Now that the most important clay court tournaments are conclude (Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid) and Rafael Nadal has become the first player to win all three titles, we must ask: who can beat Nadal on clay?

Before we try to answer that question, let’s look at clay court tennis.  You only have to go back about 20 years or so, maybe closer to 30, at the beginning of the early 1980s to find the traditional view of clay court tennis.  Long rallies that lead to errors.  No one had a big forehand.  Even Ivan Lendl, the father of modern power tennis, played patient tennis on clay courts.

Today, the key to modern clay court tennis is waiting for that opening where you can go for your big shots.  The serve is somewhat neutralized on this surface and flatter shots don’t penetrate as much as they would on a faster surface.  In a way, the way you play on clay courts isn’t that much different than on hard courts, except you’re likely to see far more drop shots and you may have to hit more shots to win a point than on faster surfaces.

The point is, clay court tennis is still aggressive tennis, perhaps more aggressive than hard courts, if you can believe that.  Ask yourself who the most patient player is that plays high level tennis.  My answer may surprise you.  I believe it’s Andy Roddick.  Andy Roddick is often more willing to wait for errors than to go for big shots.  And yet his style of play hasn’t lead to that much success on clay because the surface, oddly enough, slows things down enough that it favors someone taking big swipes at the ball where hard courts are fast enough that Roddick’s groundstrokes pressure an opponent into avoiding big shots.  And perhaps slice works better on hard courts than clay courts, which is also a big Andy Murray stroke.

Nadal is a game changer for most players.  They find themselves adjusting their tactics to play the clay maestro.  Nadal produces a bunch of problems that make it difficult for opponents to adjust.  First, Rafa hits the heaviest ball in tennis.  If he feels a bit nervous, he can loop the ball up much higher than most players and have the spin kick out.  He used to neutralize Federer for years by hitting high loopers to the Fed backhand.  And because he’s a lefty, that natural crosscourt forehand went to Federer’s backhand.

Second, Rafa is ridiculously quick, perhaps the quickest player in all of tennis.  In the Madrid final, Rafa hits a high passing shot to the Federer backhand side.  Federer flicks a cross between a high backhand overhead and a standard volley which angles sharply crosscourt, but deep.  Rafa races to his left and is soon about 10 feet left of the doubles sidelines.  He his a shot up the line.

Fortunately for Roger, he spots that Rafa looks like he’ll make the shot (most players would have given up on the point), backpedals, and hits a crosscourt shot into the open court.  The point is, under normal circumstances, Roger wouldn’t have had to hit that last shot.  The point would already be over.  Rafa gets to so many balls that it pressures an opponent to make better shots which often leads to errors.  And there are plenty of times he gets to the ball and actually makes the winning shot.

In Monte Carlo, Verdasco had a similar shot.  He hit a backhand overhead angle.  Rafa kinda stood his ground, stuck out his racquet, and generated the sharpest angle that just landed on the sideline.  Verdasco had no choice but to think “too good” and move to the next point.

This means, even if you up the level of your aggression, chances are that Rafa will make you hit a few more balls.  Roger unveiled some of his new backhand ideas in the Madrid final.  He’s been working on a hard inside out backhand and a sharply angled backhand.   I think he hoped these strokes would cause Rafa to make mistakes or lead to outright winners.  Neither was the case.  Rafa is still so quick that he chases these shots down.

Third, Rafa is very steady.  In general, Rafa doesn’t make errors randomly.  You have to hit a forcing shot to make him make errors, and even when you hit a pretty hard shot, he needs very little time to hit a good shot with his reverse forehand.   This steadiness means Rafa isn’t giving you a lot of free points.  Roger, on the other hand, often does give you lots of free points on errors that aren’t due to being pressured but due to Roger wanting to end the point quickly.

Rafa has made some changes in his game lately.  Rafa has realized that his strokes push opponents back.  Rafa isn’t interested in hitting outright winners the way Federer is.  He knows if he places his heavy balls in certain spots, his opponents will struggle to get it back.  Rafa can kill short balls as well as anyone, so when he does that, even if his opponents reach the ball and get it back (something players do quite well), he’ll close into net and drop a volley over.  Rafa is quite an underrated volleyer.  When he’s in control of the point, he rarely whiffs this close out volley.  In the past, Rafa might have been content just playing the points longer and longer.  This allows him to end a point when he gets an opportunity.

