Rafael Nadal-Sportsman of the year

Nadal wasting time is as good as cheating therefore people WILL call it cheating.He constantly abuses the time rule.He simply dosent value time.Sure he can take his time after long rallies but he does it often on important points even if the previous point hasnt been a long rally.It all starts from the coin toss itself where the guy will take his own sweet time to come to net while the opponent waits for him.
As for fist-pumping-Whether he wants to employ it as an intimidation tactic or not it can be downright obnoxious and in-your-face.His glaring at the opponent and the ball marks is all there.Whether the opps. are intimidated by it or not is besides the point.Its still not great sportsmanship.
His medical time-outs at times are clear gamesmanship .He comes back looking as good as ever.There's nothing wrong with it.Plenty of players do it and its not against the rules.But its still gamesmanship.Nadal knows all too well that taking a long break disrupts the opponent's momentum.

 

Have you ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? Instead you are saying that people should hold a bias even though he was never found guilty. Sorry but you have some character flaws.

 

Try growing up in Russia and see how much zest for life you have.:shock:

 

Id say your blind if you cant see his muscle loss and sudden inablity to hit winners or break 100 on the serve.

 

Or Baghdatis.

 

Do you play tennis or any sport for that matter? Some of it is celebrating, but a large majority of it is gamesmanship at the ATP level. I can assure you Nadal has all the confidence he needs he never would have made it to the pro level without it, there are no confidence issues, being humble to the media is one thing, but inside he is a tiger.

You are naive to believe the fist pumping doesn't have an effect, tennis is a mental game, Jimmy Connors was the master of the fist pump, getting the crowd roared up and behind him, suddenly the other player had 10,000 fans rooting against him. It certainly has an effect how great depends on the opponents mindset. It is not a one on one intimidation, it is intimidation by proxy.

 

Are you serious? Because Murray admits to it then Nadal is automatically guilty of it too?

Well the bolded line is very "interesting". Almost all the pumped players I know do so after winning a big point,not before. Whether it is Nadal fist pumping,Federer jumping in the air,Hewitt come-on-ing and so on they do it to celebrate a big point and get "pumped"(full of confidence) for the next one.

 

I have no problem with it in celebrating a great shot.

You see Nadal and Murray do it when the other player makes an UE, it is gamesmanship at that point, again within the rules, but I certainly wouldn't call it sporting.

 

Here you go again generalising. I can't remember the last time Nadal pumped the crowd up and when he does it,he is usually in Spain and trust me it ain't that obvious(it's certainly not a arms in the air thing a la monfils or djokovic). Connors said about himself that he is a street fighter and admit freely about using the crowds against the other guy. He also said he would do anything to win.

You know nothing about Nadal. When he was on a roll in 08'-early 09',he celebrated only on the big points. After his injury ordeal,he celebrated a win over james blake by violently fist pumping and by slamming his racket into the bench,he was happier than if he had won a GS. That says to me that he was low on confidence and as I said before,he gestures more on court when he is low on confidence. It has nothing or little to do with him trying to intimidate his opponents. And if he is doing it with that purpose in mind,he should vary his routine: jumping at the net,to the baseline,fist pumping and stare downs get old after a while

 

Sorry, but I was just putting in a series of things: a player who was suspected of such a thing, of tanking during a match and who had some controversies here and there for his big mouth (I don't remember exactly what, but I know there was something in England) doesn't seem to be the first candidate for a Sportsmanship Award. After that, if you like Davydenko, good for you. It's true that I've never been able to find him sympathetic, and I always thought that the betting thing was not impossible from him. Just my opinion, of course.

 

Are you freaking kidding' men? Two thirds of tennis players do this at the top. If it's 15-30 and an opponent's UE gives you a chance to break you will be ecstatic. If he does it to give the break,even better. This is especially true for tight situations or against the top players,even more when your game isn't working on a particular day.

I know we have romanticised views about tennis but buddy those days are long gone. The moment I saw the wimbledon crowd(one of the most knowledgeable) cheering Wawrinka's UE's against Murray I let go of all these gamesmanship/gentleman's game fantasies. We are very lucky to have two guys at the top like Federer and Nadal who behave so well(in general) respective to their success. Watch McEnroe,Nastase,Connors play(from the "classy era" of tennis) and then talk about gamesmanship today. It's not perfect but it's as close to normal as you can get(some people even complain because players are too nice to eachother nowadays).

