George T. Wittman’s latest blog post
Novak Djokovic, shown here, after a successful match.
Recently, I’ve been watching the Sony Open Tennis games, which have been wildly entertaining. Just yesterday, Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in the final with 6-3, 6-3. His game plan was focused on attacking Nadal where he was most vulnerable: returning serve and extremely wide in the Ad court. Since he first had to navigate saving a break point in the opening game of the match and deal with Nadal’s legendary form, it took him a while to execute his strategy. However, Nadal was unable to handle the Serb’s onslaught as he attacked his forehand return with both first and second serves.
Nadal’s backhand return motion is compact and easier to block the serve back, while the forehand backswing is larger and more likely to be pressured for time, particularly on hard courts. Djokovic’s attack was a disruptive, surprise tactic to attack the strength and keep Nadal guessing. It was also extremely effective to catch Nadal running around his backhand return.
Djokovic seemed to always be ahead in the rallies, and Nadal seemed to be a step slower than normal. He committed 18 forehand groundstroke errors to Djokovic’s seven, and where these errors were made help understand the inner workings of the Serb’s plan.
A staggering 16 of the 18 of Nadal’s forehand errors occurred standing in the Ad court, where Djokovic attacked with his backhand cross court and forehand. Of these 16, 10 occurred very wide around the Ad court alley (and sometimes outside it) as Djokovic kept grabbing Nadal out of his comfort zone. Djokovic is well-known for his backhand down the line, but every one of his backhand winners were cross court in the direction of Nadal’s forehand. Although both players won 14 points each in baseline rallies during the opening set, it was clearly Djokovic who took the honors during the second set, winning 65% from the back of the court.
Djokovic broke for the first time in the 2-3 opening set as Nadal served. Djokovic finished at the net with a forehand volley winner on the first point after he crushed a second serve return down the line to Nadal’s forehand. Djokovic went after the forehand again at 0-15, hitting a short angle backhand cross court winner. Nadal won the following point with a good first serve that was unreturned, and at 15-30 Djokovic hit a huge forehand down the line, attacking Nadal’s forehand, then backed it up with a cross-court winner. At 15-40, Djokovic used the secondary pattern of attacking Nadal’s backhand.
Djokovic then won seven of eight points to take command of all areas of the court. Leading 3-2, 30-0 in the second set, he was feeling it so much that he nailed an old-school slice backhand approach deep to Nadal’s forehand, which the Spaniard in turn missed down the line. After Djokovic’s primary concerns were humming, he occasionally mixed it up to Nadal’s backhand in an effort to confuse him. Nadal’s serving was disappointing, as he only won 59% of the first serves and 46% of second serves. Djokovic constantly began the point returning down the middle with a deep missile which pushed back Nadal and put him in control of both court position and the directional flow of the point. In the first set, Djokovic averaged landing his return 11.4 feet from the baseline against first serves, which improved to only 5.8 feet from the baseline against second serves, pushing Nadal back. In his post-match interview, Djokovic said everything went “perfectly” for him.
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