Murray is perhaps the best player to employ a “Nadal strategy” that is significantly different from the way he normally plays.  Nadal is one of the most difficult players to get off his rhythm.  Bernard Tomic was able to rattle Djokovic some by hitting slices, off-pace shots, and combining that with hard-struck shots.  It’s arguable whether such tactics would even faze a player like Nadal who has the biggest strikezone in all of tennis.  He seems to be able to attack on all shots except the most hard-hit.

Each of Nadal’s rival basically plays their own game.  Federer hit the way he usually does.  Sometimes he plays more aggressive, but then he always plays aggressive.  Federer is almost the male equivalent of Maria Sharapova except Sharapova is even more offensive than Federer.  He’s not going to play a style where he is really patient.

Novak Djokovic, who has had the most success beating Nadal as of late, also avoids trying to hit any bigger than usual.  He tries to keep the ball very deep, and move the ball around, and get into solid shot making, preventing Rafa from taking over a point, and then using either his own steadiness to win, or waiting for an opening, going for a big shot once he’s set up.

Juan Martin del Potro also plays within himself, using a huge serve and huge forehand and deceptive mobiity to play Rafa.  del Potro doesn’t chance his strategy a great deal from what he normally plays.

But Andy Murray does have a Nadal strategy.  It was most effective in the 2008 US Open semifinals where he eliminated Nadal in four sets.  He took advantage of a weakness Nadal used to have: moving to his left.  Nadal used to model his game, in a peculiar way, after Roger Federer, running around his backhand to hit a forehand.  Because Nadal cheats to his backhand side, he leaves his forehand side wide open.  However, Nadal is so quick that you have to hit a very good inside-out shot to have Nadal miss the shot.

Murray has adjusted his Nadal strategy over time as Nadal has also adapted to the strategy.  For example, one staple of the Murray strategy is the short crosscourt forehand.  This is a neutral shot meant to get to the Nadal backhand.  Nadal is far less likely to hit winners off his backhand than his forehand.  Nadal uses his backhand to move the ball around, and set up his forehand.  It’s not nearly the liability it is for Roger Federer, but he doesn’t hit a ton of winners.  He can make amazing passes from the backhand, however.

This strategy was muted in today’s play.  He used it in the first set, but didn’t stick to it as much, preferring deeper shots off both sides.  While Murray was willing to engage Nadal in longer rallies at Roland Garros, he wanted to play shorter points at Wimbledon.

Murray wanted to following to beat Rafa.  First, hit big first serves.  Murray’s serve is best on grass, and one reason he is so successful at Wimbledon is dialing up a big first serve.  The problem?  Murray’s first serve percentage is among the lowest of top players.  Murray routinely serves in the mid 50%.  Meanwhile, Nadal’s first serve percentage is often close to 70%.  Djokovic and Federer tend to be in the 60% range.

Murray has decided long ago that the free points he wins off first serve is worth the poor first serve percentage.  Indeed, Murray has often won handily against other players when his first serve percentage is low.  When Murray wins against lower-ranked players, commentators rarely point out the percentage.

Early on in the first set, Murray was also trying to serve and volley.  This worked with mixed results.  Sometimes, serve and volley is employed to get the returner to hit shallower shots that are easier to attack.  Otherwise, a returner might hit a high looper deep and up the middle to put the server in a neutral of even somewhat defensive spot.

On the occasions Murray did volley, he hit a pretty clean volley.  I think his volleys have improved, even if he doesn’t use it that much.  Even so, it’s a passer’s game, so it’s tough to volley.  Nadal has established a model that works well.  Since Nadal puts players on their heels, he often sneaks into net.  He volleys well enough to get to nearly all volleys, an impressive improvement to the Nadal game.

Murray did several other things that’s a little different.  Perhaps based on Djokovic’s strategy, Murray opted to hit the ball very deep, often inches from the baseline.  He wanted to hit hard to either corner.  He’s started to add both down-the-line forehand and backhands to his repertoire which he needs to get better if he hopes to beat players like Nadal regularly.

He also tries to hit a hard crosscourt backhand if he’s drawn to his left after a forehand to Nadal’s backhand exchange.  This forces Nadal to have to move rapidly to his left.  Although Nadal has improved his ability to move to his left, it’s still effective, if he can get it in.

Nadal, for his part, sliced a lot more in this match than usual.  He still uses the threat of hitting winners to either corner to set up a drop shot or to sneak to net.

Murray’s Nadal strategy typically fails because he can’t keep up this high-risk sort of play without errors creeping in.   At 2-1, 15-30 on Nadal’s serve, Murray had a chance to hit a huge forehand inside-in (Nadal had covered the inside-out shot) and hit it long.  Nadal was able to save the game and break.  Part of this seemed to be a hip issue that Murray suffered in the second set.

Even as he won the first set, he was making a few too many errors on Nadal’s serve.  Had he made some of the shots he was attempting, he would have pressured Nadal greatly, perhaps getting a break earlier on.  Indeed, Nadal, for the most part, did pretty holding serve in the first set.  Murray played the first set like Federer–looking for the rare game to break.

After Nadal held for 2-all, Murray’s concentration totally abandoned him.

For two sets, Murray just sprayed shots everywhere.  This helped Nadal in a few ways.  First, it gave him games, but it also gave him confidence to move around.  Nadal started this match a bit cold, not able to chase the balls he is used to.  However,  by the third set, he was moving well again, and this helped him weather the storm when Murray’s game started to improve in the fourth set.

Murray actually had decent shots in Nadal’s game, but numerous errors hurt his opportunities.  If Murray wants to play this style, he needs to play it more often, and not just reserve it for Nadal.  This strategy hurt Murray back in the Monte Carlo semifinals when he won a set by being aggressive, but then his game went off, and Nadal was able to get breaks.  Nadal realizes that this level of aggression is not something Murray can sustain, and so he plays patient, getting the balls back, and sometimes avoids getting into a slugging match.

Murray also tried slicing up the line.  This is something that del Potro tried, though that was mostly out of Nadal trying to hit short crosscourt, forcing del Potro to come to net.  del Potro sliced shots up the line and it seemed to give Nadal some issues because he couldn’t run around it to hit his huge forehand.

Murray also employed a Nadal-like strategy taking high balls in the air and coming to net to take time away from Nadal.

In the end, Murray made way too many errors, and his serve, so effective in the first set, faltered in the remaining sets.  Nadal mostly had to keep his game at his usual high level, but didn’t have to resort to playing awesome tennis to win.  When players attack Nadal, Nadal keeps his errors low, and lets his opponents beat themselves.  Obviously, he’ll play aggressive when the opportunity presents itself.

Djokovic will approach the match differently.  Like Murray, Djokovic will try to be aggressive on return, but he’s more willing to hit long rallies with Nadal and absorb Nadal’s pace.  Djokovic almost plays a Roddick-like strategy, but he does it better than Roddick.  He keeps the ball deep and hard to prevent Nadal from taking advantage of the rally.  Nadal is likely to play more aggressive since Djokovic is not planning to hit winners without longer rallies.

Anyway, I’ll talk about Djokovic later on.

The final isn’t exactly as most predicted.  Many had expected a Federer-Nadal final, but I felt Federer might not be able to duplicate the feat.  With his loss in the semis of Roland Garros, a huge amount of pressure was lifted from Djokovic’s shoulders.  He was able to play without too much scrutiny, which is amazing, given how good a year he’s had.  Just shows how short a memory the tennis public has.