Nadal Is Back.....In Two Weeks!

summerblues wrote:NITB asks why Toni switched Rafa into artificial leftie. Amri says Rafa was always a leftie as a tennis player except he was playing double-handed initially.

Then you go on a longish debate but I did not see any argument that would even suggest Amri is wrong.

Rotla, this is quite unlike you but here your argument does not seem to work at all. In fact, even some of the the quotes you pull up seem to suggest Amri is in fact correct.

NITB, you just keep repeating question "why did he switch?" but you never established he did switch in the first place.

I refuse to believe that a right-handed person would pick up a tennis racquet and start playing with the left one . I am positive that he did switch, so the question WHY still remains unanswered.
Tennis and golf are two very different things.
Next time you play tennis try and serve with your left arm.

Amritia3ee wrote:

summerblues wrote:
Perhaps most shockingly (to me at least), I play golf left-handed, even though I play tennis right-handed.

Well there we go SB, not everyone is the same!

Thank God!

There is nothing we can quite deduct from that small wiki info. Unless I see a clip of Nadal playing 2 handed, I do not see how we coudl call it a "left handed - Dble handed grip. Even if it is a left handed double handed grip, he doesn't mean he would be more natural for him to use his left hand as the right hand though not holding the base of the grip might still do most of the control of the racquet. Some like to hold the racquet quite high actually as it goves them a better control of the ball.

To take the example of SB playing golf like a leftie despite doing everything else with his RH, I woudl like to know if SB can hold the club single handedly with his left hand and swing it with as much confidence than with his right hand.

In any case, there is not much in Nadal's game that suggests his LH uses refined touch to control the ball and I am sure like many LHers learnt to write RHed, Nadal learnt to use his LH to play tennis. After all his shots are not particularly known for their finess but for their relentless power.

Nadal played left handed double handed tennis when he was very young. The hand you use furthest away from the racket head is the 'main hand', I have shown this example with Bartoli (check it on page 2), and also how Almagro releases his left hand on his BH (his LH is close to the racket-head).

So if he was going to go to a single handed forehand, it thus makes much more sense to switch to your left hand, because all the while that is the hand that has been furthest away from the racket head anyway (i.e. the main hand).

My friend is left handed, he writes and does most things left handed, but for some reason plays table tennis and tennis right handed. He's pretty good too.

Handedness obfuscated - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCJ_KcYIso

Amritia3ee wrote:Nadal played left handed double handed tennis when he was very young. The hand you use furthest away from the racket head is the 'main hand', I have shown this example with Bartoli (check it on page 2), and also how Almagro releases his left hand on his BH (his LH is close to the racket-head).

You do not know the role a LH has in a DHed game of a 8 yo who puts hos 2 hands on the racquet cause the racquet is too heavy. AND I have not seen a clip of him playing with 2 hands. Have you?

noleisthebest wrote:

summerblues wrote:NITB, you just keep repeating question "why did he switch?" but you never established he did switch in the first place.

I refuse to believe that a right-handed person would pick up a tennis racquet and start playing with the left one . I am positive that he did switch, so the question WHY still remains unanswered.

That is fine but you cannot expect other people to bother with the "WHY" question just because you are positive and refuse to believe something. Before you want to get there you would need to more properly establish that he did switch. The ball is very much in your court at this point.

Tenez wrote:To take the example of SB playing golf like a leftie despite doing everything else with his RH, I woudl like to know if SB can hold the club single handedly with his left hand and swing it with as much confidence than with his right hand.

I have to try one of these days I guess you mean leftie club with left hand vs rightie club with right hand? I never tried that before, but I did try to play right-handed with both hands (and a right-hander's club, of course), and it just did not work. It felt very "wrong" and I was unable to get either the feel or the power I get as a leftie.

Anyway, for the purpose of this discussion, all I am saying is that right-handedness vs left-handedness is not equally clear-cut for everyone (golf was just an example in my case, not saying golf and tennis have to closely relate). It could well be that Rafa is fairly ambidextrous and that doing most things with the right hand and playing tennis with the left hand is far more natural for him than for most of us would be.

summerblues wrote:
That is fine but you cannot expect other people to bother with the "WHY" question just because you are positive and refuse to believe something. Before you want to get there you would need to more properly establish that he did switch. The ball is very much in your court at this point.