 

When he celebrates after an unforced error, it's because he gets the break or saves his own service game after having been in big trouble. Otherwise, he celebrates when he plays a great point. Maybe when he was very young, he was more extroverted for that, but not now anymore. And he certainly doesn't try to get the crowd behind him like a Monfils or a Tsonga (those 2 are awful for me) and doesn't scream like Murray (a player I like, but it's true that it's unpleasant).

 

I concur, some people really make me laugh. They talk about those "gentlemen" of the past. My God, when I started to watch tennis, the n°1, 2 and 3 in the ranking were awful. Lendl was stilll the most gentleman of those 3. Better not talk about McEnroe and Connors. You had to wait for the n°4 (Wilander) to get someone correct. Now, the 2 best players of the last years are very correct and one of them is still criticized.

 

^^actually both are criticised :wink:

 

We, can never know the intent behind every fist pump. We could speculate for days and never come to an agreement, you have your opinion and I have mine.

So we are left with this:

I see a lot of gamesmanship in Nadal's on court antics to gain an edge,just as other players use, and openly admit to.

You see an innocent lad low on confidence who would never hurt a flea to win a match. The greatest sportsman in the game.

 

I don't have any problem with the gamesmanship tactics actually most of my favorites over the years have been some of the worst sportsman, it makes the game more interesting.

The problem is, I just don't see Nadal as the innocent boy who can do no wrong of the ATP, that is what you get from the *******s on this board, and most of the media because it makes a good story for them.

 

Nope,that's your take on it because you go to the extremes and that is **** land-Nadal is either a innocent child or he is a ruthless savage who will tear anyone apart on court(with fist pumps no less) to win a match.

To me Nadal is a introverted guy with some particular quirks who happens to be pretty good at tennis. Out of all those quirks the ones that bother me is time-wasting and the pulling of the pants but like many people I have learned to look past these things.I have watched him since his 2004 days and he has always stayed true to his credo: what he loves more is fighting for victory than the victory itself. This is why people watch him despite all the things I have mentioned up there.

And a moment like the AO 09' ceremony says a lot about Nadal's character AND his sportsmanship. Put someone who always has smartass comments like Roddick in front of a weeping Federer and let's see how he does. No one can be that ruthless on court(as you say always trying to intimidate opponents) and be that nice when the match is over. And as I said,Nadal must be the best actor out there since he is not only very nice to the media(and has been this way for at least 5 years since I have been watching him),he is great with fans also(look how he reacted after that guy stormed on court in USO).

To me Nadal fistpumps and so on to boost his confidence and if the side-effect is that the opponent is shaken so be it. But I doubt that his main motivation when he does this is too shake the opponent. It is for himself. Nadal did this against Davy when he was getting killed in TMC and he did so in USO in the last set against DelPo when even he probably didn't believe in his chances. Or was he trying to intimidate them to get back into the game?

The importance of this gestures is greatly exagerrated. As I said before,if Rafa was a faster server these would be non-issues.

As I said to mandy on another issue,we'll agree to disagree.

 

Wrong....Serena at the US, by a country mile.

 

Like I said in another thread-after Rafa's actions at the Australian Open last year (hugging a sobbing Roger F), I don't think I will ever be able to hate him.

 

and what's more, these actions happen EVERY match he plays. they can mention fed's random antics like crying or swearing etc. but they were just isolated events. they don't happen every time. on court, fed is a much more a sportsman than nadal, and that is where it should really count. but i do agree there are other players out there who are greater sportsman than fed. let the players decide themselves.

 

Considering the modest standards of professional athletes in an individual sport, considering his age, and considering how his psychological engine works (i.e., he has much more in common emotionally with Hewitt than with, say, Sampras), Nadal's behavior on court and his public attitude toward other players is remarkably gracious.

The phrase "ruthless savage" above caught my attention because my best guess is that, if we could somehow see inside his head and heart while he's in a rally, that's what we'd see! (And, I'd love to be able to teach that kind of 'fight' to tournament juniors, if I could do it without harming their characters.) If that's right, it makes it all the more praiseworthy that he's the AntiSerena when it comes to courtesy and graciousness toward rivals.

