When Did Novak Become A Threat? What Was Rafa’s Forehand Like? | Q&Andy

Semester snart, då ska du tänka Sass Holidays. Ett nytt sätt att resa med Sass. Skräddar sig din resa i en enda bokning, med flyg, hotell och allt däremellan. Just nu kampanjpriser på alla resmål. Boka d perfekta semester med Sass Holidays. Welcome to QAndy, the show where I don't know what's gonna happen, Mike. Yeah, I mean it's kinda by design. But it is brought to you b no.

Go ahead. Still nobody. Yeah. Maybe that'll change soon. Maybe not. I don't know. On this episode, we decided after watching the big two do what the big two do, which are the bi I don't know what we're gonna call them out. What's the new? New two. The new two. Yeah. The new two, we thought, let's talk about the big three. Great. Somebody that you know. Okay.

Hey If you want to be a feature of the show, send your question to askandy at surf podcast.com or hit us up on our DMs on social or here in the comments. First up, Andrew wrote us and said this. You mentioned recently that Pete Sambrus is one of the greatest athletes in tennis has ever seen. What do you think gets overlooked the most when it comes to Roger Federer? Not a lot gets overlooked. Um I mean i i the the one thing that I think people always talk about

Players always mention how good of a server he is. Fans always mention all the other stuff. Like when you when you're like what does Fed do well? It's like the slice and the the poetry and everyone knows the you know, the the the forehand and the the way the flows and the way uh two things. One, he was simultaneously maybe the first person in history. And now we've he's created like a clone who was simultaneously the best offensive and defensive player at the same time.

Right during during his prime. And now we've seen that with, you know, a bunch of players since, you know, um But I think that first time, because like you think about before, it's like Leighton Hewitt was number one. I was number one. I certainly wasn't the best defensive player of all time or anything of all time. Uh Hewitt, you look at Pete, Pete's one of the greatest. And there was no defense. Only if he absolutely had to was was he gonna ever play defense, right? Andre w you know

was good defensively, but he wanted to be on that front foot. Borg wasn't gonna you know, so McEnroe was al so it was always you excelled at one of the skills and I think he was maybe one of the first that that melted those two together where it's like, can't go through me, can't go around me.

What are we doing here? Um and then obviously Novak and Rafa and they both they all kind of have developed that gear in Carlos and in uh in Cinner Now, uh at least on on the men's side. Next up Charles Imoda sticking with uh with Fed. You know, you obviously played him in some unforgettable matches. You know, over the course of your career, what specific adjustments or game plans did you try and implement against him? Yes.

So the way that the thing where I would get exposed against the greatest players is that once we were neutral, when I was neutral against most players, I felt kinda comfortable. I could play a cat and mouse, I could hit a chip.

I basically could get the ball out of their hotspots, right? I could chip line where they I knew if I could get'em this way that they weren't coming in. Right. There were certain ways to kind of solve the riddle. When I got to neutral against Uh Fed, Rotha, Novak, um Murray. I was actually behind. So you're trying to play from a place where you're not totally neutral.

uh all the time. I tried coming in a ton uh against him. I tried staying back a bunch. Actually the last Wimbledon final I lost, I actually stayed back and that was only maybe the only match that we ever played where I felt comfortable in backhand rallies. And for whatever day that on that day the court was playing hot, I was able to kind of keep space between us. And it was like a weird feeling for me. Um

Yeah, so everything. I tried try keeping the ball down, try to get it up, uh serve massive on second serves. I basically had to take shots at certain points and risk at certain points, cause if we were neutral, then I was actually behind. James uh sent us a question. He said, I recently watched the 2010 Miami highlights of your match against Rafa, and it had me wondering, what was it like being on the receiving end of Nadal's forehand at his peak? And how did it vary surface to surface?

When he had time, it's not even i surface to surface matters, but the it's like the cause and effect of why it mattered. When he was set and could create that spin profile. It w it was an absolute nightmare. Like it felt like it would hit it felt like a bowling ball hitting your racket. Like it just frayed against it. The difference on Clay is that he's always has time. So you're constantly getting that max effect of

of the tumbler, that ball that like on TV from like an eagle view, it doesn't look like it does like where it's it hits and it's up and away and it's out of your zone consistently, consistently. And you have to choose I'm gonna go center left and protect my back end. Then he's gonna burn you this way. The greatest players make you pick your poison. And so I've never felt a ball hit.

And I I still would challenge players that have maybe played against everyone, including the new two. I've never felt the shape and the weight on a ball when Rafa got a hold of a forehand. And it wasn't flat. It wasn't like it was, you know, Del Potro where it's the fastest, like biggest

thing that you could you could it just was this constant grind and because of that spin, it also came with margin. Right. Uh an arc, right? So if you like Scottie Pippen when he shot a basketball, it was flat, right? When Steph shoots, it's this high arcing thing, so it has more margin to go through the hoop.