No it's not it's just that you choose to view it that way. As usual, just playing devil's advocate.
What is harder to believe: that a right-handed person chooses to play with right or left hand?
For me it's the former, for Amri, yourself, LF its the latter. We all know why.

noleisthebest wrote:What is harder to believe: that a right-handed person chooses to play with right or left hand?

Oh dear, but this is not the question. With this logic, I should believe that I play golf right-handed. You can obviously believe what you want but if you want to have a meaningful conversation you cannot just state what you believe and expect people to go along.

I wonder why he is coming back now,might as well just write this season off and then come back next year
What does he hope to achieve by returning now?
And how come he wasnt sure if he would be able to compete at next years AO but yet a few weeks later he is suddenly ready to return in 2 weeks time

Just wondering what everyone elses thoughts are re the theory of him being silently suspended,how does this coincide with the possibility of him having served a silent banning?

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:What is harder to believe: that a right-handed person chooses to play with right or left hand?

Oh dear, but this is not the question. With this logic, I should believe that I play golf right-handed. You can obviously believe what you want but if you want to have a meaningful conversation you cannot just state what you believe and expect people to go along.

What I chose to acknowledge is valid for 99.9% of the people.
What you choose to acknowldedge is 0.01%.

And you expect ME to go along with what your choice....just because Amri and you form an artificial majority over me on this thread does not mean I should agree with the oddity you choose to believe. I'm not even sure that "2" could even qualify as "expect people to go along".
Regardless, another one for agreeing to disagreeing, although in this particular case, there is no argument to really apply agreeing over, just a basic truth the two you chose to ignore for the sake of it.
In Amri's case is just blind Nadal worship.
Also, your golf example is highly irrelevant and inappropriate in tennis.

summerblues wrote:

Tenez wrote:To take the example of SB playing golf like a leftie despite doing everything else with his RH, I woudl like to know if SB can hold the club single handedly with his left hand and swing it with as much confidence than with his right hand.

I have to try one of these days I guess you mean leftie club with left hand vs rightie club with right hand? I never tried that before, but I did try to play right-handed with both hands (and a right-hander's club, of course), and it just did not work. It felt very "wrong" and I was unable to get either the feel or the power I get as a leftie.

Anyway, for the purpose of this discussion, all I am saying is that right-handedness vs left-handedness is not equally clear-cut for everyone (golf was just an example in my case, not saying golf and tennis have to closely relate). It could well be that Rafa is fairly ambidextrous and that doing most things with the right hand and playing tennis with the left hand is far more natural for him than for most of us would be.

On the clip I saw it clearly seems that playing with the left hand did not come naturally at all. I like Toni saying "we decided". Clearly, this does not seem a decision he shoudl have taken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01XvmcF6Ak

Tenez wrote:

On the clip I saw it clearly seems that playing with the left hand did not come naturally at all. I like Toni saying "we decided". Clearly, this does not seem a decision he shoudl have taken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01XvmcF6Ak

Excellent find, Tenez!

It's hard to read the white subtitles, but Nadal says first time he played with the left hand was weird. Toni goes on to confirm that when his played his first tournament it was difficult, but that was the decision they had to make.

I posted this link a few times before....but again you did not see it.

Tenez wrote:I posted this link a few times before....but again you did not see it.

noleisthebest wrote:

Tenez wrote:

On the clip I saw it clearly seems that playing with the left hand did not come naturally at all. I like Toni saying "we decided". Clearly, this does not seem a decision he shoudl have taken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01XvmcF6Ak

Excellent find, Tenez!

It's hard to read the white subtitles, but Nadal says first time he played with the left hand was weird. Toni goes on to confirm that when his played his first tournament it was difficult, but that was the decision they had to make.

Just shows why one needs to practice, not just hit one day and decide that it is weird.

laverfan wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Tenez wrote:

On the clip I saw it clearly seems that playing with the left hand did not come naturally at all. I like Toni saying "we decided". Clearly, this does not seem a decision he shoudl have taken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01XvmcF6Ak

Excellent find, Tenez!