Fist-pumping is pretty close to universal–no coach regards techniques for managing one's own emotions between points as optional–and I haven't seen him using it to mess with the other player. Using the allotted time between points to alter the match rhythm favorably is also something every tournament player is taught and expected to do. Both may or may not be regrettable trends in the game, but they probably don't qualify as individual flaws.

 

Yes, but using additional non-allotted time is rather non-sporting.

 

I cannot honsetly call either Nadal or Federer sportsmen of the year, and the reasons are:

Federer -

Cons: cried at the AO, prevented Nadal from celebrating his first HC slam, was not very nice in some interviews, broke racquet in Miami (although that one isn't so bad) and didn't behave well at the USO final (he was right, but it wasn't the right way to express his feelings).

Pros: On court the most fair player around, no time wasting, no injury breaks, no retiring, none of that stuff. Federer means business even when his game doesn't work and I appreciate that about him. Also while some interviews were bad, most were pretty good, and Federer was honest yet respected his opponents most of the times.

Nadal -

Cons: On court stuff is still problematic, time wasting is still a pain and it's getting worse. He wasn't nearly as bad in 2006 as he is today, and it just looks like he's doing it on purpose. Madrid 2009 semis was a great tennis display but a pathetic sportsmanship display. Another thing that bothered me about Nadal is his constant preemptive excuse making about his injury. Before Cincy he was 100%, after Cincy he was injured, after USO he was fine again, etc. Very bad.

Pros: Gracious in defeat like no other, he was losing in the 2nd part of the year but kept on fighting, didn't cry about his fate and continued to try his best and just hang in there. He also showed this year he's a competitor like no other, winning an HC slam and proved everyone wrong. He stayed humble and he also didn't retire a lot of matches this year (if any?), which was nice.

Sportsman of the year for me: A tie between Haas and Davydenko.

 

All this is true, but he also used his preemptive injury excuse time and time again, plus on court he wasn't perfect (See my early post).
Federer had his fair share of bad moments himself, and I can think of plenty of players who were better than both in this category.

 

Nadal can't win sportsman of the year simply because he will break the time violation rule during an important part of the match and simply not care. A very good example was at Indian Wells against Roddick in the SF, during the 2nd set TB, Nadal proceeds to do a water bottle ritual during a small changeover, wasting over a minute of time (literally).



This is the very definition of cheating. If he does it on purpose to gain any kind of advantage, and it is against the rules, than he cannot be the Sportsman of the Year.

 

I disagree on this. He merely said what most of us were thinking. That a guy who isn't exactly brimming with confidence,who had just recovered from a injury break couldn't be expected to win tournaments on his least favoured surface. And it turns out that his words were very much true. Not only did he not reach a final(ok,he reached the final in shaghai but that was almost by default,2 opponents called it quits along the way) but he beat only one top 10 player along the way so his assesment was correct.And I don't think that Nadal said "I will lose time and time again just to prove to them that I am right". Sure,it sound like pre-emptive excuses and it puts him in the underdog position but it doesn't mean that it wasn't true.

Same goes for his health. It varied. If he was "100%" one week as he puts it,it doesn't mean that he was dandy the next week. One example: Nadal played with that patch on his stomach since cincy and never showed any problems in cincy. After 2 weeks he had a muscle tear in USO and he played a WTA level match with Almagro because of it. He also mentioned it hampered his serve during his semi with DelPo,he said he could only serve down the middle from what I remember because it hurt him when he bended his torso. I still say he would have lost because delpo is a bad matchup and HC is his best surface but with a more varied serve perhaps the scoreline would have been more decent. In USO he played with a torn abdomen muscle but he didn't want to talk about it during press conferences. You know why? Because it wouldn't be fair to the competition(to say that you are playing hurt while the tournament is going on) and because it would sound like an excuse. He only talked about it with details after his semifinal.

I already said why I consider Nadal the best sportsman this year. He handled himself great around the court(IMO) both when his main rival was very much down and when the tables turned in the second half of the year. I suppose that if I put my bias aside,I would have to look outside of the top10 for the sportsman of the year,because he can certainly nitpick on these guys to death.

