The Spin King - Rafael Nadal
by Jason Goodall

Rafael Nadal is unique. Nobody's ever hit the ball as viciously with as much topspin as he does from the back of the court. He uses the fact that he's so gifted physically to his advantage, generating a huge amount of racket-head speed that in turn allows him to create more spin than anybody else ever has.

Maximum recorded rotations per minute on Nadal's forehand: 4,900



Using high-speed digital recording cameras to film the ball on impact with the racket, and then calculating the rotations of the ball over the course of the trajectory of the shot, work has been published that suggests Nadal can hit up to 4,900 rotations per minute, which is staggering. His average is a whopping 3,300.

To put this into perspective, Federer's average is 2,700 and Pete Sampras's was 1,850, whilst Tim Henman's was only 1,288.

This means that Nadal's forehand is by far his most effective shot, as more often than not it travels nice and high over the net and then because of the topspin it kicks up viciously off the court, which means that countering it is a tricky business. Opponents either have to take great risks by trying to take the ball early or they have to retreat well behind their own baseline, which leaves them just where Nadal wants them.

But on grass the conditions don't suit Nadal's natural style of play quite as much as his beloved clay, so he has to fine-tune his game plan accordingly and this starts with his serve.On clay against right-handers, the vast majority of the Spaniard's first serves go to their backhand but on grass Nadal varies his delivery more, creating a much more even spread when serving to both the right and left court with both first and second serves.

On clay, he takes pace off his first serve to try to get a higher percentage of them in and thereafter gain the upper hand from the back of the court in the ensuing rally. On grass, he's looking to dominate at the earliest available opportunity so he hits his first serve harder in the hope of earning more cheap points outright.

Nadal average first serve speed


And when returning he takes a much more aggressive position. Against Robin Soderling in the French Open final he stood on average 3.3 metres behind the baseline, but on the grass at Queen's during the Aegon Championships on average in all of his matches he was standing just 0.3 metres behind the baseline to return opponents' first serves, and amazingly 0.55 metres inside the baseline when facing a second serve.

This means he has to react a lot quicker: the reaction time when retuning a first serve hit at 125mph on clay standing on average 3.3 meters behind the baseline is 0.739 of a second.

On grass, when returning a serve hit at the same pace, the reaction time is reduced to just 0.604 of a second, given that at Queen's he was standing on average 2.2 meters closer to the baseline. This means his reaction time instantly needed to improve by just over 18%.

There's no question that serious adjustments need to be made when Nadal takes to a grass court for the Spaniard to be effective at the highest level, and the fact that he's been able to do so in the past is remarkable given there's so little time between the end of the French Open and the start of Wimbledon.

This year it's obvious that he knows what's required eventually to prevail in SW19, and when play gets under way he'll be fully focused on executing that game plan.
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