How do you think Sela's backhand held up against Nadal's forehand?

[thomasferrett]

I thought, pretty well.

Take into account he's definitely short for a tennis player, so most of his backhands were hit as high backhands. Theoretically, Nadal's forehand should be absolutely r@ping Sela's backhand, but I didn't think it was the case.

It was his lack of a big forehand that meant he had nothing really to attack Nadal with - commentators were saying that his lack of a forehand down the line especially hurt him, and Nadal was just camping out in his backhand corner, hitting forehands from there all day long.

Here is a good Sela winner for you backhand aficionados;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsqCk-3fBeQ#t=333

 

[DonDiego]

Many of Nadal's losses have been against one-handers. (At least taking into account the proportion of 1-handers on the tour.)
We tend to think that a one-hander is a big liability against Nadal because of his matchups with Federer, but it's actually better to have a rather flat and penetrating one-hander against Nadal than having a consistent/defensive 2-hander.

This being said, Sela's backhand did ok, but like his forehand, it wasn't heavy and agressive enough.

 

[augustobt]

We tend to think that a one-hander is a big liability against Nadal because of his matchups with Federer, but it's actually better to have a rather flat and penetrating one-hander against Nadal than having a consistent/defensive 2-hander.

And Lopez as well.

But I don't think Nadal was exploiting Sela's BH that much.

 

[Tennisknowledge99]

Blake used to handle Rafa's top spin really well

 

[thomasferrett]

Many of Nadal's losses have been against one-handers. (At least taking into account the proportion of 1-handers on the tour.)
We tend to think that a one-hander is a big liability against Nadal because of his matchups with Federer, but it's actually better to have a rather flat and penetrating one-hander against Nadal than having a consistent/defensive 2-hander.

This being said, Sela's backhand did ok, but like his forehand, it wasn't heavy and agressive enough.

Yes, flat and direct is better than loopy and spinny when you're against Nadal's forehand. Why would you topspin moonball the greatest topspin moonballing shot of all time (that is also a FOREHAND vs your BACKHAND) - it can only be a losing proposition.

Federer's and Gasquet' backhands tend to be quite spinny, so they get into topspin battles with Nadal's forehand, and lose them, whereas Almagro and Wawrinka can take the high balls on their backhand and, not spin them back high, but crush them with pace so that Nadal's next forehand is not given enough time to set up and doesn't have as much spin on it - thus can be attacked.

It is as much a mentality thing as a technical thing - Wawrinka has a technically radically different backhand to all the other guys mentioned, but Almagro has a similar backhand technique to Gasquet and Federer. It is just because he has a fast arm, steps into the shot, and has an aggressive mentality towards hitting high backhands that he gets Wawrinka-like results (sometimes better) when handling high balls to his backhand, and Federer and Gasquet tend to loop it back quite short and weakly.