How does homogenised conditions affect tennis popularity?

Amazing!
didn't know that!

Surely, it's not just the muscle memory that's involved, it sounds too easy to be true.

Tenez wrote:I am not impressed by Nadal playing LH despite being RH. Most of the LHers of my generation and more so the previous generation were forced to write with their RH and writing requires a more subtle control than whacking a tennis ball as hard as possible...which is what Nadal does.

Toni took the bet to ask Rafa to play LH cause he knew he would not need Rafa's talent to make him successful. He banked on Rafa's fitness. That 's actually what I find quite fascinating with Toni cause he had a plan to make Nadal successful and that plan was to throw away Nadal's natural talent and make him successful through acquired power and stamina.

I'm thinking only in relative terms. C'mon, the guy won 11 slams. Did Ferrer, Tsonga, Murray, Berdych, etc who also whacked the ball to death win even 1 playing with their natural right hand?

May I ask the source for the Toni plan you described above? I'm a bit confused. I've been hearing nadal had/has no natural talent to begin with. That's why he had to rely on power and stamina?

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

SR wrote: It is
the fact that he plays tennis with his left hand while he is naturally right-handed.
Not only did he train to play with the “wrong” hand, he beat most of his peer who
play with their “right” hand!

I know of other successful players who changed their natural hand. Carlos Moya is naturally lefty but learnt to play right handed. http://www.tennisperspective.com/2010/08/player-profile-carlos-moya.html

There are more:

Thomas Muster
Navratilova

Relatively speaking, when I said successful, I mean winning 11 slams. Sure Moya and Muster are impressive as well "changing hands", but how many slams did they managed to win?

I didn't know about Navaratilova, now that's even more remarkable than rafa. She has more slams and greater success based on that. I stand corrected on this one.

BTW raiders, I'm a she.

Amritia3ee wrote:

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

SR wrote:
If this is your conclusion, your motivation is clearly Nadal bc he's the focus of your attention and comments. You've been merely moving the surfaces around in an artificial exercise to show how nadal could have won more slams than Fed. Do you realize you mentioned not one word about "tennis popularity" that's supposed to be your main concern? Of course, what popularity? That's just a cover-up for nadal, your hidden subject, the way I see it.

Good one SR. . Amritia's real motive behind the article comes out . He is too silly even to be able to conceal it with the cover of surface variations. Well not surprised, he really believes that Nadal and his camp are honest people.

That's a ridiculous comment.
I have already apologised as my comment was off-topic.
If you honestly believe I would go through all of this, write this article, then have a discussion with Tenez to discuss how homogenisation is connected with popularity, just to link it to player performance in more varied conditions then you are wrong.
It's a ridiculous claim. I can post anything on the 'tennis' forum if it is to do with tennis. If I wanted to make a thread discussing how players like differing surfaces, then I would make the thread. I am allowed to, right?
Why would I go through all of this, just to then diverge the topic? It makes no sense.

In retrospect, amri, I don't see anything wrong or ridiculous with raider's post. Makes sense to me.

SR wrote:
I'm thinking only in relative terms. C'mon, the guy won 11 slams. Did Ferrer, Tsonga, Murray, Berdych, etc who also whacked the ball to death win even 1 playing with their natural right hand?

Whacking the ball is too general a term. Tsonga and Berdych don't whack the ball the way Ferrer does and Ferrer doesn't whack it the way Nadal or Murray do and who in term don't whack like each other. . Tsonga is a powerful but explosive player, he can hit powerful strokes through the opponent's defences, good 1-2 punch momentum player. Berdych has a brilliant serves who can hit hard forehands, but those are intended to go for winners. But neither of them can play outlasting stamina game. They are likely to lose the point if the rally goes long.

Ferrer whacks the ball to keep long rallys, playing safer high margin shots, running and chasing balls to outlast opponents. Nadal does it too, but is far better than Ferrer. Murray doesn't whack the ball hard, though in his matches against Fed, he does increase some pace on those ground strokes. Ferrer and Nadal are likely to wins points the longer it goes.

noleisthebest wrote:What a weird set-up.
He must have a lot of wiring crossed in his brain. No wonder he's struggling with languages.

