How do Nadal and Agassi matchup
- Thread starter davey25
- Start date
drakulie
Talk Tennis Guru
And it is obvious you didn't see that final, huh?
Better in the way he uses it, which is why he is more accomplished than all on the list except sampras :twisted:
drakulie
Talk Tennis Guru
Cesc Fabregas
Legend
What ******** logic, even by your standards. Federer owns Roddick so he should have no problem with Nadal's serve, right? :roll:
drakulie
Talk Tennis Guru
Don't worry, I already gave in and acknowledged Nadal has the greatest serve in history, momo.
davey25
Banned
Interesting. So you believe Nadal is a better returner than Agassi on clay? I couldnt agree on that one.
vandre
Hall of Fame
You sound like azzuri or gamesampras (davey) with this prime talk drak
http://www.atpworldtour.com/Players/Head-To-Head.aspx?pId=N409&oId=A092
Nadal owned him :twisted:
what part of spondylolisthesis don't you understand? :twisted:
All of it 
He was healthy enough to play the match, dont see why he wants to use that as an excuse now. If it were really as bad as people make it out to be do you really think he would be competing with the best players in the world? Its like pete's blood disorder.
Drak, you cannot debate the guys on your list (aside from pete) have better serve's than nadal when nadals % held is much higher :twisted:
He was healthy enough to play the match, dont see why he wants to use that as an excuse now. If it were really as bad as people make it out to be do you really think he would be competing with the best players in the world? Its like pete's blood disorder.
Drak, you cannot debate the guys on your list (aside from pete) have better serve's than nadal when nadals % held is much higher :twisted:
drakulie
Talk Tennis Guru
I already said, Nadal has the greatest serve of all time. Thanks for your insight.
D
Deleted member 3771
Guest
Too slow and no big serve is 1 too many weaknesses to match up decently with Nadal. To match up well Agassi would either need an oxygen machine at the change of ends or Nadal to be severely injured.
D
Deleted member 21996
Guest
the part where nadal got Aced by a man with that 7 times...
and somehow, these peeps think that Fedal would blow them of court prime to prime when they didnt do that on prime vs oldies...
lol, agassi was getting impatient waiting for nadal to serve in their wimbledon match.
D
Deleted member 21996
Guest
lol, agassi was getting impatient waiting for nadal to serve in their wimbledon match.
nah... why would he? doesnt nadal serve within normality? unless there is something wrong with nadal's time between serves... oh wait.... nevermind...
:twisted:
Can't rush perfection Gorecki!
Agassi's real problem was that his outside option was quite good at that point....steffi graf.
D
Deleted member 21996
Guest
Can't rush perfection Gorecki!
Agassi's real problem was that his outside option was quite good at that point....steffi graf.
those legs... my god...
thalivest
Banned
Even if we exclude Wimbledon 2006 an old Agassi was still a combined 0-9 vs Federer and Nadal in 2003-2005 and 6-22 in sets with quite a few bagel and breadstick sets. He didnt even have to play Federer or Nadal on grass or clay either, or in Federer's case carpet. Their only matches were on hard courts, Agassi's best surface by a huge margin. Yet he was still much less of a threat to them than even Roddick, Hewitt, and Nalbandian were those years. Agassi was a late bloomer who wasted almost all his prime years and the old Agassi in 2003-2005 was playing much better than Agassi in 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, most of 1994 was. After all how would the Agassi who couldnt even beat Doug Flach, Luke Jensen, Scott Draper, have fared vs Federer and Nadal? I shudder to imagine. Prime Agassi is basically a myth which hardly ever existed as it lasted only 2 years total. July 1994-September 1995 and June 1999-January 2000. And even that Agassi had to go 5 sets to beat Medvedev and Todd Martin in slam finals, while getting thoroughly owned by Sampras at Wimbledon and the U.S Open.
As for never blowing off the court you obviously never saw the 2003 TMC final, Dubai 2005, Australian Open 2005. As for Nadal if Agassi had played Nadal on clay in 2005 he would have been lucky to win games given that he couldnt even beat him on hard courts while Nadal was then so weak on hard courts back then he was barely winning matches in slams on hard courts.
