I'm not sure that is what he's saying. It's not like he is saying more grass, which is the only surface that there definitely is too little of, he's just talking about clay. If he's saying he would have just clay if up to him, in a way that means "well obviously if I wanted to do what was best for Rafa, then I would have all clay but that would just be a ridiculous thing, so of course I wouldn't really want that, just a fairer mix" then fair enough. But if he actually means that he really would make it all clay if given the option then he's a fool for expressing that view because it makes him look greedy and scared of challenge, which his nephew isn't.
I think it's a mix. I mean everyone has different levels of natural talent, so some people must have a talent for playing a certain way which translates to one surface more than another one. I do think Nadal's talent fits clay the best. But I also feel Toni probably groomed him as a clay player even knowing being a good HC player was the best bet for success. I have never liked Toni and we've all heard he is super hard on Nadal. I kind of feel Toni at first didn't believe Nadal was as talented as he is and thought "you can just be a clay player" only later trying to get him to be an all courter. I think Nadal could have been moulded as an all court player from much earlier on (toni made him left handed so who knows what else he could have done) and though he may have not been totally dominant on clay, overall he might have made up for it or gone further. Nadal is better than just a clay court player so could have developed a game for HC early on I think.
I agree there needs to be more fast HCs, instead of just slow. I wouldn't mind a bit more clay though as long as you first had a good place to put it (only place I can think of is making IW/Miami clay) and making more grass as well. If you made IW/Miami clay, then make one of them faster like Madrid, remove Madrid, move RG earlier and have 2 or 3 grass masters, maybe one after Wimbledon. Not really do-able though..
If he said that, he's an idiot really.
That is true. Although if there had been an equal amount of HC, Clay AND grass, I think Federer would still be doing fine. Possibly better, because he had less people able to beat him on grass than HC for a few years. But a lot of times people talk about less HC, people just think of replacing it with clay. For me,
I'm not sorry to say I'm pleased there is much more HC than clay because HC is a better substitute for the vastly underused grass. Grass should be fast so the only way to somewhat compensate for so little grass is fast HC, though these days the HC is super slow too. More clay means nearly everything slow. So no more clay unless there is more grass too
