Steve Huff said:
I never really thought of Muster as a fierce attacker--maybe an aggressive baseliner. Mostly, he was a retriever. He'd get to everything. He had more energy than about anyone.
Really, this is a slight albeight understandable misperception in my opinion. He didn't just retrieve, he also forced many errors. He pounded it off both sides all day long with immense spin, and hit as heavy a ball as there was. Muster in his prime hit very hard, and as relentlessly and consistently as anyone I've ever seen. He just stood far back to do this, but he really wasn't a retriever during his peak.
He was as Patrick McEnroe said actually an agressive baseliner in that he forced errors with the heaviness of his shot. However, you can be this while also still being a retriever in the sense that you're willing to run down any ball to the end of the earth. However, a mere retriever doesn't have the power or OFFENSIVE spin Muster had. When you get to the true extreme levels of topspin that Muster, Bruguera, and Nadal could/put on a ball, that's a result of extreme racket head speed. When you put that kind of tour leading spin on the ball, it forces errors, wheras extreme racket head speed in a flat arc simply creates an outright winner; still they both result in a point that was won rather than lost in my opinion. If Nadal, all he could do was run all day and hit medium pace shots like Hewitt with medium spin? Nadal's shots by themselves induce more erros in my opinion, the spin itself causes many more errors. Add that with his immense dedication to retrieiving anything as well, then well you can see why he's so dominant on clay, he's got all the bases covered so to speak.
A guy like Felix Mantilla hit with a lot of topspin, but definitely not as heavy or without the same vicious bite as the other three mentioned, which is why at his peak he was never anything more than a dark horse contender for the French rather than considered the man to beat. The difference between merely being a very good clay courter like Corretja, Mantilla, and Costa types in my opinion is that the great clay courter has to have that little extra besides just speed and court coverage, and fairly heavy, but not that heavy strokes.
Of all the guys who've managed to be "the man" on clay in the 90s, the only one who didn't have that little extra required in sting or heaviness/weight of shot to separate them from the rest of the field; that guy is Coria. And Coria was relatively short-lived, and he choked like a dog when he had his chance. Coria doesn't have that super heavy weight behind his shot that is capable of inducing errors by itself, but his placement at his peak was pinpoint, he had superb feel and disguise for the drop shot (as good as any clay courter I've seen) and really made that a weapon for himself he could count on in key moments, and he had an amazing agility in movement that surpassed a guy like Corretja who was supremely fast himself. Still, to me he was more the exception to the rule among "dominant" clay courters since the 90s. He was too me more a retriever in the sense that he couldn't dictate a point with power/spin the way the other dominant guys of the 90s did at their peak. He used his unparalleled ability to hit well and in perfect balance on the run to make his payday.
An example of what I mean is Muster over Chang in the French final. Chang may have been more of a "hard court" player, but Muster after the early nerves, pretty much just pushed Chang around. The key word is pushed. Chang didn't have that extra component of power and spin that Muster did. When Bruguera was at his best, he did the same thing to Chang, by pushing him too deep into the court and unable to generate offense and inducing/forcing errors despite Chang's speed and obviously remarkable retrieving skills and consistency and mental toughness. A guy like Michael Chang doesn't just make errors, you have to make him make errors. You could do that by hitting flat winners or hitting very heavy spin balls to him. Of course, you had to be having a good day, but still if a top class flat hitter or top class heavy spin player were on, they'd force errors or hit winners on him regardless, despite his speed.
Bottom-line, to me, a retrieiver is more someone who doesn't have power/extreme spin that can force errors.