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vandre
Hall of Fame
where do you see fed in the op's question? oh, that's right, NO WHERE!
this is strictly how prime nadal would fair against prime agassi. period. you can spout of with that whole "prime agassi" myth and i can spout off about how there's not been a prime nadal since the 09 aussie because of his gimpy little knees, but at the end of the day none of that means anything because it is about those two players facing each other at their peaks.
on clay, nadal wins and it isn't even close (hooray for you).
on hardcourt, agassi owns nadal. not even close. 4>1 and nadal's lone aussie title came after they changed the surface (which coincidentally happened to suit nadal's game). unless you've got a time-travelling delorean, neither 2003 or 2005 = 94-95 or even 99-00, so that stuff about tmc is pointless, especially since agassi's back problems started in 2001. the fact of the matter is this: agassi's pace and ability to hit on the rise would leave nadal's knees in a million little pieces.
on grass, i'd have to say it's pretty close but again i have to ask, which grass are they playing on (the modern "green clay" version or the circa 92 grass)? again, on the modern grass, it's an absolute toss up. nadal's topspin is going to be killer but i'm not sure agassi can't handle it. now on the old grass, agassi gets the edge.
overall, regardless of surface...
serve- even; agassi's serve wasn't a weapon but is was far from a liability and nadal has that lefty thing going for him.
return- agassi by a mile
forehand- nadal; he can put it anywhere and gets some incredible angles
backhand- agassi by a mile
movement- nadal by a ton, but he's gonna need it when a.a. camps out on the baseline and starts dictating play.
volleys- even; nadal might have better hands at the net but agassi's got the swinging forehand volley
intangibles- nadal might have a slight edge here; i think people forget that if sampras doesn't pull some of those running forehands out of his @$$, we might be hearing agassi's name in the goat discussion. what muddles things is the belief i have that speaking in terms of their games, i think what andre does will bother nadal more than the other way around.
davey25
Banned
That all seems reasonable but one cannot ignore the mental side of the game which is a HUGE part of who wins especialy when players are closely matched. And it is here Nadal is superior to almost everyone in history, and certainly well superior to Agassi. Not that Agassi wasnt strong there himself when he was actually focused and into tennis but certainly not a Nadal.
I also dont see Agassi doing as well as Nadal does vs Federer on the current grass. When one thinks about it Nadal could have easily won the last 3 Wimbledons over Federer. He should have won that 2008 final where he overall outplayed Federer. And he probably would have won last year had he been able to play.
People don't understand that the groundstrokes have to be matched up against one another. Clearly Agassi's forehand is a better groundstroke than Nadal's backhand, and his backhand is steady enough for him to hold off Nadal's forehand. This is especially true on hardcourts and grass. This whole "Nadal's BH is a weapon" is a myth. When he is balls on fire yeah, his backhand is a weapon, but who's weaker side isn't? Typically Nadal will roll his backhand into play crosscourt or towards the middle of the court, and this is why he loses sometimes is because he plays extremely passive off that side at times.
Joke, you're saying he makes it pass Hewitt, Roddick, and Murray and then somehow beats a Federer serving absurdly well even for his standards?
Even if he gets to the final to reach Federer, he'll likely be exhausted. The best of Nadal vs. a subpar Roddick in 2008 on grass was a match decided by 1 break in each set.
Cesc Fabregas
Legend
Federer played awful in last years final, lets not make out he played god like, we know its makes your boy Roddick look better. The main reason he was serving so well is because Roddick can't read his serve to save his life, he has terribe anticipation.
davey25
Banned
Hewitt is a walkover for a healthy Nadal on any surface at this point in time. Roddick is a much bigger challenge but I am not sure I see Roddick beating Nadal in a slam. Even a subpar Roddick will hold serve most of the time btw. Murray can only beat Nadal on hard courts, he clearly isnt good enough on either grass or clay. As for Federer we all know about his Nadal phobia and what a nightmare opponent Nadal is for him on any surface these days. Serving absurdly well for his standards? Roddick is an awful returner, it is probably the worst part of his game, so that is the main reason in such a long match Federer's serve became absurdly strong for his standards.
Yes, Federer played awful in last years final. Nadal must have played awful every time he's lost a match, or he's come close to losing one, or he was tired, injured, etc. He simply cannot be beaten when healthy AMIRITE?
Federer did not play awful in last year's final. If he did he would have lost in straights. If you want awful Federer see this :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EOTGN7fPO4
The funniest thing is you simply don't appear on these forums unless Nadal is in full gear. Isn't that funny?
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lol, agassi was getting impatient waiting for nadal to serve in their wimbledon match.
The 3rd set of their match in canada was funny, i thought agassi's head was going to explode.
JeMar
Legend
Pretty much this.
I find the comparison to Andre's backhand pretty blasphemous.
The rest is okay.
TheFifthSet
Legend
LOL. Agassi had 7 hardcourt slams, and is already a pretty a unfavourable matchup for Nads on HC. I reckon he wins 7/10 on HC.