Not that many! He keeps things very simple.

I'm thinking only in relative terms. C'mon, the guy won 11 slams. Did Ferrer, Tsonga, Murray, Berdych, etc who also whacked the ball to death win even 1 playing with their natural right hand?

Nadal is the only one who can (certainly could) bash the ball with safe margins (unlike Tsonga, Berdych, etc..) and not get tired. Ferrer simply has not the power.

May I ask the source for the Toni plan you described above? I'm a bit confused. I've been hearing nadal had/has no natural talent to begin with. That's why he had to rely on power and stamina?

Where did you read that? I always talk in relative terms compared to the other top players. And my point is if you have a tennis talent it's clearly on the brain side you do the fine task. Like Federer is very talented with his right arm and LH brain. I doubt he woudl have won a single slam with his LH. He may have been a good player but as he relies a lot on his talent (RH) having to transfer that talent on the LH woudl have been close to impossible.

Toni decided to disregard that natural talent from Nadal from the age of 8 by asking him to play LH. He must have had a plan, a compensation for that loss of natural skill.

-Can anyone play with Nadal's grip?

It's 'simple' isn't it.

And did Nadal start with a right handed forehand, then Toni suddenly realised left hand would be better advantage, so he shifted to that hand, and also a tactic to make sure it 'disregards' any talent that he had.

Don't be ludicrous.

First since he was young he had a double handed forehand and backhand. His left hand was always stronger.

My friend as I said plays cricket and tennis left handed, but writes right-handed. He didn't have a uncle to force him to do anything

But it's different having DH Forehand and suddenly play Single LeftH. Ask a player who hits his BH with 2 hands to suddenly play SHBH with his unatural arm!!! It's completely different and a huge challenge!!! Nadal was playing 2 hands on his FH to support his weak FH....so imagine the effort it must have been to suddenly have to play with teh weaker arm and on top have no support.

Here we can see you do not want to be "surprised" by the choice and effort this represents. To me it's a clear strategy from Toni knowing he can compensate that lack of "talent" by a simple but powerful strategy.

We know from experience that guys like Wilander and Chang managed to win slams against the clay specialists like Lendl, Vilas, Clerc, etc...by simply destroying their talent/edge. Toni's plan in my view was very similar.

You might not agree but at least it's perfectly envisageable.

Amritia3ee wrote:-Can anyone play with Nadal's grip?

It's 'simple' isn't it.

Anyone talked about Nadal's grip? You put the question and answered yourself. Thank you.

Amritia3ee wrote:

Don't be ludicrous.

First since he was young he had a double handed forehand and backhand. His left hand was always stronger.

Its said that Toni trained Nadal to play left handed because Nadal used to hit 2 handed forehands. Can you provide your source for saying Nadal always had a stronger left hand and thats why Toni turned him to playing left-handed?

"...at that time he encouraged Nadal to play left-handed for a natural advantage on the tennis court, as he noticed Nadal played forehand shots with two hands."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal

If a player needs to be switched from right to left hand, this is a huge change, not a tweak or a new training regime, but an entirely new program. It starting everything from almost zero. Toni would not attempt it unless he saw that with the current scheme of things, Nadal was going no where.

Now did Toni see great talent in Nadal with the right hand? Well I won't say he saw nothing, otherwise he might have given up on Nadal or let him play football or golf. But it certainly wasn't good enough to take Nadal anywhere even close to the success he has now. So what about his talent at that time? Thats self explanatory, isn't it?

A double handed forehand is rare but nothing like we haven't ever seen. Seles was very successful with that. Bartoli though not very successful at the top, but good enough with those 2h forehand. So perhaps Toni didn't didn't believe that with his right-handed Nadal could ever be successful.

Amritia3ee wrote: My friend as I said plays cricket and tennis left handed, but writes right-handed. He didn't have a uncle to force him to do anything

Cricket?? Cricket is different from tennis. Its a common thing in cricket for a player to play being the opposite handed from his natural hand. Your friend is not unique and neither is this phenomena in cricket. Tennis its rare. I can give many names right now in International cricket that play opposite to their natural hand.