Rafa could bully you with a heavy ball and steal still clear the net by four feet. So the net didn't even come into play. It would bounce just past the service line and it's as effective as if most people hit it four feet in front of the baseline. Right. So he didn't have to be perfect for it to be insanely heavy and effective. And so you feel that. And if you start playing that out over four or five hours, It's death.

It's like death. And he had blood force trauma and he had that like wear and tear. And he could switch gears on you depending on like if he had you and he felt better physically, he had the option to just throw that ball up and run. And you're having to create winners from Pockets that you don't want to or he could bully you if if he was feeling great. talk a little bit more about what that weight feels like and then what what does it do to your option.

Well, I mean you're you the ball's either going above you or away from you. So you're not getting to be like that classic, you know, if you're taking a tennis lesson at home and you're a chucker, you're stepping in, you're hitting it hard and you feel good. Now if you have to take Steps left and the ball is out of your zone, you will not be able to be as effective. And if that's the case on every shot,

You're not very effective. And it's just it's the tumbler ball. Like it it just it it's it's spinning. So when it hits your strings, it's like fighting against your strings. Right. And it's like the and so If you're switching directions, it's just up and away all the time. So you're kind of knocking it down as opposed to hitting through it like a heat zone. It's like being a baseball player and having to account for high balls too, like a high fastball. Like there's no strike zone.

Yeah there's a the strike zone. It's it's all of it. Yeah. But but if imagine if someone could throw a curveball at ninety six miles an hour. Like that's that's what it's like playing Rafa. It sounds horrible. So but the point uh you said on on different surfaces. On a fast surface

you can get it through the court to where he's not set and t he it's more of a defensive layoff shot as opposed to the one where he like turns it. So you can basically if you hit it through the court, he's less likely to be able to create that set really heavy spin profile.

So it's like the service matters, but only because you can get the ball through the court to where he's not getting that full ripper uh on faster surfaces. Slow services like death is like fucking what's tomorrow look like?

Megan had two questions about Novak. In the first one, I I think if we're talking about forehands and we're talking about defensive players and all that, Novak seems to have this secret weapon that is health and wellness, longevity, and that's his main power. You know I don't think that's his main power, but. I mean it's it's one of his incredible I'm not gonna accept that just because someone establishes it as premise during the question.

What part of his regimen would you or ninety p nine percent of the tour never be able to do? So everyone's able to do stuff really well and really disciplined, doing it for twenty years to like an extreme level. One, the flexibility is like nobody I've ever seen. Right. We talk about power. We talk about, you know, Roger's grace, Rafa's power. We'd often say Novak's flexibility. Like it needs to be in that conversation. Like there's a reason why you don't get hurt.

Um but just the discipline of and the obsession with I the the question I always have With with Novak and there's no answer and I'd be curious to hear what what I what what he would have to say about it. I would I would love to hear what he would have to say about it.

Would he have been as much of a maniac, and I mean that in a in a in a in a great way, about his diet, about his fitness, if he didn't feel like he was the one chasing? Like if he didn't feel like he had to do that to be successful. Like if you take those two out of it. He can do less to still be the guy.

I don't know that we'll know the answer to that, but I mean he he had like a little piece of chocolate after Australia one year and he's like, Well that was the first one in like fifteen years. It's just the daily discipline, like you hear about like what Brady did. It's like every day I wake up within the first five minutes I have lemon water. I have

It's just the constant discipline over time. Over time. And that's and that's the question mark with with Yannick and Alcaraz, and they haven't done anything to make us think that they they they're not capable of it. It's what they're doing currently

four as far as m amount of time that they've been doing it. That's the difference between these twenty slam winners and Alcaraz and Center right now. It's not just that the tennis is phenomenal any way you look at it. Like that's not the comp at this point anymore. They're great. They're great. You got fifteen years left. Yeah, speaking of fifteen years, she also writes, Djokovic broke out in two thousand six, two thousand seven, which is absurd.

Do you remember when you first saw him coming or when did you hear the locker room kind of start talking about him as a serious top five threat? Yeah, I remember like I remember in oh six I was playing the US Open and I he played Hewitt and I didn't know much about him at the time. I think he'd won a tour event that summer, but I remember wanting him to win because I didn't want to play Leighton. Uh

Yeah, so I remember that. And then oh seven obviously he broke out like in a massive way, like quickly. And then I think at Canada I lost to him in the quarters. I forget what order it was. It was like and then he beat Roger Rafa, I think, semi finals. And I think he was the first work person to beat three two one in a row at a at a Masters one thousand. That's an arrival. He's pretty good. Yeah. But you couldn't have you wouldn't have imagined'cause a serve was all out of whack.

He he also you wouldn't have imagined him being what he is now then though. Like it's not like a Rafa where he came out and you're like, this guy's gonna win every French open. Like it was very obvious. Novak at that time, the serve was not great and he would get tired in matches. Like you got him into heat and long matches. He didn't like it. And it was it was a it was no secret.

