Rafael Nadal vs. Robin Soderling

Great Analysis!!! I mention your website to everyone I play tennis with. Thanks a million.

Nadal is good player....run chasing the ball good..but anyone can beat him
not to Roger.f...he lost to nadal more than he won..
but 95% playre out there lost by him

but i think also the key point here is how to time these all things together,,,
starting from ur focus by your eyes on the ball and moving with small steps to respect the distance between and the ball , and then how to time the fast pull of your non-hitting arm with shoulder turn and wiper motion follow-through...
all these acts are sooo important to be timed correctly , and i think you can do it only by alot of practice not just writings and speech .. your own feeling of these things is the most important thing...
my coach always tells me :- you are the coach of yourself ,,, because i am the only one that have to feel my mistakes and not to repeat it ,, and also to repeat right acts...

hi molteni2 ..you r welcomed...
i'm not the best to tell about soderlings forehand, but i'll just tell my opinion ..
i think shoulder turn is the most important factor in creating power,as it drives the racket from backwards forwards, so enables you to push the ball forwards,
so i think the more velocity your shoulder is turned and your racket is drived forwards , the more velocity will be the ball..
while the wiper motion is concerned with creating topspin in the ball to make your pwerful strokes bounce safely inside the court...

Love for you guys to do an analysis of the Soderling forehand. The pro at my club is always getting on to me about my forehand not being "whippy" enough, that I swing too much from the shoulder and not getting the wiper motion, yet Soderling looks like he's hitting pretty old school form, not bending the elbow very much and certainly not wristing the ball at all, yet it sure works for him. Is there something I'm missing?

well, nadal can do that if those ball could be accessible,,, nadal was great to reach alot of balls that were difficult to anyone,, but we couldn't ask him also to return them well and deep,,,
i mean it was great effort from him to reach these balls , but i think it was something impossible to return them with such control to be deep...

i'm really happy with this interaction between us,,
and it's a fact that soderling improved himself alot , as regerds mental toughness,
so we could see him of more confidence and concentration,
and we have to say that he became agood player by his groundstrokes and serves and volley ...
we say that nadal played bad and short and that's the reason of his loss,,, so again we have to ask why nadal played bad...
i think the tennis game is a competition between 2 players , each of them try to dominate it , and make it under his control by dominating his own style on the game,,
so nadal played bad because sodeling dominated the game and forced nadal to play in this bad way,,, so nadal became just a reaction to soderling's game.. by repetitive return of easy balls in response to these groundstrokes,,,

yeah maybe true, but suppose Nadal could move quicker that that : could'nt he send so deep lifted balls ? that would have changed a lot don't you think ?

Soderling won cause all his power forehand went towards the right spot and that drove nadal out of the game. This could be a great lesson for nadal.

do you think it ibecause nadal trained more to hard courts than clay? that can explain why nadal didn't feel good

possible ! And him winning on hard courts this saison exhausted him to quickly I think...

I am also Roger's Fan but I respect NAdal. He didn't play his best but Soderling play good too. I thought he was just lucky but he prove me wrong when he beat Davydenko. I hope Roger wins this grand slam he deserves it now that nadal is out. Del potro is a hard player but I know he can do it.

Thanks for posting this video. I am a Federer fan and would love to see him finally beat Nadal in French final. However, now the road is wide open and I am looking forward to Federer winning in French final.

Nadal looked confused on the court, his confidence on his game drops low and that's why he didn't play well on the big points. We usually see him save lots of break points but didn't happen last Sunday. Even when he had a lead (break in 4th set), he surrenders that easily, a real sign of low confidence. All credit to Solderling for making Nadal look bad on the court, it looks to me like solderling handled Nadal's groundstrokes comfortablely, it's not like he risks for winners and that's why he could play almost the same styles in 4 sets. My prediction is Fed will beat him in the final, Fed knows how to handle pace from flat ball players

I think the analasys , but I think that the main reason that Nadal lost is that Soderling was on top of his game, amd he MADE Nadal play short. I mean, I don't understand why everybody is talking about what went wrong with Nadal??? Give credit to Soderling, he played a great game and he is the one we should talk about!!!!

ok, Soderling was good, but I don't think that we could give him full credit of this accomplishement until he proves, later, that he can do it again...

yea solderling did play a really good game, but he was somewat really lucky, which everyone needs to be to beat nadal, since ur basically taking a huge chance everytime u attack one of his super high top spin balls with a fast flat one of ur own. But in order to beat nadal, ur just gonna have to be ready to take those risks.

totally agree with you mohamed !
Nadal game-style is exposed, he needs now to get a more actif role in his matchs : dicteting the game and playing on the net, he's a perfect player of the lift, but when it doesn't go deep enough he can lose so easly (which is the case with this french open)...
And do you think all -like I do- that Nadal's game is getting less and less physical ? I mean he probably understood that he should make a shift toward a more technical game, no ? Could he be in transition ?

