A great point with Agassi and Nadal

In their primes....

  • Agassi would lead the H2H

    Votes: 21 61.8%
  • Rafa would lead the H2H

    Votes: 13 38.2%

  • Total voters
    34

TennisFan3

Talk Tennis Guru
Agassi had Rafito on a string here, really shows how much more Rafa used to be willing to run as well.

http://youtu.be/9btjxQpy1s0

Enjoy!
Also who do you think would lead the H2H out of Prime Agassi and Prime Rafa?

Good post.

That's what f***ed Nadal's knees. He used to stand miles behind the baseline and defend, defend, defend.. What a sharp contrast from these days.

In all fairness, he should have started out as the player he is now, if he had a good specialist coach..
 
Agassi had Rafito on a string here, really shows how much more Rafa used to be willing to run as well.

http://youtu.be/9btjxQpy1s0

Enjoy!
Also who do you think would lead the H2H out of Prime Agassi and Prime Rafa?

I think andre would be a bad matchup for nadal. nadal has problems with guys that take the ball early and pound it flat.

look at the davydenko matches, or murray.

and agassi is the best at early striking ever, ten times the class of davydenko.

I think nadal would kill sampras, but agassi is a bad matchup for him. anyone knows the key to nadal is hitting the ball on the rise, and no one in the history of tennis did that as good as agassi.
 

Pozarevacka

Banned
Nadal's already on the GOAT list. Agassi is debatable.

Wow. According to who? Agassi has won 8 GS (been to 15 finals), 1 YEC, a gold medal, 17 Masters, missed wimbledon a bunch of years, didn't play AO until he was 25... I mean, that's a serious statement consider Ralph and Agassi have very similar accomplishments, all the while Agassi was playing against a whole bunch of GS winners, not against only Nole and Fed...
 
Nadal's already on the GOAT list. Agassi is debatable.

lebron%20wade%20facepalm-thumb-479x269-330783.jpg
 

35ft6

Legend
Rafa won that match featured in the play of the week.

I would consider Rafa the favorite on every current surface, but it would be interesting. Agassi had such great hands and such a solid two hander, he might be able to step in and neutralize some of Nadal's spin by hitting on the rise. If his backhand down the line was on fire and he was stepping in and hitting bombs, you figure he could do what Blake has done to Nadal in the past. The thing about Blake, though, is he's much faster than Agassi. Agassi was a good tennis mover because he could hit the ball so early, he was willing to go straight to the ball, cutting down the angles and traveling a shorter distance, but he wasn't a world class mover.

Agassi was like the Cesar Chavez of tennis, he used body blows to take out the legs from his opponent. He would intentionally prolong points so that in the later sets his opponent would be dead. Don't see that working against Nadal.

Anyway, Nadal leads the head to head 2-0.
 
Rafa won that match featured in the play of the week.

I would consider Rafa the favorite on every current surface, but it would be interesting. Agassi had such great hands and such a solid two hander, he might be able to step in and neutralize some of Nadal's spin by hitting on the rise. If his backhand down the line was on fire and he was stepping in and hitting bombs, you figure he could do what Blake has done to Nadal in the past. The thing about Blake, though, is he's much faster than Agassi. Agassi was a good tennis mover because he could hit the ball so early, he was willing to go straight to the ball, cutting down the angles and traveling a shorter distance, but he wasn't a world class mover.

Agassi was like the Cesar Chavez of tennis, he used body blows to take out the legs from his opponent. He would intentionally prolong points so that in the later sets his opponent would be dead. Don't see that working against Nadal.

Anyway, Nadal leads the head to head 2-0.

Well agassi was ancient when they met. and with ancient I don't mean 28 like federer but in his mid 30s.

if a limited player like davydenko can own nadal by taking balls early why should the best early striker of all time not beat him?

of course you are right on the movement thing. agassi had good and very efficient footwork but he was not fast. however nadal is a guy that plays a lot of balls to the middle so he likely wouldn't move around agassi too much.
 
Last edited:

35ft6

Legend
^ True about Davydenko.

In general, early ball strikers with big contact zones, relatively straight swing paths probably have the best shot against Nadal. I wonder how Kafelnikov would have done against him.
 

The-Champ

Legend
well on HCs, I'd give the edge to Agassi.. though Rafa would win some as well. On clay, Agassi would be murdered everytime.
 

Sid_Vicious

G.O.A.T.
Very thought provoking post. You convinced me.
As if anyone here is bothering to convince each other about their opinions. Agassi is silently building up a massive lead in the poll and no one has given us a step-by-step analysis of why that is. It is a pretty opinionated topic.
 
Last edited:
N

NadalAgassi

Guest
The good news for Agassi was he wasnt nearly as consistently good as Federer on clay so he would avoid meeting Nadal often on clay, where he would for sure lose every single match. Grass they would hardly play on since there are hardly any events, and Agassi was also inconsistent on grass in his prime age years. Because of his inability to meet Nadal often on clay it would be interesting. Peak Agassi is probably a better player on hard courts. However Agassi was so inconsistent and had so many down spells I will still pick Nadal.
 
Top