When racquets were tiny, and the ability to hit a good shot merely meant to keep the ball in play, the ultimate in strategy was pure steadiness.  Before Nadal was king of clay, there was Bjorn Borg.  Thin, wiry, iconically Swedish, Borg was the stoic player.  When the world was playing slice and Continental grips, Borg had elongated forehands and whippy topspin.

This was devasting on all but the lowest bouncing surfaces.  I recall a match where Borg played Brian Gottfried, a classic American player, who hit with a Continental grip or at least something more Eastern.  He would underspin shots.  He had to deal with balls that bounced shoulder-height or higher over and again, and it was all he could do to hit his flat shots and control them.  He was used to playing shots waist high.  Borg, and players like him, simply redefined the game.

Borg was quick, he used topspin, and so his strategy was simply to hit crosscourt, 30-40 shots and wait for the error.

It was like waiting paint dry.  Players simply didn’t try for winners.  Even when they resorted to the only strategy that was effective–slicing an approach to net, that devastating topspin dipped it low, a shot that didn’t exist for the classic players except maybe Laver, who discovered, topspin was good for passes.

Those were the days of defense, when there was no real offense.

Even a player like Nadal, who often gets classified as a defensive player, isn’t anywhere near the kind of defense of the day of Borg.  With topspin, players of the 70s couldn’t exactly attack, at least without some risk, and so some just chose to play this outlast game, especially the Europeans and South Americans.

Nadal has always had the capacity to play offense.  He doesn’t play the kind of winner-type of offense of a Federer.  Instead, he waits for his opportunities, then he hits a hard inside-out shot, and starts to get his opponent running.  Once they are on the run, Rafa keeps them running and running.  The ball becomes increasingly harder to get, and eventually, either Rafa closes the net and volleys the winning shot, or his opponent coughs up a short ball and Nadal pounces, or they miss.

It’s this threat to break open a point and for his opponents on the defense that makes Rafa particularly dangerous.  It also means that anyone who has had success with Rafa, outside of, well, Djokovic, has had to alter their strategy to play Rafa.

Perhaps no one personifies this dual strategy than Andy Murray.

Murray is a counterpuncher by nature, although he isn’t a classic counterpuncher.  Gilles Simon is perhaps a bit more classic.  Someone who is quick, who doesn’t have a tremendous amount of power.  Even he needs some offense, and he plays a flatter style.  The best example right now is on the women’s tour and that’s Carolyn Wozniacki (or Jelena Jankovic).  It’s just too hard to play a true counterpunching style on the men’s side because you need instant offense.  Wilander, to me, is the true classic counterpuncher.

Murray used to change page.  Slice, topspin, etc.  He would try to disrupt a player’s rhythm and force them into errors.  He didn’t even mind if they tried attacking the net because he passed so well.  Murray was often hitting 2/3 speed shots almost goading his opponent to hit a hard shot while he scrambled to get the ball, often effectively winning it.

But Nadal is a different beast.  Nadal, more than any other player, can handle any height of ball.  Sharp, low slices?  No problem.  High spinny shots?  No problem.  He is practically immune to change of pace.

Thus, nearly everyone has the same strategy playing Nadal.  Outhit Nadal.  Go for a big shot early.

There’s one huge drawback with this strategy.  It’s outside the comfort range for most players.  Ask them to go for big shots, and they start to miss more.

And let’s not forget that Nadal is lightning quick.  One reason Rafa won the French in 2010 against hard hitting Soderling was that he chased down all the hard shots Soderling hit, and spun it high, and reset the point.  Soderling would hit another hard shot, and Nadal would again chase it down.  Soderling is among the best at hitting power shot after power shot.  But even this takes its toll.

Several players have had some success playing a strategy that’s not nearly outside their comfort zone.  Before Nikolay Davydenko was injured in 2010, he was on the hugest roll of his career.  The heir apparent (and hair apparent) to Andre Agassi, Davydenko won by hugging close to the baseline, hitting amazing angles.  Against Nadal, Nikolay would hit a sharp angle to Rafa’s backhand.  Rafa would be standing way back, and pulled out at a huge angle.  Rafa would hit the ball back crosscourt.  Davydenko would hit the shot up the line for a winner, safely inside the sideline and baseline.

Davydenko wasn’t playing serve and volley, but his ability to hit off the rise robbed Nadal of time.  Even then, it was work for Davydenko to beat Nadal.

The other player that generally plays his own game against Nadal is Novak Djokovic.  Djokovic combines speed and pinpoint accuracy to win points.  He’s fast enough to keep up with Rafa and if you attack him, he can hit a hard shot that comes back just as fast.  He plays just offensive enough that he’s putting pressure on Rafa.  Rafa often adjusts his strategy to be more offensive.  That doesn’t happen so often.