It's hard to read the white subtitles, but Nadal says first time he played with the left hand was weird. Toni goes on to confirm that when his played his first tournament it was difficult, but that was the decision they had to make.

Just shows why one needs to practice, not just hit one day and decide that it is weird.

So when are you starting then?

noleisthebest wrote:

laverfan wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:

Tenez wrote:

On the clip I saw it clearly seems that playing with the left hand did not come naturally at all. I like Toni saying "we decided". Clearly, this does not seem a decision he shoudl have taken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01XvmcF6Ak

Excellent find, Tenez!

It's hard to read the white subtitles, but Nadal says first time he played with the left hand was weird. Toni goes on to confirm that when his played his first tournament it was difficult, but that was the decision they had to make.

Just shows why one needs to practice, not just hit one day and decide that it is weird.

So when are you starting then?

I already switched to being a rightie, like Haase.

noleisthebest wrote:And why would I want to become a left-handed player when I already feel comfortable with my God-given right hand?
Why would anyone want to do that, that's the key thing.

I know there is a medical condition called AHS (Alien Hand Syndrome), but AFAIK, both left and right hands are god-given for believers in Intelligent Design.

After having an exhausting afternoon/evening, I'm chilling with a glass of red....holding the glass with my left hand

noleisthebest wrote:After having an exhausting afternoon/evening, I'm chilling with a glass of red....holding the glass with my left hand

It was not that hard, was it, NITB? Now just some more practice and you will be a certified left-handed player and then you can enlighten us on your Uncle's cajoling for you to switch hands.

Tenez wrote:On the clip I saw it clearly seems that playing with the left hand did not come naturally at all. I like Toni saying "we decided". Clearly, this does not seem a decision he shoudl have taken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01XvmcF6Ak

Those subtitles are a pain to read. I may have missed something but if I did not then I do not think this says anything that would claim that playing right-handed would be more natural for him.

Clearly, the angle of the clip is to say "he cannot do anything left-handed except for tennis" so if anything the clip is likely to be biased towards overemphasizing Rafa's right-handedness yet in the end the clip still only says that:

1. He does everything else right-handed and

2. He switched from playing two-handed to playing left-handed

and there is no mention of switching from right-handed to left-handed. This is exactly in line with what Amri has been saying and with whatever internet references Amri had provided.

Maybe you are right and maybe there was a deliberate switch from right-handed to left-handed somewhere, but this clip does not indicate anything of the sort. The type of argument that would work would be say an explicit reference from a reasonably reliable source. Even better would be a clip of Rafa playing while he was still playing DH off both wings. It would be good to know if he was serving with his right or left hand back then.

Latest update:

Nadal does NOT know when he is coming back:
http://www.tennis.com/news/2012/10/nadal-still-without-definitive-timetable-return/39718/#.UHSsGxi0bgo

summerblues wrote:Maybe you are right and maybe there was a deliberate switch from right-handed to left-handed somewhere, but this clip does not indicate anything of the sort. The type of argument that would work would be say an explicit reference from a reasonably reliable source. Even better would be a clip of Rafa playing while he was still playing DH off both wings. It would be good to know if he was serving with his right or left hand back then.

It reminds me this Miami 04 match. Everybody sees Nadal playing fast but you still compared its stats with one rare more recent match twhere Nadal plays fast to show not too much discrepancy.

At least on this occasion I agree that there is no conclusive evidence that they made a clear switch. However the whole clip tends to suggest they did:

1 - "we made the decision" means clearly it is a deliberate choice and not a natural one to follow. Also "we" means Toni was part of the decision and I am not sure what Toni has got to do with the natural arm of Nadal so this phrase alone is very much an admission of a thoughtfull decision.

2 - I cannot imagine someone playing dart with one hand and tennis with the other. But Nadal seems to do everything, not a single thing with is left arm. That's really weird. My son writes LH but plays tennis Right handed. But he does a few other things RHed. Not Nadal. Can happen that its his natural tennis arm...but frankly it's like this Espn study about draws...very unlikely.