1. Saurav Gangualy natural right , bats left
2. Zaheer Khan natural left, bats right.

to name 2.

I know cricket is different from tennis, no need to . I also said my friend plays tennis left handed too.



The matter is all we know is that Nadal changed from double-handed forehand to single handed with his left. We don't know which hand was stronger, for playing tennis.

btw Raiders, you should relax.

You seem very angry and thus confrontational.

And what conforts my idea that Toni was not relying on Nadal's talent to make him successful is that Toni did not look for teh most talented player in the neighbourhood to caoch...he pursued his plan with his nephew.

How many coaches nowadays would pick a family member to make him a champion? The first job of a coach is to look for the prodigees amongst youngsters. Not Toni, he was not interested in talented players, probably more interested in having an accomplice to the plan, someone he coudl trust 100%.

A lot of things can be explained if we want to look at this relationship from a different angle. I am not saying I am right but there are lots of clues that point to.

Tenez wrote:And what conforts my idea that Toni was not relying on Nadal's talent to make him successful is that Toni did not look for teh most talented player in the neighbourhood to caoch...he pursued his plan with his nephew.

How many coaches nowadays would pick a family member to make him a champion? The first job of a coach is to look for the prodigees amongst youngsters. Not Toni, he was not interested in talented players, probably more interested in having an accomplice to the plan, someone he coudl trust 100%.

A lot of things can be explained if we want to look at this relationship from a different angle. I am not saying I am right but there are lots of clues that point to.

Perhaps he just wanted to help his nephew, who he saw as someone who was talented.

I am sure there are many players who are coached my family members, but not many that have been as successful as Rafa.

However Tenez, you do make a good point.

Toni, from what I have heard, likes control.



It is much more likely to have control (i.e. someone who respects and listens to you) with a familiy member, rather than someone else.

Amritia3ee wrote:btw Raiders, you should relax.

You seem very angry and thus confrontational.

Thanks for the advice, I'm fine though.

Amritia3ee wrote:

Tenez wrote:And what conforts my idea that Toni was not relying on Nadal's talent to make him successful is that Toni did not look for teh most talented player in the neighbourhood to caoch...he pursued his plan with his nephew.

How many coaches nowadays would pick a family member to make him a champion? The first job of a coach is to look for the prodigees amongst youngsters. Not Toni, he was not interested in talented players, probably more interested in having an accomplice to the plan, someone he coudl trust 100%.

A lot of things can be explained if we want to look at this relationship from a different angle. I am not saying I am right but there are lots of clues that point to.

Perhaps he just wanted to help his nephew, who he saw as someone who was talented.

But If Nadal was a talented kid, why didn't Toni continue to nurture that talent and sharpen it to make a great tennis player. Why did he have to scratch off everything Nadal was capable of and start from zero. Whatever little I play, I can do that with right hand. If my coach can see anything even close to special, would it not be easy for him to take me in that direction I'm already into. Whatever talent I have with tennis, its with the right hand. How can anyone know that I would be of any good if I played left handed. If I am a talented right handed player, why would my coach attempt to destroy it all in hope that I can play better with the left hand. It could back fire and I might turn out to be worse. Now that sort of risk taking is only possible when my coach doesn't see anything great in my current talent and skill with the right hand. I don't know about what plan Toni had about Nadal's physical play, but I can certainly see he didn't regard Nadal as a great young talent. Thats why he tried something totally different from what he was doing for 5 years. He didn't know will it work or not, but he certainly didn't see anything great happening with Nadal's talent that time unless something wass drastically changed.

rotla, you are certainly getting the point.

Only here on OTF!

Tenez wrote:
Only here on OTF!

Something to freshen-up the discussion:



Q: How important is style in tennis?



Sam Querrey: “It’s pretty important. I mean, like when I’m playing,
if I have a cool-looking shirt or a hat that fits me right, I feel
better on court. If I have an outfit on or something that looks cool, I
feel better. I think it’s important. I was just watching Federer in the
locker room. His shirt looks really cool. I just mentioned it to
someone. To me, it’s pretty important.”

LOL! That's funny... I was hoping to read his view on game style as opposed to clothing style.