Rafa has, in the past 2 years, learned to be more aggressive especially on a faster court.  He’ll aim for lines more.  He’ll try to keep the points shorter.  But, at times, especially on clay, Rafa reverts back to a more passive mode.  He’ll rely on his speed and the fact that most opponents try to hit big shots and therefore incur more errors to win.  Indeed, this is mostly what he did to beat Soderling to win the French.  He doesn’t need to attack all the time provided he can retrieve.  He attacks when the opportunities arise, but otherwise, the errors are often enough for him to win.

Agassi learned this late in life.  He used to want to hit winners all the time.  But this lead to errors.  Gilbert made him realize that he was a steady player and that his standard rally shot applied pressure.  This prevented Agassi from being attacked a lot and he could wait for an error or an easy shot to go for a winner.

Nadal was never this offensive.  He’s having to turn up the offense to win.

Meanwhile, Andy Murray, who apparently needed a cortisone injection, has also had to learn offense.  Murray’s game never had the kind of offensive pressure Rafa could exert.  He couldn’t keep an opponent chasing shots, at least, not until more recently.

Look at a player like Gilles Simon.  He’s shorter than Murray.  He could do with more power in his game.  He doesn’t hit that way.  Murray is talented enough that he’s learned to hit power shots.  His forehand has a lot of firepower.  He doesn’t use it against most players, reserving it for players like Rafa or Federer or maybe Djokovic.  He misses some when he goes for the shot.

Murray’s also added a big crosscourt backhand shot which may now be the biggest crosscourt backhand in the game.  Even Murray was only able to sustain this heavy hitting for about 2 sets.  By the third set, he was back to spinning that backhand.  Such is the dilemma when your body betrays you.  You want to hit hard, and your body tells you otherwise.

Until recently, Murray’s big problem, one that Djokovic doesn’t have, is his down-the-line backhand.  Murray has always preferred hitting crosscourt.  Down-the-line always gave him more trouble.  If Murray had a good down-the-line backhand, he, rather than Djokovic, might be number 2.

Murray’s early strategy against Rafa involved hitting short crosscourt forehands to Rafa’s backhand, having Rafa relpy with a neutral shot to the middle of the forehand side, and then hitting a hard inside-out shot to Rafa’s forehand.

For a long time, Rafa’s weakness was running down shots to his forehand.  This lead to one of the few strategies that seemed to work.  Hit to his backhand and draw him out wide.  Hope Rafa wouldn’t try to hit a huge shot with his backhand (he’s pretty conservative on that side), then hit inside-out to the open court and hope Rafa would slap at the ball and miss.

Since then, Rafa has learned to cover the shot wide, partly by spinning the ball up and not going for a big flat shot (well, flat for Rafa).  When Rafa’s timing is good, he’ll curl that forehand down the line.  He’s learning to deal with this deficiency.

Meanwhile, Murray realized that his flat strokes are prone to error, so he’s built a heavy topspin shot on both sides.  He uses it to buy time.  Against, Rafa, he would hit this high topspin shot to Rafa’s backhand.  The more he was pulled out wide, the higher he would spin it.  Because Rafa is far less likely to attack with his backhand, Murray would often be able to recover.  It helps that Murray is really speed himself.  Other slightly slower players wouldn’t be able to recover.  That tiny fraction of a second that Murray has helps him immeasurably.

Rafa, for the most part, lost the second set by playing rather passively.  He was hoping Murray would make errors.  When he was broken three times in the second set, Rafa reverted to a somewhat more offensive strategy in the third set.  It was also clear that Murray was struggling due to the length of the match.

The second set had plenty of games that lasted ten minutes or longer.  The 2-1 game with Murray attempting to consolidate the break was 20 minutes alone.

It was said the cortisone shot was starting to wear off, but whatever magic Murray had in the second set was also wearing off.  His error rate went up while Nadal began to play more aggressively.  If Murray is to hope this strategy will pay off, it seems he should use it more often.  However, I believe this strategy probably puts more strain on Murray’s body, so he doesn’t use it that often.

Even so, of all of Nadal’s opponents, Murray is the one that seems to apply a special strategy that works the best.  Federer ends up having to play the occasional neutral shot hoping to open for a power shot, but other than playing ultra-aggressive, a strategy that only works if the court is fast and low.  But that’s the style of play Federer likes to play anyway.  Djokovic and del Potro appear to play their own games for the most part.

And so, the chess game continues…