 

That's a big IF when we are talking about Nadal. The man wasted time in a freaking exo before RG,when he didn't need to. I think it is almost a reflex for him,to do these things. We are talking about a guy who tuggs the back of his pants in front of the whole world. What advantage does he get out of that? Because Nadal has massive,and I mean massive OCD,he knows he needs to do certain things to mantain his concentration. And he always adds rituals from what I can tell. I was glad when he lost the sock thing but then he prolonged the towel wipe and so on. As I said before,to Nadal it is almost like a reflex,to do a-b-c in order to mantain his concentration and keep his "colm" as he says(unfortunately for he takes way too much time while doing this),so unless someone(an official) calls him out on it repeatedly and states his case,he won't stop doing this.

 

Here's a news flash, none of the players are ever 100%. They always have some kind of pain/problem that irritates them but usually it's not big enough to mention it. When Nadal said he's 100% before Cincy, he cannot use the injury excuses after he lost. Also, he cannot use the same excuse before the match even started. It's like saying "Hey guys, if I lose, it's not because of my opponent who played brilliant, but rather because of me and my injury, so I'm giving you the heads up". Please, there were about 3 weeks of truly sad interviews by Nadal, and it was the first time I was actually disgusted by stuff he said. In fact, I won't be surprised if he was a bit disgusted with himself. Funny you mention that in the USO Nadal played with an injury considering he played out of his mind against Monfils, a player who beat him on hard courts earlier in the year before Nadal's injury.

Nadal loves being the underdog, and with an injury excuse it's all the more comfortable. Nadal made me feel as if none of his losses were legit, and look at some of his fans, it's actually gotten to their minds! Guys like Cesc, TheNatural - all convinced that Nadal cannot lose a match unless his injured or fatigued. I'm talking about losses from 2007 where Nadal was somehow ALWAYS injured. It's freaking insane! Nadal's loss to Federer at the TMC in 2007? he was injured. Nadal's loss to Fed in Hamburg same year? He was injured. How about the losses to Ferrer? He was injured.

Let me just say this, I respect your opinion (though HIGHLY, highly disagree with it), but I believe there are no excuses once you go into court. If you don't feel 100%, don't play, otherwise, shut up, and that's exactly what Nadal didn't do.

 

It is not OCD because he specifically WAITS until an IMPORTANT point and forces his opponent to wait all day for him. Why is it Nadal's time drastically increases during crucial points or on a breakpoint by a good 20 seconds? Oh, it's because HE'S DOING IT ON PURPOSE AND IS CONSCIOUS OF IT.



He has been called out on it for years now and continually does it. Djokovic even has curbed his time wasting by alot. Nadal can easily do it too, but he chooses not to do so because he knows if he can get away with it than why not.

 

On bigger points you have more noise from the crowd,more disruptions,you need to concentrate more and most players take more time in these key moments. With Nadal it shows even more because he already has slow OCD habits(with normal balls in non-key moments)-his whole routine of towel,pants tugging,bounce ball and so on-and in the key moments,like everyone else he slows down a bit,but he was slow to begin with so it is mind numbingly slow now. His problems isn't that he has slow rituals,it's that he has too many of them and they add up to make on slow serve motion,regardless of opponent or moment.

Regarding djoker: are we watching the same player? He has cut,what,5 seconds off his serve? I agree that he goes a bit faster now on normal balls but he still bounces 20 times in key moments.

If Nadal would adress his OCD habits(reduce them,you don't need to towel off at every point,or arrange your hair and so on),he would serve faster.

 

I have watched Nadal practice at least 20 times and the funny thing is there
are no severe OCD rituals and time wasting than, the most you might see him do is fiddle with his finger tape, if the condition was so severe it was uncontrollable, you would see it in his every day life all the time.

 

Yup, this is exactly right. I bet if we timed the breakpoints on his serve that's when he always takes the longest.

 

Sounds like a new project for you.

 

I have watched Sharapova practice - hard practice session in the Aussie summer.... not a scream, grunt or shriek to be heard. Silent.

 

I think this is supposed to be Nadal - Worst sportsman of the year.

