Transgression Competition Research Paper

2009 Words5 Pages

The King of Clay vs the Fed Express With 32 grand slams won between the two of, Roger Federer, also known as the Fed Express, and Rafael “Rafa” Nadal, also known as the King of Clay, are two of the greatest tennis players of all time. These two players have faced each other 35 times and have dominated the sport for more than a decade. Over the course of their careers they have been the faces of tennis. Their rivalry is considered by many to be the greatest ever seen. What makes this rivalry so phenomenal is how different yet similar they both are. One of the most striking differences between these two players is their style of play. Nadal grew up in Spain and played on very slow red clay courts. This background caused him to be a baseline …show more content…

This means that he can play from anywhere on the court. Unlike Nadal, he chooses to take the ball early. This gives himself and his opponent less time to react to the ball. This prevents his opponents from fully recovering, causing them to constantly be on the run. An ideal example of this is when Federer hits an angle and pulls his opponent off the court, he is able to take time away from his opponent by moving into the court and taking the ball early. In addition to moving into the court, Federer’s net game is superb and he is not afraid of coming into the net to finish the point early. In fact, they named a shot after him called the SABR (Sneak Attack By Roger) in which he hits his return of serve right after the ball’s bounce and rushes into the …show more content…

At the beginning of their rivalry, Nadal dominated on clay because the slow courts gave him more time; while Federer dominated on both hard and grass because of the faster courts took time away from his opponents. Nadal saw that his style of play didn’t allow him to have as much success on grass and hard courts. So, he started migrating closer to the baseline and taking the balls earlier. He also started hitting the ball harder and flatter in order to take time away. These modifications started giving him more success on both hard and grass courts and soon gave him the skills needed to beat Federer and rise to be the best player in the world regardless of surface. In contrast, Federer had success on all surfaces immediately and became the best in the world very quickly without anyone to challenge him. This gave him a false sense of security that he did not need to adjust his game. It was not until recently that he changed his style. This year at the Australian Open he won by being more aggressive and taking the ball even earlier than in the

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