Also, late in the year, Rafa was getting a bit passive.  Balls were dropping short.  He was letting his opponents hit with him.  On the clay, Rafa has decided to be more aggressive.  In general, Rafa does play a bit more aggressive on the clay.  By going for bigger shots when the opportunities arise, he can play quicker points and thus preserve his knee.  Rafa’s always had the ability to go for huge shots, but his disposition was to play safer, waiting for a better opportunity, or be pushed into a corner and forced to hit a great shot.  Now, Rafa seems more willing to end points quicker.

Rafa also generates crazy angles.  Say, you send Rafa off to his left, which is his weakness.  He can whip an up the line forehand with sidespin and curve a winner in.  He can hit inside-out to where the service line meets the sidelines.  In a standard ball up the middle, Rafa can hit a sharp crosscourt to where the sideline meets the service line.  Rafa hits so many lines, it’s incredible.  His timing rarely seems off which is quite impressive, and perhaps a testament to his training style which seems to be all out.

OK, so now we know his strengths, how do you beat Rafa?

Let’s look at how players have beaten Rafa.  Let’s look at several folks who have had luck beating Rafa: Nikolay Davydenko, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, and Juan Martin del Potro.  We’ll also look at Fed.  Davydenko’s style is quite interesting.  He, more than most players, likes to play very close to the baseline.  He can create sharp angles on both sides, and hit up the line on both sides.  He has enough pace and consistency to keep up with Nadal.

A typical Davydenko exchange might have him hitting a sharp angle forehand to Nadal’s backhand.  Nadal hits this back crosscourt, and with Davydenko near the baseline, he hits up the line.  Davydenko has robbed Nadal of time by standing close in and hitting hard.  Davydenko’s strength is the power of his shots plus his ability to play close in plus his amazing consistency to hit hard even on the run.  He has all the tools to pressure Nadal.  His serve has even improved giving him cheap points from time to time.

Novak Djokovic seems to play his usual game against Rafa, and that is to move the ball around, play steady, and go for his down-the-line backhand for big shots.  It’s really hard to pinpoint why Djokovic does well against Rafa other than he’s quick.  Djokovic doesn’t hit huge shots.  His winners don’t leave you breathless, but he does it well enough to win.

Andy Murray does what many players do.  They have a strategy built just for Rafa.  Against any other player, Andy is more content to mix things up, play spins, wait for errors.  Rafa is seemingly immune to this tactic.  He doesn’t fall for change of pace, so you have to be aggressive playing Rafa.  Murray’s one weapon is his return of serve and one of Rafa’s weaknesses is his serve.  It’s not exactly attackable, but he doesn’t make many aces either, and Murray is able to play as aggressive a return as anyone.

Murray has been using the short angle forehand to Nadal’s backhand lately.  Nadal generally plays neutral off his backhand (although in Madrid, he did go for bigger shots).  By using a short angle, Nadal can’t run around it to hit his superior forehand, but neither does he tee off on the shot.  Murray can therefore hope for a neutral shot up the middle which he can attack inside out to Nadal’s forehand.

Indeed, if Nadal has one weakness, it’s that he’s slower moving to his left than to his right.  If you hit a righty crosscourt forehand to Nadal’s backhand and Nadal hits a shot up the middle, then you can go inside out for the winner.  This is a typical Federer strategy, but many players have learned to hit this shot.

Juan Martin del Potro showed that power still works.  Many players try the big shot strategy.  They know they hit hard and if they can do it enough times, they can bother Nadal.  In Madrid, two players tried this strategy: Alex Dolgopolov Jr. and Nicolas Almagro.  If you hit huge shots, there’s only so much Rafa can reach.  Unfortunately, most players who play like this are playing outside their comfort zone.  They are increasing their chances for errors, and Rafa still can get some of those hard hit balls back in play (in fact, he frequently does).  In the end, these strategies fail because players can’t sustain this high level of hitting and errors mount up.

del Potro, on the other hand, is used to hitting the hardest forehand in tennis.   That forehand decimated Nadal in the US Open last year when he had no answers.  del Potro also serves big and wins free points off that serve.  Indeed, given this list of players that have beaten Nadal, nearly all of them have beaten him on faster surfaces where their serves gives them a few points they don’t have to work for, while on clay, they are sometimes forced to work for every single point.