 

:shock::shock:

 

Depends on the severity of the OCD. Nadal didn't have all these rituals,say,in 2002. In only manifests itself when the pressure of a real match is on so it may be a milder form of OCD because it is only present in certain conditions. It's one thing to have one or two superstitions(not that uncommon in sports) about how to arrange this and that,but Nadal's rituals are well...weird to say the least and they show his OCD quite well. Nadal doesn't arrange his bottles in practice and I have seen him practice even without picking the pants.
When Tony was asked where he got this from he said smilingly "I have no idea,I didn't teach him this",looking almost embarrased. At a certain match they showed his butt picking and how he arranged the bottles(taking a sip out of each one and placing them with the label towards the side he would play on) on the big screen and even Nadal looked embarrased by his rituals.

Seeing this I couldn't help think that this guy can't help himself. Maybe I could understand faking a form of OCD to get away with time wasting but what is up with the picking of the butt publicly or how he gets mad when something happens to his water bottles. This is classic OCD,where the sufferer thinks HE HAS TO DO certain things in certain cituations(it would be funny to see how he reacts if they kick his water bottles over and over again or if they don't allow him to pick his butt) and is very anxious or even mad if he can't do them,even though there is no logical reason for him to think like that. Like I said before it is one thing to have superstitions in sports but Nadal knows what he is doing is embarrassing yet he can't help himself. Again,classic OCD though I don't think Nadal has a severe form,just one that hasn't been adressed as he has been increasing the number of rituals as the years pass and his time wasting because of this rituals has got worse. He dropped just one bit,adjusting the socks,but he always replaced it with another ritual.

If you look at all these rituals that occur during a match,they tend to be drawn out to make Nadal concentrate better and he always towels off-clears the line if we are talking about clay-takes three balls-chooses one-sometimes looks at his racket,start bouncing the ball,picks his butt,then he arranges the hair,then he beats the ball some more and then he starts his serve motion. When there is a changeover,the takes one sip out of every bottle and place them to face the side of the court on which he is playing on.

Now,if he did all these things slowly without the quirky rituals like butt picking and water bottle arangement,I would say that this is just a superstitious guy who happens to serve slowly but these two things for me,along with the reactions,from Nadal and his camp say it is a mild form of OCD which hasn't been adressed because Rafa isn't only doing some things to keep his cool on court(which all players do) but he is also doing things that have nothing to do with tennis and are downright embarrassing yet he can't help but do them.

 

You serious about that?:shock::shock::shock::shock:

That aside, while i do not know why he picks his butt, i think that the reason why he places water bottles so neatly on the ground is to calm himself down in the heat of the battle, most notably in the final set tiebreak of the Madrid semis with Djokovic. If he can't even put place a bottle properly due to shaky hands or whatsoever, then he would definitely not prevail. About the time taking, i have only seen him do that once during Wimb '07 against Sod.

Though i am a huge Fed fan ( not ****), i personally feel that Davydenko should receive the honour. Never heard of his bad on-court antiques and he always portray a calm and reserved style regardless of the duration in a match.

 

If he would only do it in tight matches then your argument would stand and he wouldn't have OCD. But he always does it,sometimes to the point where it irritates other(like when he stopped on the changeover in his match with roddick to take a sip out of three bottles and he placed them like he always does,with the label towards the side the is playing on). It's one thing to have one or two superstitions or rituals(to help with their focus) like all sportsmen but Nadal's are more public and way more embarrassing(like butt picking). He knows about them and yet he can't stop. It is a mild form of OCD(and OCD is way more common than people think) and I say mild because these things are pretty recent for him(only about 4 years and it only happens in specific conditions related to his job,in a real match scenario) and as far as I know it doesn't happen outside of tennis because he doesn't get anxious as much as he does on court.

 

Great article. I agree. It's how you handle both triumph and defeat that best summarizes your character to me.

 

Maybe butt picking is his natural habit after all, he might not do it outside of tennis courts, probably due to the fact that he is aware of the public's knowledge of it. Nobody knows, he might still do it at home, privately i would say.Soderling has his head buried in his towels during changeovers, Roddick has the habit of pulling his shirt when walking across deuce and ad courts in between point, it is all how people look at it. They can choose to ignore it, or let it bother them. Like you said, every sportsmen has their own on-court habits. If it is not too serious such that it affects the course of the match, then it is acceptable.

