Nadal vs. Alcaraz. Who possesses a superior peak on hard courts?

Who posesses a superior peak level on hard?

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  • Poll closed .
Gonzo_style said:
Nadal at the same age got to his first HC SF but was thrashed hard by Tsonga.
Alcaraz lost to AO GOAT Djokovic but the match was way more competitive than Nadal-Tsonga SF. I'd say they are about the same...
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That version of Tsonga would tear the almost 38-year-old Djokovic to pieces.
:cool:
 
Racquet_smash said:
Let's not pretend Tsonga wouldn't have crushed Alcaraz in 3 with his 2008 performance.

At the same age Nadal because he was capable of better performances in bo3. Nadal played better Montreal 2005, Dubai 2006 and Indian Wells 2007 than Alcaraz has ever played on a hard court.

Neither are particularly good in bo5. At least Nadal was very close to besting Federer at Miami in 2005.
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He got robbed instead.
:mad:
 
Mustard said:
Alcaraz has the better approach for grass, i.e. instinctive, aggressive, trying to shorten points. Nadal is a routines man who stays in the present and wants everything in place, which is perfect for clay momentum. Nadal was never the kind of guy to just ditch the routines and go with instinct and wild abandon, but that would have been better for him on grass.
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Well, against Muller at Wimbledon 2017 and Djokovic a year later, Nadal briefly abandoned his game pattern, and his "audacity" cost him dearly at crucial moments in both matches.
:(
 
DSH said:
Well, against Muller at Wimbledon 2017 and Djokovic a year later, Nadal briefly abandoned his game pattern, and his "audacity" cost him dearly at crucial moments in both matches.
:(
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Muller had a tough serve for Nadal to deal with on grass because of the trajectory.

The 2018 Wimbledon Djokovic match was a case of Nadal not taking crucial set points in the third set tiebreak and break points late in the fifth set. Nadal was largely playing the better tennis from sets 2-5.
 
Not much difference at Alcaraz’s current age. And no, injured 38 year old Novak is not stronger than 2008 AO Tsonga
 
Biotic said:
Not that hard to imagine 2023 Cinci, 2023 YEC and 2025 AO Djoko making a clean sweep vs 06-07 Ned on HC.
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How? Nadal on hardcourt in that era was vulnerable to hard, flat hitters mostly (Blake, Berdych, Youzhny types). That doesn't describe Djokovic all that much, unless he's really peaking like the semi final and final of the 2019 Australian Open. Djokovic is mostly about prolonging rallies until the opponent cracks. Young Nadal would thrive on that, and have excellent mobility to that end.
 
Racquet_smash said:
That was the same Nadal that was beating Agassi, Federer, and Djokovic himself on hard courts...
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I could see 2023 WTF Djoko handling Nadal, but not as easily as he did Alcaraz. People forget that Nadal played a good YEC in 2006. Better than Alcaraz has ever played there.

But 2023 Cincy and 2025 AO? No chance he handles him easily when he was sick in 2023 and injured in 2025.
 
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mike danny said:
I could see 2023 WTF Djoko handling Nadal, but not as easily as he did Alcaraz. People forget that Nadal played a good YEC in 2006. Better than Alcaraz has ever played there.

But 2023 Cincy and 2025 AO? No chance he handles him easily when he was sick in 2023 and injured in 2025.
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Maybe he wins at the Finals but i definitely can't see him winning at the AO. Nadal in 07 had a pretty remarkable tournament going out to Gonzalez who came up with insane performances during that run. Also the current surface would be better for Nadal than Rebound Ace.

Cincinnati i'd bet on Nadal as well. Despite not being his best hc masters he had troubled with players that had a ton of baseline firepower back then like the mentioned Golazez, Davydenko or Tsonga, something that's out of Djokovic's way of playing.
 
mike danny said:
I could see 2023 WTF Djoko handling Nadal, but not as easily as he did Alcaraz. People forget that Nadal played a good YEC in 2006. Better than Alcaraz has ever played there.

