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The 19-year-old Australian made all the headlines couple of days ago for sending Rafael Nadal – the winner of 14-majors, out of Wimbledon and was ultimately tipped as the future star of tennis. The big-server received praises all over, with some even predicting him to be ruling the ATP tours in upcoming seasons, courtesy, his sharp angles and fast returns down the court. While there is no guarantee what the future may hold, however, it may be too early to make that call.
The Spaniard, who despite being the ‘King of clay,’ was not considered a contender on grass and this season proved the same once and for all.
The 28-year-old was again found wanting for over-relying on the top-spin and bounce on the surface which is not known to encourage his style of play. Rafa, after switching off his distracters – who doubted his ability to repeat his achievement at the French Open, by rewriting his authority over the Roland Garros, once again failed to reach the quarter-finals of the only Grand Slam played on grass.
Kindly forgive me readers if you feel that I’m wandering away from the theme, I humbly say that I’m not.
Style of play:
Nadal’s difficulty boils down to one or many reasons. First and foremost, yes, obviously – the surface.
To be fair, having seen the Spaniard over the years one can say this too easily without really going for the reason behind it: by looking at the stats. Before going into it, I’ll call Rafa to be someone on the same kind as the Indian cricket’s very own ‘wall’ – Rahul Dravid.
It might look absolutely rubbish to make this comparison. Allow me to justify. Nadal is someone who will always look to do the last rites of the match by making the opponent literally accept defeat in his mind, after cleverly and physically overcoming all attacking instincts targetted at him.
Being someone who is known to be on the better side of long rallies more often, the leftie will allow his rival to take the first shot before dismantling them with his ability to cover grounds like a man with a spring in his legs. You can observe this plenty of times and the man will be on the aggressive from the word ‘go,’ only against opponents whom he treats as a threat.
This is his first drawback against players who serve big – like the Australian who troubled him with 37 aces last Tuesday. Also, against the guys who look to create a winner every shot, the fighter in him will have to be 100 percent to tackle every ball and even need them to be off target a little.
Difficulty On Grass:
I’m not weakening the case of Rafa here, in fact I’m also a strong supporter of him. But, it should be told that his topspin returns that mostly troubles his counterparts sits up nicely for players who hold the advantage in height. May your mind recall those forehands that rocketed off the court from Kyrgios’s racket in a flash. Losing the first set of every match four matches in a row highlights the fact that Rafa’s own style of play is his weak link on grass.
While the top spin enables the ball to bounce high and disallows the receivers to ride the bounce, it is not having the same effect in the surface where it generally skids into the hands of the players, enabling them to take the attack to Rafa. Hence, his strength is his weakness here. It is as straightforward as this. Therefore, it demands him to be aggressive from the start of the rally resulting in a number of forced errors off his forehand, which is not something you would associate with the champion player.
Given all the difficulties of the man and Kyrgios better in both his physique and serve, it is always ‘Advantage’ Kyrgios. Still, the feat of prevailing over a World no.1 in early stages of one’s career is phenomenal and must never be underestimated. But, everyone should understand that it is not the same when Rafael Nadal scripted history by overhauling Roger Federer at Roland Garros almost a decade back in 2005 French Open semi-finals, that signalled the start of an incredible career.
Coming to a conclusion, just because the Aussie got the better of Nadal and even though he is a former junior World no.1 and a player with full of potential – Don’t call him a star.
If you are not convinced yet, here you go – Lukas Rosol, Steve Darcis, Dustin Brown – where are they now? These men are Nadal’s previous conquerers on grass and were not the players who became a mainstay in top-level and none of them have achieved anything other than the proud moment of defeating him.
And moreover, heavy servers like Kyrgios and attack minded players will be failing big time, even if their forehands just fail to reach their intended targets leading to an array of errors. Here are some more names for conformation: Andy Roddick – apart from giving Roger Federer some tough battles, has achieved nothing but one US Open title to show, Frenchman Gael Monfils, American John Isner, Ivo Karlovic, Gilles Muller are some other names that confirm this trend. Just to add to it, the giant-killer Krygios was cut short of his fairytale in the very next match of the tournament against Canadian Milas Raonic.
No offence Nick Kyrgios. You are not a star yet!