 

I wonder why Nadal can't serve like he did here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aDuqfYT34I

 

for me, nadal has always been a gracious loser, and a humble winner....dont like much about his time wasting or making other people wait though

 

Very much agreed.

Yep. People seem to forget that all these players are mere human beings with their good sides and their 'less perfect' habits. ALL of them - and why is that so hard to just acknowledge and move on? The way some fans portray their favs as near-to-godly perfect, while lashing out on others for comparable minor character treats that they don't like... brrr.
Nadal wastes time, obviously, and it's not a good thing. Federer can be a very sore loser at times. Do I close my eyes for that? No. Does it make me root for them any less? No!

 

You are talking about minor habits. Pulling you shirt or burying your head in your towel aren't embarrassing things. Pulling the underwear out of your ass repeatedly is and Nadal knows it is embarassing yet he can't stop.
Same thing with his other OCD stuff. I remember he was leading soderling 6-1,5-0 and still he was arranging his bottles. Did he really need that bit of luck to finish off soderling that day? Nope but that's what OCD does to ya. I remember that after finishing a great point against seppi his main concern wasn't to celebrate but to arrange the fallen watter bottles which he had kicked down. He is classic OCD,he needs stuff to be in a certain way for him to be okay in a tense situation which could create anxiety(in his case,a match)

 

Nadal was a impestuous young teenager on court(look at some vids from when he was really young,was he a defensive player back then?) and what started out as small rituals for him(probably to keep his focus and nerves like all players) turned out to be a minor case of OCD(I mean minor because there are people whose lives are really affected by this condition),and it has developed in time since Nadal has only added rituals and he only dropped one(the sock thing,which was also OCD because he didn't need to adjust his socks everytime).

OCD has various definitions but I think for Nadal the best one is regarding doing certain gestures or having certain compulsions in order to reduse anxiety in certain situations. I think if fits him perfectly. Nadal doesn't do these things in practice or in exo's(though I saw him do it before RG so who knows) because he is not anxious there,he has nothing to fight off so to speak,there are no big stakes.

An official match is a different story however and what he started as a teenager has stuck with him until now. The fact that he continues to do pick his underwear out of his butt in front of thousands and how much importance he gives to a couple of water bottles clearly shows that he has a form of OCD and that he can't help himself.

Perhaps his uncle should have intervened when he started doing these things but I guess he didn't mind seeing as these little rituals help with Rafa's concentration and will to win,even though they are embarrassing for him.

 

I have to laugh at the notion that Nadal takes more time on important points because the crowd gets involved,he has to concentrate etc :lol:
Newsflash-All players are faced with these situations and many of them DONT waste a whole lot of time.Only the usual suspects do because they dont respect their opponent's time.Taking a lot of time does the important task of making your opponent think.And you cant stop thoughts for a long time .To focus well players need a flow.Nadal wasting time on important points is very much done on purpose.Its all a part of winning a match and while its not totally wrong to do this he often surpases the time limit by a good margin in the process.That IS wrong.If you do something a few times-it can be overlooked.When you do it repeatedly,you're doing it on purpose.Period.

 

I don't disagree with most of what you wrote,I was just saying that Nadal is slow because of this rituals,which are brought on by his mild OCD. If Nadal had less rituals before the serve he wouldn't be this slow but seeing that he thinks he needs to do the whole routine,bit by bit,it goes slow because of the sheer amount of rituals. He wasn't like this before but he added more and more bits to his routine as his OCD developed.

Most players go slow in the big moments but they usually serve fast on normal points. Nadal's problem is that he is already slow on normal points because of all the things he does and he slows them down even more in the key moments.

If Nadal would get some help for his OCD he could cut back on a lot of these little things he does and his serve preparation would be faster. But seeing that few people publicly make a fuss about this,he probably won't. We are talking about a guy who was desperate to arrange his bottles at 6-1,5-0 for him against soderling in Rome.

 

Sportsman of the Year? Let's see...didn't win FO, didn't even play Wimby, didn't win USO...one major gets you sportsman of the year?...wake up from your "bro"mance and buy a clue...

 

If you had read the posts from the beginning, you would know that the subject is not the number of victories.