Tennis_Monk
Hall of Fame
You are really being modest. I will put it plainly and succintly. With about 1600 posts to my credit, i could have easily beaten Nadal in FO 2008 in straight sets. There is no telling what you could have done.
davey25
Banned
Agassi has 6 hard court slams. And atleast a couple of those were with the weakest draws any player has probably ever had to a slam (01 AO and 03 AO especialy). Nadal could end up with atleast 4 for all we know, and considering his competition would have been far tougher that is arguably superior if he manages that many. Anyway that is irrelevant, Corretja has 0 hard court slam semis and has a competitive hard court head to head with Agassi, as does Rios. What is relevant is going through all the years Agassi wasnt playing well in his so called physical prime:
1993- Not even in top 20. Won 4 slam matches all year.
1996- Barely stayed in top 10. Destroyed by Chang in straight sets in 2 slam semis, and crashed out first week of other 2 slams.
1997- Ended year outside top 100.
1998- Slam record of 7-4 this year, not past the 4th round of any of them.
Would Agassi have likely had the edge over Nadal on even just hard courts any of these years? Of course not. The hypothetical of how Agassi and Nadal at their best matchup on hard courts is only part of the consideration since Agassi at his best was very irregular. I admit Agassi and Nadal both at their best Agassi would win more, yet with how little he was at his best in his physical prime he would still do well to break even on hard courts. Only on carpet where Nadal would be fairly hopeless I think would even frequently slumping Agassi manage Nadal most times.
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abmk
Bionic Poster
oh la la
and federer should've won the 2006 FO where he let nadal off the hook after a brilliant 1st set and the 2007 FO where he let go off a billion BP chances .. He was the "better" player in both of those and "outplayed" nadal
oh and yeah, he'd have crushed nadal in 2009 FO had they met in the finals seeing as nadal was taken out in 4 by sod and fed crushed sod in 3
:roll:
abmk
Bionic Poster
he played pretty ok in last year's wimby final, no way was his play awful. You don't get 100+ winners and 38 UEs by playing awful !
oh really ? when did he serve as well against this very roddick ? (save their TMC 2007 match ) ... He served darn well by ANY standards and would've had tons of aces against anyone - just that roddick being the returner made it appear even more impressive
THUNDERVOLLEY
G.O.A.T.
Hold on...one of davey's bolded lines was:
The greater volume of attacking players is on Agassi's side (think about the entire era)....while so few modern players even attempt that style of play.
drakulie
Talk Tennis Guru
I agree. Beginning with beating that weak 14 time grand slam winner for two of his AO titles.
davey25
Banned
You continue to take things I say out of context. These are the draws Agassi had for his final 2 Australian Open titles I was referring to.
2001 Australian Open:
R128 Jiri Vanek (CZE) 78 W 6-0, 7-5, 6-3
R64 Paul Goldstein (USA) 80 W 6-1, 6-3, 6-1
R32 David Prinosil (GER) 39 W 7-6(11), 5-0 RET
R16 Andrew Ilie (AUS) 49 W 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-0, 6-3
Q Todd Martin (USA) 54 W 7-5, 6-3, 6-4
S Patrick Rafter (AUS) 15 W 7-5, 2-6, 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-3
W Arnaud Clement (FRA) 18 W 6-4, 6-2, 6-2
2003 Australian Open:
R128 Brian Vahaly (USA) 93 W 7-5, 6-3, 6-3
R64 Hyung-Taik Lee (KOR) 67 W 6-1, 6-0, 6-0
R32 Nicolas Escude (FRA) 37 W 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
R16 Guillermo Coria (ARG) 45 W 6-1, 3-1 RET
Q Sebastien Grosjean (FRA) 16 W 6-3, 6-2, 6-2
S Wayne Ferreira (RSA) 39 W 6-2, 6-2, 6-3
W Rainer Schuettler (GER) 36 W 6-2, 6-2, 6-1
Draw your own conclusions to what I was talking about. And for that matter here are his 2 U.S Open titles were nothing to write home about either. His opponents out of those 14 matches have a combined 0 U.S Open titles between them all, and other than Martin's actual U.S Open final vs Agassi and Stich's actual U.S Open final vs Agassi those two no other U.S Open finals for any of them.
Clay lover
Legend
Now we're not comparing players, but commenting on how they match up in a REAL tennis match. I fail to see why comparing their greatness or each of their strokes have any relevance to the actual debate, more like a desperate **** attempt to prove that their player is better. Bear in mind, however, that what we are talking about is a MATCH UP issue and even if a player loses the match up it does not automatically mean he is the lesser player, so insecure fanboys should find somewhere other than this thread to worship their favorite players.