Ernests Gulbis added an interesting twist.  Gulbis has learned to steady his game some, but he still hits a huge serve and a huge forehand.  With his opponents pushed back, Gulbis can then hit a drop shot.  Gulbis probably hits more drop shots per match than any player on tour, and so he’s quite good at it.  It’s smart because Gulbis has a very big game otherwise, that normally pushes his opponents back.  Gulbis had chances to defeat Nadal and was probably the closest player outside of Federer to do it this season.

The general feeling is the way to beat Nadal is to hit a winner before he hits one on you.  Nadal’s patience often allows you time to look for a big shot.  On clay, these days, it’s just too hard to wait for an error.  It’s too hard to place shots just so that Nadal decides he would rather rally off that shot than go for a big shot himself.  And there’s only been one player I’ve seen that has kinda tried to pressure Nadal in the way he generally pressures his opponents.

Against Nadal, Alex Dolgopolov Jr. also had an interesting idea.  He began hitting heavy high loopers to the Nadal backhand.  Even Nadal had some issues handling this shot.  Most players feel that to hit with Nadal they need to go the other direction and hit the ball flatter so it can cut through the air quicker.  But that’s because they feel the need to outhit Nadal.  Few have tried feeding Nadal his own medicine by looping shots to his backhand.  That’s partly because it’s very hard to do.  You need crazy spin with enough pace that Nadal doesn’t tee off on that shot.  Davydenko’s strategy of using sharp angles helps, but it works better on hard courts where his flatter shots prevents Nadal from getting a hard shot back that Davydenko can’t handle.

Alas, two people that have given Nadal trouble (albeit on faster surfaces) aren’t playing the French.  Namely, Davydenko and del Potro.  Soderling beat Nadal at the French and continued to have success against him later in the year, but only on faster surfaces.  Soderling’s flat hitting style was helped by Nadal being partly hobbled and not playing as aggressive as he had wanted to.  Had Nadal been 100%, he probably would have won the match.  All credit to Soderling for having a style of game that bothered Nadal.  Nadal still beats most players even when he isn’t 100%.

Ernests Gulbis has the kind of game that can bother Nadal too.  He hits big serves, he can keep up with Nadal on the baseline, and his drop shots are deadly.  Most people feel that serving well is the key to beat Nadal, and on clay, that’s easier said than done.  Only a player with the kind of serving firepower of Isner has bothered Nadal on clay.  Gulbis is perhaps the only other player whose serve seems to bother Nadal, and he’s far better off the ground than Isner.

Right now, I’d say Nadal is the solid favorite to win the French.  The players that could bother him, in my opinion are, Roger Federer, Ernests Gulbis, and maybe Robin Soderling.  I feel less certain Soderling could beat him this year even though Soderling gained a tremendous amount of confidence beating Nadal last year.  His chances are better on faster courts.  However, Soderling does at least have a big serve and hit off the ground well.  He’s not played great on clay this year, but arguably, he didn’t have a great clay season last year either.

Beyond that, you kinda get into wishful thinking, like Ivo Karlovic or John Isner having a perfect serving day and having a little luck in the tiebreaks, or a player like Almagro hitting winners all day long.

In general, you need a player that has a big serve, that is steady enough to not make too many errors (or is hitting winners like crazy), is speedy enough to keep up, and can take big shots when they present themselves.  And that leaves out a lot of people.

Oh, I suppose I could include Novak Djokovic in the list.  If Novak can get his game in shape like Roger did, he still has chances to beat Rafa.  He was Rafa’s biggest opponent last year on clay and it still seems possible that he could do it again.  I don’t find that likely, but I wouldn’t quite discount him either.

Any other thoughts on who could beat Rafa?  The list seems pretty small to me.