Tenez wrote:LOL! That's funny... I was hoping to read his view on game style as opposed to clothing style.

so was the journalist

Tenez wrote:

I'm thinking only in relative terms. C'mon, the guy won 11 slams. Did Ferrer, Tsonga, Murray, Berdych, etc who also whacked the ball to death win even 1 playing with their natural right hand?

Nadal is the only one who can (certainly could) bash the ball with safe margins (unlike Tsonga, Berdych, etc..) and not get tired. Ferrer simply has not the power.

May I ask the source for the Toni plan you described above? I'm a bit confused. I've been hearing nadal had/has no natural talent to begin with. That's why he had to rely on power and stamina?

Where did you read that?

Not from any official sources but aggregate viewpoints from tennis
forums. Look no further, I pulled 3 examples from this current page alone on
amri’s article as follow that consistently suggest nadal is nottalented:

1) Tenez at 9:48:
“To me it's a clear strategy from Toni knowing he can compensate that lack
of "talent" by a simple but powerful strategy. = no talent.

2) Tenez at 11:04:
“Toni was not relying on Nadal's talent to make him successful…” = no
talent.

3) Raiders at 11:25:
“If Nadal was a talented kid, why didn't Toni continue to nurture that
talent and sharpen it to make a great tennis player.”= no talent.


And yet at 12:15 (p.1), Tenez, you made 2 apparently contradictory talent references:

1) Toni took the bet ….cause he knew he would not
need Rafa's talent to make him successful. = talent

2) And “…that plan was to throw away Nadal's natural talent…” = talent

I did indicate I was confused at 7:10. Could you clarify is he talented or is he not
talented? Much appreciated..

SR - Compensate for "lack of talent" doesn't mean "no talent". It could mean "compensate for not enough talent" and that is actually what I clearly mean. It's like saying Volandri cannot serve. Or Gasquet has no stamina.

I certainly do not rank Nadal high in his talent ability.

What I mean about all is that talented or not it's clear to me that Toni did not want to rely on Nadal's talent to win slams. Nadal may be the most talented player ever, Toni would not care much as Nadal's game is actually based on bringing the game into a physical battle.

It's a bit like Toni knew Nadal would be beaten at tennis by many players and therefore decided to challenge his opponents at marathon instead. One can be extremely talented tennis wise, they still won't get away with their tennis skills alone, they will have to run a part of teh marathon as well.

SR wrote:

Tenez wrote:

I'm thinking only in relative terms. C'mon, the guy won 11 slams. Did Ferrer, Tsonga, Murray, Berdych, etc who also whacked the ball to death win even 1 playing with their natural right hand?

Nadal is the only one who can (certainly could) bash the ball with safe margins (unlike Tsonga, Berdych, etc..) and not get tired. Ferrer simply has not the power.

May I ask the source for the Toni plan you described above? I'm a bit confused. I've been hearing nadal had/has no natural talent to begin with. That's why he had to rely on power and stamina?

Where did you read that?

Not from any official sources but aggregate viewpoints from tennis
forums. Look no further, I pulled 3 examples from this current page alone on
amri’s article as follow that consistently suggest nadal is nottalented:

1) Tenez at 9:48:
“To me it's a clear strategy from Toni knowing he can compensate that lack
of "talent" by a simple but powerful strategy. = no talent.

2) Tenez at 11:04:
“Toni was not relying on Nadal's talent to make him successful…” = no
talent.

3) Raiders at 11:25:
“If Nadal was a talented kid, why didn't Toni continue to nurture that
talent and sharpen it to make a great tennis player.”= no talent.

[center] VERSUS

And yet at 12:15 (p.1), Tenez, you made 2 apparently contradictory talent references:

1) Toni took the bet ….cause he knew he would not
need Rafa's talent to make him successful. = talent

2) And “…that plan was to throw away Nadal's natural talent…” = talent

I did indicate I was confused at 7:10. Could you clarify is he talented or is he not
talented? Much appreciated..

Absolutely fanatastic point by point dissection there, I am very impressed

Toni decided it was better for Nadal to have a one-handed forehand, rather than a double handed forehand, early on when Nadal was young.