So there's no way that you could have projected forward to the year twenty twenty six and say this guy's has made a living on discipline, staying in matches, doing everything, you know, th going through these wars, winning five setters against Yannick Center at you know almost forty years old. I don't know that

anyone would have projected that forward from where he was, which is a testament to to him kind of leaving no stone unturned. Uh switching gears kind of to modern tennis. Nathan wanted to know how would you compare the level of competition faced by the big three during their dominant years with the level of competition currently facing Carlos and Yannick? I don't know. I don't know. It's not Apple's dad.

Yeah, I don't know. I I f I don't know. Players always get better over time. You know, you want me to compare myself to like Zverev? I don't I don't know. Win some, lose some, I the pr you know, six inches taller, everyone's taller now, everyone moves better now. I d I don't know. Um Hugh it was an animal. I I but I don't know how you compare twenty years later and All the advantages and and and everything else. Um

You know, I I think the one thing you could say is that there were three or four of them. Mm-hmm.

Um, you know, soft maybe a soft five, like stand for that three years was like, you know, crazy. So we'll see if someone else enters the conversation as it stands. I know three is more than two. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Nathan. Yeah. Yeah.

Actually I I have a follow up well, it's not really a follow up, but it's a l slightly different question. Okay. So when the Giants back then if one of them were to lose to someone who's not one of the Giants Was there a ch was there chatter in the locker room regarding We notice that they lost because of this. I didn't see Prime Novak, I don't think. Right. Like maybe I saw him in two thousand twelve when I realized I should stop playing because if that's what I had to beat.

But like 2011 he takes off, even though he had won a slam, it took a different form. Like it took a completely different form. So if he lost in 09 or like I, you know, I beat him in 09 a bunch in uh 2009, 2010, I don't think that was a shock. Fed for like four years. Yeah, it was like weird any time he lost. Rafa on clay, like forget about it. That's like a Seismic shift. Right. Um, so I probably for pockets of their careers for sure. And then their thing was like even when they were

Even at points where they were twenty percent less than their primes, they all won slams. Yeah. Which is absurd. You know, and that that chapter hasn't been written yet with the with these two. Yeah. Sam had a question. Which player outside the big three did you find hard to handle and why? I know I was I was gonna preface I'd be like maybe we should say in and Murray. I hate this like'cause I have s Hewitt I've said like I'm effusive.

Now I I had I think we ended up the same, seven and seven. I lost a bunch early and then won some later. Um one of the most stressful players that I'll ever play, just'cause he made you stay there mentally and physically every time you knew there the he was not going away. You had to beat him. Y he was never gonna go away. Like I so he was unbelievable talent wise.

In our generation, the person who probably matched the big three talent wise, you know, but not I mean, he would tell you not like th not the discipline, even though he's like the coolest person alive is Safin. He was like the first one of those like people like, oh the the you know, the first one who was tall and moved. I'm like, no, no, I'd like a word, please. Yeah. No, no.

Saffin six four, six five and like could run like he could and he had the talent in his hands. And you know, he would beat them sometimes, you know. Del Potro Like you want to talk about what could have been. Like, and I saw him a couple weeks ago in Brazil, but like they didn't want to play him. That wasn't fun for them. He beat them.

Del Potro's an animal. I hope nobody ever, ever, ever forgets how good Del Potro is was you won a slam, but you know, his level was like obviously not the big three, but like if you're talking Warrinka or like I mean

That he's that guy for sure. Like no one should ever forget about how fucking good he was. Talking in 6'7, too, by the way. Animal. Big dude. Animal. Didn't like playing him. Okay, well we only uh we only have one question left and you know what that means, Sean? Cue the music. Yeah. So this is what you guys do at your meeting. Yeah. It's actually that's what we spend a lot of time doing stuff like that, that's correct.

Biggie the big three. We dug up these beauties from Roland Garros karaoke booth in the late two thousands. Sean, give it a play. Go back. Just his team? I mean look how young it looks. Oh my god. Yeah, there no. There it is. We got one more? We got one more? Oh man.

It appears like those guys are in all of them. They must just be the producers. So two questions we have. One, should we bring this back? Should tournaments bring this back in two, if you would have been asked to do it, what song would you have sung? Late 2000s, karaoke hit? Oh well it doesn't have to be late two thousands. He did La Bomba, that was from the eighties. I'm just saying it would have to be it can't be something since the late two thousands if you would have been in that video.

Oh, it'd have been it would have been an Ice Ice Baby. Oh, yeah. Would have killed him. I would have crushed buckled everyone. Those amateurs in that karaoke booth, those two amateurs, killed him. Oh man Would have crushed Humpty Dance. It would not have been a song, I'll tell you that much. There would have been no singing involved. No saying just all performatives. Gangster's Paradise. I mean it would have been there would have been a banger. It wouldn't have been that shit.

Yeah. Best thing about those performances is that is that they're great tennis players. Yeah. Lambo's great he didn't commit quite I mean he was kinda like I don't know who those two other guys were. Yeah. They were doing a lot of lifting. Novak fully committed. Yeah. Novak ribs or shirt on. Rafa didn't even take he didn't even take his shirt off. Do you think it's a valuable? Yeah, something. That's it. That's all I got. We're great at our jobs. See you next week. Thank you.