But 2023 Cincy and 2025 AO? No chance he handles him easily when he was sick in 2023 and injured in 2025.
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The guy is selling too much propaganda.
:D
 
We’ve seen Alcaraz really set it off multiple times on hardcourt, which suggests he has the capability to go very high on cement, but we haven’t seen the type of video game tennis that Nadal produced in his twenties. You look back on Rafa’s level in 2009 AO and 2010 USO and it doesn’t look real what he can do with the ball.
 
Alcaraz isn’t half the player Nadal was on any surface. If Nadal was entering his prime today he would end up the GOAT on every surface and end up with at least 2 calendar slams. Probably a golden calendar slam equal to Grafs 1988 . No Fed or Djoker around, it’s like taking candy from a baby by Nadal
 
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Racquet_smash said:
Also the current surface would be better for Nadal than Rebound Ace.
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How? That makes no sense. Rebound Ace was medium slow and high bouncing. The current surface is low and fairly fast. Even in slower night conditions it’s still low-bouncing, which is the biggest problem for Nadal. Slow or fast, he likes a high bounce. If the Aussie had stuck with Rebound Ace for his entire career, he probably would have been more successful there – he just hadn’t matured before they changed.
 
tudwell said:
How? That makes no sense. Rebound Ace was medium slow and high bouncing. The current surface is low and fairly fast. Even in slower night conditions it’s still low-bouncing, which is the biggest problem for Nadal. Slow or fast, he likes a high bounce. If the Aussie had stuck with Rebound Ace for his entire career, he probably would have been more successful there – he just hadn’t matured before they changed.
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Rebound Ace wasn't all that bouncy and was quite fast. The best surface for Nadal was Plexicushion at the AO, but he still had plenty success in recent years despite being well past his peak, well more than he had in 2005-2007.
 
Mustard said:
How? Nadal on hardcourt in that era was vulnerable to hard, flat hitters mostly (Blake, Berdych, Youzhny types). That doesn't describe Djokovic all that much, unless he's really peaking like the semi final and final of the 2019 Australian Open. Djokovic is mostly about prolonging rallies until the opponent cracks. Young Nadal would thrive on that, and have excellent mobility to that end.
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That’s pretty much how Djokovic played in his last two matches with Alcaraz. Very Davydenko-like – early, aggressive, deep, dual-winged ballstriking without missing.
 
Racquet_smash said:
Rebound Ace wasn't all that bouncy and was quite fast. The best surface for Nadal was Plexicushion at the AO, but he still had plenty success in recent years despite being well past his peak, well more than he had in 2005-2007.
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It was much higher bouncing than any Australian surface since. Not super slow but it was considered on the slow end of things when it was still in use. (I think slow courts that also don’t bounce much seem slowest to us – just zero action off the court. Rebound Ace had lots of action. It was quite soft for a hard court, which literally helped to rebound the ball off the bounce.)
 
tudwell said:
It was much higher bouncing than any Australian surface since. Not super slow but it was considered on the slow end of things when it was still in use. (I think slow courts that also don’t bounce much seem slowest to us – just zero action off the court. Rebound Ace had lots of action. It was quite soft for a hard court, which literally helped to rebound the ball off the bounce.)
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Meh, watching Nadal matches there never really gave me the impression it was going to be one of his favourite surfaces. He was better at Miami or Indoors which are probably some of the worst courts for him career wise.
 
35.5 year old broken rib Nadal beat Alcaraz at IW - Carlos' best HC tournament.

At that equivalent age, Nadal was scoring wins on hc against peak Federer... oh and there was the 5 setter at Miami05 that he was robbed of...

Meanwhile, Carlos not only can't beat a broken down 38 year old Djok in bo5 on hc... he couldn't even take 2 sets...

Peak Federer would have absolutely mauled him.

Carlos is currently miles off the Nadal AO12 performance... let alone the AO09 one...

He's also miles away from US2013 performance... let alone the 2010 one...

But there's time, let's see... I have my doubts he'll reach those levels though...

Next year, he'll be almost the equivalent age as Nadal at the AO09 and it might just take an AO12 level performance to beat Sinner there too...

Let's see if he can get past injured 39 year old Djok at the AO first though...
 
tudwell said:
That’s pretty much how Djokovic played in his last two matches with Alcaraz. Very Davydenko-like – early, aggressive, deep, dual-winged ballstriking without missing.
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Half of Davydenko's wins over Nadal were in late 2009 and early 2010, when Nadal was losing to every top 8 player whenever he played them.
 