I think this was a correct decision for many reasons.
Firstly I know there are many players who were successful with double-handed forehand and backhand, but in the last decade or so the majority of successful players have single-handed fore-hands, especially on the men's side.
Also, Nadal has gone on to win 11 slams, including a record number at Roland Garros, using the single-handed forehand, so clearly Toni made the correct decision.

We won't know whether Nadal's left hand or right hand was more comfortable for him. I have read before that Nadal is 'ambidextrous' when it comes to tennis (hence his backhand is like the strength of two-forehands, the cliché goes), but I remember him saying in an interview that he found his left hand more comfortable.
So, I'm not sure on that one, and I guess only Nadal knows.

Amritia3ee wrote:
We won't know whether Nadal's left hand or right hand was more comfortable for him.
.

Assuming you are right-handed, try writing with your left and tell us how comfortable it is.

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:
We won't know whether Nadal's left hand or right hand was more comfortable for him.
.

Assuming you are right-handed, try writing with your left and tell us how comfortable it is.

I'm not Nadal.
It's irrelevant.

Read my post above.

Believe it or not, Nadal is a human being just like you and me.
What Toni did with Nadal was neither comfortable nor pleasant for Nadal in the beginning.

Amri - I am sure you are aware of that clip where Nadal says he is useless with his LH. He can't do anything with it bar playing tennis. I think he even can't play dart with his RH.

Let's clear some things up here, to clarify.

I have done some research:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1117130/Rafael-Nadal

Here, it is clear, that Nadal played a double-handed forehand when he was young. However what is more important, and gives us a big clue, is that he 'played left-handed tennis with both a two-handed forehand and backhand,' as the encyclopaedia says, from a young age.
To be clear, there is a difference between a left-handed double-handed forehand, and a right handed one (on the position of your hands).


Thus, this clearly implies that Nadal, since he was young, while playing tennis, did not find his LH 'weaker' at all. I also remember an interview where he said he found using the LH more comfortable when he was playing tennis, I will also try and find that link.

No it doesn't clarify much. Certainly no more than the clip which says he cannot do anything with his LH.

Yes it does.
If Nadal, from a young age, has been playing the double-handed forehand with the LH as a stronger hand (i.e. a left handed double handed forehand), it seems normal for him to revert to the LH with the single-handed shot too.

Where is this clip, and does Nadal specify in this that he preferred to play tennis right-handed. Because for someone with a LH double-handed forehand players, reverting to a single-handed FH, the natural thing to do is go to the left hand.

SR wrote:

Not from any official sources but aggregate viewpoints from tennis
forums. Look no further, I pulled 3 examples from this current page alone on
amri’s article as follow that consistently suggest nadal is nottalented:

1) Tenez at 9:48:
“To me it's a clear strategy from Toni knowing he can compensate that lack
of "talent" by a simple but powerful strategy. = no talent.

If this is your assertion, you clearly need to look into a dictionary to exactly know the meaning of the word "lack". you really don't know that. lack != no.
e.g. "draught like situation due to lack of rainfall this year". This doesn't mean no rain. Did you get it?

SR wrote: 2) Tenez at 11:04:
“Toni was not relying on Nadal's talent to make him successful…” = no
talent.

Again incorrect assertion.

SR wrote: 3) Raiders at 11:25:
“If Nadal was a talented kid, why didn't Toni continue to nurture that
talent and sharpen it to make a great tennis player.”= no talent.

This was a question in my comment, isn't it? Sentences with the word "why" are generally questions. Read properly please. Answer this question and then talk.

SR wrote:1) Toni took the bet ….cause he knew he would not
need Rafa's talent to make him successful. = talent

Incorrect again. Every single player on ATP circuit has some talent. Leave pros, even I have some talent with the racquet though I rarely play. But can I rely on my talent to make me a successful tennis player even close to like what Nadal is? Of course not. But that doesn't mean I have no talent. You need to get command of the language English.

SR wrote: 2) And “…that plan was to throw away Nadal's natural talent…” = talent

You answer my questions, then it will be clear.

SR wrote: I did indicate I was confused at 7:10. Could you clarify is he talented or is he not
talented? Much appreciated..

[/quote]

I know you are confused. Talent is not a boolean datatype that exists only in true or false.