Do talent and gift have the same meaning? Pardon my confusion as english isn't my first language.
If they are, then 'talent' in tennis should be judged in the same vein as talent in arts, musics, acting, etc.. It's the God given abilities that can't be replicated with lessons and practices of those non-talented ones regardless of the amount of hard work they put into it.
People who takes singing lessons can hit all the high notes, can sing in tune, can imitate the original artists when singing their songs with the same singing style and vocal technique. They can even better than the original artists because they know the right way to hit every note in the music book. These singers mostly ended up as as Idols contestants (but couldn't win it) or singing in a pub or a cover band.
The talented singers can make the songs their own. People can copy them afterwards but they can't copy their identity. Talented singers know how to make you 'feel' the songs before they learn how to sing properly. When talented singers hit the high notes they have the way to hit those notes and send the chills down your spine.
And in tennis, apart from Federer, no one has ever hit those out of this world shots more often than Nadal. His hard work, mental toughness and physical stregth have rewarded him with his consistency and the victories in some tight matches. But he'd have been just a consistent top 10 players if he's just a player with average talent.
He may have improves on his weaknesses through hard work and practicing but a lot of his strengths came from natural talent. For example people think his ability to reach the unreachable balls and get them back into play or even hit the winner out of them comes from his will to run after every ball plus the speed to get to them in time. I don't think that's the case. There've been a few players on tour who're just as quick and run after every ball but none of them could do much with the out of reach balls apart from not hitting them out. Nadal has hit the cross court winners out of those 'should have been clear winners' often enough that it looks normal coming from him. Do you think the other players wouldn't have tried to hit the same shot if what they needed to do was practice as hard he did?
So let's get back to the topic, what make Djokovic more talented than Nadal? He serves better than Nadal but so does Roddick and Kalovic. He's a more natural hard court player because he can hit flat shots better than Nadal but Nadal can hit to spin shots better than him so what the point?
Good post. Nadal does have a tendency to hit a lot of good shots, but that's where you see the evolution of his game the last few years. He has
added those angles to his game. He did not come out of the gates with the ability to paint the lines like he does now. That's why I feel it's more through hard work than natural gifts.
He has above average talent, certainly, but Djokovic has great talent too. He's in the top 4 (top 3) even when he's got lousy conditioning and a very questionable mental game. He's not great at putting points together, but he has great natural power from both wings (without being that strong or fit of a guy overall), good touch, and has a more fluid serving motion and a better serve than Nadal.
In terms of mental strength, concentration, point construction, and transition, Nadal is obviously much stronger than him by a country mile.
Let's put it this way, if you put Nadal in Djokovic's body, and put Djokovic in Nadal's body, what do you think would happen? First of all, I see Nadal-in-Djokovic working extremely hard on his conditioning, bulking up, and working on his endurance. But I also see a player that has a more dangerous arsenal of shots. If you put Djokovic-in-Nadal's body, I don't see a top five player.
You make good points, but who is to say what the actual definition of talent is. I believe, talent is something that can be defined in various different ways. For example, if Nadal is mentally one of the strongest players out there, then yes that is a huge talent to have.
You cant believe tennis comes easily to anyone, every one has to work hard to develop their games (and the other important things that are necessary to succeed at the top level). So Federer has worked on his game like only he can and the same can be said about Nadal.
Therefore I say Nadal is as talented if not more than Federer as talent doesn't have to be restriced to the shots that you pull out (and even there Nadal can pull out some unthinkable shots).
I believe we're trying to isolate tennis talent from mental ability. For example, both Verdasco and Nadal were hailed, in Spain, for having tremendous tennis talent. The difference came from their temperaments. Nadal had a much stronger mental game, was a hard worker, and had incredible focus in a match. Verdasco didn't, and Nadal succeeded where Verdasco and his similar talent failed.
Now, Verdasco apparently has grown up and has learned to cultivate his talent better, and he gave Nadal all he could handle at the AO.
Certainly having Nadal's temperament may be a rarity in and of itself, but in this discussion, we're trying to isolate the level of Djokovic's natural gifts versus that of Nadal's, and that's where I think Djokovic has the edge in terms of talent.
Certainly playing tennis at an elite level isn't easy for anyone. No one rolled out of bed one day and dominated tennis, but it's unquestionably easier for some people than others. It's the same as learning anything. Some people may be incredibly musically inclined. They can replicate a song after hearing it just a few times. Other people may be tone deaf and need a lot of training just to get the song right. In this case, we'd say that the first person is more talented.
Now, it's certainly possible that the second person works his butt off and becomes a better musician than the first person, but that says nothing about their inherent talent level.