Mustard said:
How? Nadal on hardcourt in that era was vulnerable to hard, flat hitters mostly (Blake, Berdych, Youzhny types). That doesn't describe Djokovic all that much, unless he's really peaking like the semi final and final of the 2019 Australian Open. Djokovic is mostly about prolonging rallies until the opponent cracks. Young Nadal would thrive on that, and have excellent mobility to that end.
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Much worse players than 2023 Djoko were beating 06-07 Nadal like a drum on HC and most of them weren't big hitters. Blake / Gonzalez etc. were the most memorable beatdowns, however. Sure, Nadal had a couple of good tournaments, but those were few and far between they don't make much difference to the imprint he left.

And just for the record, Djoko played very differently vs Nadal compared to the field, even more obvious for post 2013 Djoko. The way you described it is 100% not how he played Nadal most of the time on HC. Nadal's chance would be higher bouncing HC, which YEC, AO and Cinci are not.
 
Mustard said:
How? Nadal on hardcourt in that era was vulnerable to hard, flat hitters mostly (Blake, Berdych, Youzhny types). That doesn't describe Djokovic all that much, unless he's really peaking like the semi final and final of the 2019 Australian Open. Djokovic is mostly about prolonging rallies until the opponent cracks. Young Nadal would thrive on that, and have excellent mobility to that end.
Click to expand...


The problem is that Nadal’s level just plain wasn’t good in a lot of those HC slam losses so stylistic factors aren’t as important. AO ‘09 or USO ‘10 Nadal is going to wipe out an old Djoko easily, but the ‘06 Nadal that lost to Youz? Come on, didn’t take some fusillade from Mikhail that Djokovic couldn’t replicate to take him down. He was also tired/apparently injured in the ‘07 Gonzo and ‘07 Ferrer losses.

(‘06 YEC Nadal was very good, though.)
 
TheFifthSet said:
The problem is that Nadal’s level just plain wasn’t good in a lot of those HC slam losses so stylistic factors aren’t as important. AO ‘09 or USO ‘10 Nadal is going to wipe out an old Djoko easily, but the ‘06 Nadal that lost to Youz? Come on, didn’t take some fusillade from Mikhail that Djokovic couldn’t replicate to take him down. He was also tired/apparently injured in the ‘07 Gonzo and ‘07 Ferrer losses.

(‘06 YEC Nadal was very good, though.)
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2005 Canadian Open Nadal and 2007 Indian Wells Nadal would win. Those were excellent tournaments for him from start to finish.

Agassi tried to rush the young Nadal in the 2005 Canadian Open final, and looked at the umpire. Nadal just slowed down further in response. Impressive from a 19-year-old against a 35-year-old veteran.
 
Mustard said:
2005 Canadian Open Nadal and 2007 Indian Wells Nadal would win. Those were excellent tournaments for him from start to finish.

Agassi tried to rush the young Nadal in the 2005 Canadian Open final, and looked at the umpire. Nadal just slowed down further in response.
Click to expand...

Yeah depends a lot on the tournament. Nadal underperformed in HC slams from around that time, probably more due to timing than game limitations but regardless it’s definitely a hard sell to claim even an old Djokovic couldn’t beat plenty of the versions of young Nadal in HC slams just based on how underwhelming his real-life performance was.
 
Rafa UO
06 - QF
07 - 4th round
08 - SF
09 - SF
10 - C
11 - F
12 - DNP
13 - C
14 - DNP
15 - 3rd round

Rafa AO
06 - DNP
07 - QF
08 - SF
09 - C
10 - QF
11 - QF
12 - F
13 - DNP
14 - F
15 - QF

These are Rafa's record on HC slams during his 20s, those numbers are breakable. Carlos most probably break those.

But peak by peak, so far never saw Carlos at Rafa's AO 12/UO 11 level, let alone Rafa's AO 09/UO 10/UO 13 level. To his defense, he's still 21-22 y.o this year.

Carlos one day might reach it barred significant injury, but I doubt it for now.
 
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