticipation helps him get the best use out of his speed. One other thing to suggest good anticipation is how he usually wins the 'reflex' points where one or both the players are at the net and the ball is going back and forth too quickly to give either player time to think.

Some wonderful shots....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD03WHQtYho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN-WcXmn9gI

Tenez wrote:

I think Coria and Murray have for instance a better anticipation sense. Simply because they stand closer to the baseline, generally, giving themselves less time to anticipate but still doing as well as Nadal in my view.

However, it's important not to mix anticipation and court placement.

I think that sums it up in a nutshell really. Nadal on clay pretty much stands in locker room when receiving.

I think when he returns serves going down the T to his FH or BH especially, it can be unsettling for the server because it either drops just over the net forcing the server to come in and try to pick a ridiculous angle given Nadal's retrieval skills or the return lands near the baseline giving the server again no opportunity to find a winner. It can be frustrating to see a lovely first serve come back to the server with no pace and putting them under pressure to incentivise the ensuing rally.

laverfan wrote:Some wonderful shots....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD03WHQtYho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN-WcXmn9gI

The Aus open point I guess is maybe a better example than I gave it credit for at first. Fed has a lot of preparation for that shot in running around his backhand, I think the point was lost when he decided to hit the ball there as Nadal anticipated and hadn't moved from that spot.

Nothing much stands out from that wimbledon tie break (on Nadal's part) apart from Nadal's passing shot to set up match point but that was just a passing shot and though fed was moving to the net he'd hit an approach shot and was expecting the ball to come back anyway albeit not like that.

That point in that AO is one of the best example showing the power of Nadal's arm (the last shot). No time for prepartion, no time for shoulder or leg rotation, just a throw of the arm and the ball has enough spin and power to make it a safe winner after a long rally.

No other player can pull such shot without taking much more risk.