Objectively speaking, I think Nadal is a bad matchup for Agassi than it is the other way round. Agassi's game was built around consistent and hard groundstrokes when he enjoyed the most success. But his groundstrokes were not "force-a-winner" kind of hard but "consistently" hard to break down his opponents. As we all know, an in form Nadal gets to almost EVERY of these shots, and Agassi does not really have the net skills or the "pull-a-winner" ability to capitalize on his hard consistent groundstrokes. Agassi also didn't have the speed (well arguably because his "prime" actually came when he was older) of most of the big hitters Nadal has trouble with today, and struggles to get into position when faced with Nadal's defensive shots to the other side of his court. This is what Nadal does to you. Yes he runs a lot, but he makes you run a lot too. he almost has an uncanny knack during defense to hit to the comparatively empty area of your court to give himself more time to recover while you run to get into position for the next shot. In the two ATP matches they played it can be seen that Agassi was often the one in command but he somehow failed to end points and let Nadal comeback with spectecular defensive plays.
Moreover, big hitters who overpower Nadal normally have a very good first serve to go with them so on a good serving day they could literally blow Nadal off the court with their one-two punches and Nadal will struggle to break even one game. Agassi has never had a strong first serve at any point of his career.
However, I still see a prime Agassi beating a prime Nadal on any surface other than clay. His consistent flat hard groundstrokes can still give Nadal all kinds of trouble, not to mention that he is considered one of the best groundstrokers ever and one of the all time greats on hardcourts. I also don't think the edge goes to Nadal on slower hardcourts because Agassi won the most slams in Australia--where they had slow hardcourts.
My pick:
Any hardcourt: Agassi 6/4
Grass now:Nadal 7/3
Grass then: Agassi 6/4
Clay: Sorry Andre no wins for you, ever.
Objectively speaking, I think Nadal is a bad matchup for Agassi than it is the other way round. Agassi's game was built around consistent and hard groundstrokes when he enjoyed the most success. But his groundstrokes were not "force-a-winner" kind of hard but "consistently" hard to break down his opponents. As we all know, an in form Nadal gets to almost EVERY of these shots, and Agassi does not really have the net skills or the "pull-a-winner" ability to capitalize on his hard consistent groundstrokes. Agassi also didn't have the speed (well arguably because his "prime" actually came when he was older) of most of the big hitters Nadal has trouble with today, and struggles to get into position when faced with Nadal's defensive shots to the other side of his court. This is what Nadal does to you. Yes he runs a lot, but he makes you run a lot too. he almost has an uncanny knack during defense to hit to the comparatively empty area of your court to give himself more time to recover while you run to get into position for the next shot. In the two ATP matches they played it can be seen that Agassi was often the one in command but he somehow failed to end points and let Nadal comeback with spectecular defensive plays.
Moreover, big hitters who overpower Nadal normally have a very good first serve to go with them so on a good serving day they could literally blow Nadal off the court with their one-two punches and Nadal will struggle to break even one game. Agassi has never had a strong first serve at any point of his career.
However, I still see a prime Agassi beating a prime Nadal on any surface other than clay. His consistent flat hard groundstrokes can still give Nadal all kinds of trouble, not to mention that he is considered one of the best groundstrokers ever and one of the all time greats on hardcourts. I also don't think the edge goes to Nadal on slower hardcourts because Agassi won the most slams in Australia--where they had slow hardcourts.
My pick:
Any hardcourt: Agassi 6/4
Grass now:Nadal 7/3
Grass then: Agassi 6/4
Clay: Sorry Andre no wins for you, ever.
Wilander Fan
Hall of Fame
Don't particularly like agassi but I think he (as well as conners) are the worst possible match up for Nadal. They would destroy him. Both were very patient and moved you from side to side with flat balls until they could get a short ball. Agassi was also more dangerous of his backhand and would destroy those high rising topspin forehands that fed has trouble with. Agassi would have no trouble putting those away down the line. I also don't remember anyone really able to dominate agassi on the baseline either. He was dangerous and consistent off both sides and was in fact very fast.
I think the service game would be a problem for nadal as well. He doesn't have the kind of serve that would give Agassi trouble and Agassi wAs the best I have seen at attacking medicre serves.
I think the service game would be a problem for nadal as well. He doesn't have the kind of serve that would give Agassi trouble and Agassi wAs the best I have seen at attacking medicre serves.
zagor
Bionic Poster
Can't rush perfection Gorecki!