hi,, thank you for your efforts..
about this match, i think that the strategy that soderling played with is the most appropriate strategy to play against nadal,, it was the same federer played with in madrid open..
i mean taking risks frequently and accurately in the same time , by strong very powerful ground strokes, so that make the point end fastly and doesn't let long rallies to occur, and these rallies are the main advantage for nadal,,, also coming to the net in appropriate time and in alot of points,,, and concentrating in powerful first serve,,, all of these enabled soderling and federr to beat nadal in the last period, nadal wasn't comfortable anymore, he was always under pressure , and couldn't play his natural game...
that's because he is a defensive player, and wait for his opponents faults, but when facing these solid strateges , the mission would be difficult,,,
i think nadal has to be more attaker ,and he has the skills to be... espicially that other players now knew how to play with him, and what are the appropriate stratigies, from the matches he lost in ...
so this big champion has to think alot in his tactics , and try to be more attacker, either by shoting more inside forehands that he can make it very well , or advancing abit more to the net ,, also i think he has to improve his serve ...
and finally , i hope he can make a rapid come-back beacause he is someone so important in tennis world...

yea now that i think about it, nadal lost to tsonga in the ausy last year the same way. cuz tsonga was taking risks on winners and they were paying off since he was making most of them. I think it takes a little bit of risk and luck to beat nadal, just like how fed beat nadal in madrid, and ur right, if this continues, then he needs to be more of a attacker instead of playing super defensive.

Although I kind of would have liked to see Nadal in the finals, I am kind of glad that the door is really wide open for Federer to take his first French Open victory. Then maybe he can break the record at Wimbledon!

~ Kristi

yea i agree mauri but in previous years nadal used even more topspin and hit somewhat deep. That huge amount of recovery time he received from slower but heavier top spin balls made his defensive game even better than it is now in my opinion. That may be a huge possibility in why he lost, since a good defensive game is crucial to clay court matches, which nadal has been abusing in the past years of the french open.

Nadal plays with a lot of topspin and he played short that is an awful conbination because the ball bounces high and when it lands short it was perfect for soderlin game. obviously soderlin did good taking advantage of that

I wonder if Nadal might be injured. There was some mention that a few years ago, Nadal had some foot problem that was so serious, they thought it might impact his career. Nike apparently made a special shoe so he could play without pain (or much). He was looking a bit iffy against Djokovic in Madrid and then against Roger.

Against Soderling, Rafa's strokes sometimes looked way off, as if he was having trouble controlling the strokes. Rafa is uncannily accurate, but he's been a bit more off than usual.

To be fair to Soderling, he did play a very aggressive match, and was pretty accurate for most of it. It was more of a Federer style of play, with lots of winners and lots of errors. Nadal, surprisingly, had a hard time saving break points.

Other than his height, one other key to Soderling that people fail to mention is that he is one of the bigger servers in the game. If Karlovic is at the very top of the best servers, then Roddick and Soderling are probably just underneath. The height factor has been used to explain del Potro's success (rare as it has been) and Querrey's success against Rafa. The high balls are less of a problem. Admittedly, both have two-handed backhands as does Soderling.

Soderling has a good record against Davydenko. He beat him on clay in 2006 and 2007. His results against Gonzalez have been worse. Soderling won all the early meetings but Gonzalez won the last four, admittedly on faster surfaces. Gonzalez is also playing very well. It may come down to how well Soderling serves. Based on head to head and experience, Gonzalez should be favored. As a side note, Gonzalez used to be coached by Stefanki who now coaches Roddick. Gonzalez is now coached by Martin Rodriguez, who is more laid back, letting Gonzalez decide how much or how little he needs to practice. He credits Rodriguez with helping him on his backhand.

yea i definitely agree with everything you said. Nadal just didn't seem the same for this entire tournament in my opinion. I wonder if all these adjustments he made to his game to help him win other surfaces has prevented him from wining the french this year.

Hey.
Thinks for the website and the video, great analysis, I am a fan ;)
Well since I am a Nadal's admirer, I was pretty sad he loses against Soderling, eventhought he didn't start the tournement really well, my thinking was that he's gonna progress over the course and make it to his usual level in semi-final and final, but...
I don't know but it seems like the tennis players stadied the game of Nadal so well on clay (since he's the greatest of all times on this surface) and after 4 years of domination it was times for him to fall, but I do believe he will prepare really well him self for the next season, amoung all players he's the one with the will to come back stronger.
Let's hope the best for Federer in this tournement ;)
thinks again for the website :)

You're absolutely right -- Nadal had a bad day and his short groundstrokes played right into Soderling's strengths. And Nadal still almost sent the match to a 5th.

Gonzalez - Soderling is going to be a slugfest. I wonder if any point lasts longer than 6 - 7 shots, heh.

I saw an interview of after the match on youtube and people just kept saying how Nadal just was a sore loser. He said that Soderling played a good match and just capitalized on Nadal's mistakes because he kept hitting the ball short. He absolutely had a bad day because what did he beat Soderling 6-0,6-1 in Madrid a week before the French Open, if I am correct.

I totally agree with you, that the Gonzo and Soderling Match is going to be a slugfest. I just wonder if Gonzo can hold up, sometimes he goes for to much to early.

Hey Will, thanks for posting this vid of your thoughts on the match.
There is alot of people in Sweden right now that are obviously going nuts over this thinking it is the greatest thing that has ever happened! And sure it is great for swedish tennis, not alot has happened since Thomas won the aussie open 2002.

But the fact is that Nadal really did have a bad day, even I who support Soderling obviously because he is a swede must face those facts. Had Nadal played a great match the results would probably have been different.

But one thing is for sure. I think that this will give Soderling alot of confidence and just like Verdasco he might become one of those players that goes from a good top30 player to a solid top10 player and that would be fun for Swedish tennis, we really need it!