Agassi's real problem was that his outside option was quite good at that point....steffi graf.
Agassi is one lucky guy,he gets to play with Steffi all day,ehm.. I better get back to the topic now,my mind has drifted off
.
zagor
Bionic Poster
Yes,but Agassi hit with more pace,took the ball even earlier and was just a plain better ballstriker even than Kolja,nobody was good as Dre at jerking people left and right on court.On HCs he would take the time away from Nadal atleast as successfully as Kolja does it(who basically owns Nadal on HC).
I reckon that a younger Agassi would have been a very tough match-up for Nadal on HC,not to mention on carpet where Agassi certainly could play ball as well(I think he won 6-7 carpet tourneys beating guys like Stich,Edberg and Becker to win it).
Now on clay Nadal would kill him and on modern grass I'd still give Nadal a big edge but on old grass I don't know,I've never seen Nadal play on old grass so I don't know how would he adapt.He's still a natural mover on that surface no doubt but IMO a very low bounce would have made it much harder for him to play his game than on improved modern grass.
abmk
Bionic Poster
I know , I know , that really doesn't/didn't need to be stated by me, others already did .... that is why I said 7-3 on HC to agassi and 8-2 on carpet ..but no one mentioned the difference in movement aspect, which I felt was necessary to be mentioned
D
Deleted member 21996
Guest
bold part one: like nadal and federer never had shamefull losses....
bold part two: of course i never saw those matches, and while at the crystal ball, can you guess me the numbers for the lottery? what the frack do you know what i saw or not? prtty dumb statement there no?
The-Champ
Legend
This shouldn't even be debated. Prime Nadal would be lucky to get a single game. There no shot in tennis that Nadal can do better than AA. Prime AA had ten times the speed of Nadal, plus mentally, Andre is considered the strongest in history. Talenwise, let's not even go there. Andre won 8 slams without taking the game seriously, unlike Sampras, Federer or Nadal. And stop the nonsense about Rafa owning him on clay. Prime André would destroy him on any surface.
If they played 50 times on all surfaces, Prime Andre would win all. The fact that Andre is american, proves that he is already better.
If they played 50 times on all surfaces, Prime Andre would win all. The fact that Andre is american, proves that he is already better.
drakulie
Talk Tennis Guru
No, you continue to put down one player any way you can, to put your player up on a higher platform. In this case, if AA won because of weak draws, then this means he is a weak player. We conclude, based on your logic the 4 slams Sampras won against Agassi, he realy just beat a weak player (weak draw). Now, being that AA was clearly the second best player during this time, means the other 10 slams he won, were weaker than the 4 he won against AA.
This leaves Sampras with zero slams.
Thanks for playing.
D
Deleted member 77403
Guest
In their primes, this would be an intense match up.
I would say Rafa wins virtually every clay match. He has superior footwork, and high margin for safety. But Andre wasn't too shabby either, he might be able to squeeze out a win somewhere if Rafa didn't play at 100%
On new grass, I would again give the edge to Rafa. I think he would have 6-4, or 7-3 ratio.
Old grass, I would say Andre 7-3. The ball would bounce lower and go through the court quicker, Andre has some of the best hand eye co-ordination going and is better with the low balls, some of the half volleys he hit were insane.
Hard courts again Agassi for me wins more, he would control the T and just make Rafa run off of both wings with flat shots.
I would say Rafa wins virtually every clay match. He has superior footwork, and high margin for safety. But Andre wasn't too shabby either, he might be able to squeeze out a win somewhere if Rafa didn't play at 100%
On new grass, I would again give the edge to Rafa. I think he would have 6-4, or 7-3 ratio.
Old grass, I would say Andre 7-3. The ball would bounce lower and go through the court quicker, Andre has some of the best hand eye co-ordination going and is better with the low balls, some of the half volleys he hit were insane.
Hard courts again Agassi for me wins more, he would control the T and just make Rafa run off of both wings with flat shots.
D
Deleted member 3771
Guest
Roland Garros: Nadal 10-0
AO/USO: 5-5
Wimbledon: Nadal 8-2
AO/USO: 5-5
Wimbledon: Nadal 8-2
Lol you have to be kidding me. Agassi can't put a ball away? Have you ever seen Agassi hit the ball in real life? Half the time he puts zero effort and he's CRUSHING the ball harder than the pros today. Agassi is FULLY capable of putting the ball away; he just chooses not to do so most of the time as he wants to use his superior fitness to win with.
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