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Federer and Djokovic compete for Nadal dishes never

Chris Oddo| @thefanchild | Thursday, March 13, 2025

On the “Service with Andy Roddick” podcast Rafael Nadal An extremely candid interview with the former U.S. Open champion. Rafa had an hour of conversation with Roddick and all the interviews were great.

Tennis Express

But when the conversation turned to Nadal about his three rivals Roger Federer and Novak Djokovicyour ears will definitely cheer up. Not sure we’ve ever heard Nadal talk about his tennis nuts and bolts in this way. Because when he plays, he always worrys about giving up too many tactics.

Now that he’s retired, he can finally talk frankly about what he faces when facing these two giants in the most incredible times of men’s tennis.

Check out the full episodes below:

Here are some incredible snippets we have transcribed for you:

Nadal

That’s why the competition with Roger is more attractive to fans than to my Novak. Even though I played more time in Novak and we played the same number of important matches, even more. Because of Roger, I think the strategy is clearer.

Nadal’s strategy on Federer and Nadal

I tried to do one thing, he tried to do another. In a way, I tried to kill his backhand all the time, and for me, even if I had a chance to hit the hit rate, I said to myself: OK, when I had to hit the ball, when I had to have a ray, that’s just two reasons: one is the winner. The other is because I need to get him out of that side and create more space again.

He tried to avoid this.

He is trying to play actively. Every time he hits his forehand, I feel like I have to take a step back because for me, his forehand is the best I can fight against. It’s more like a chess game. Everyone knows what will happen, everyone knows what the strategy will be. Then, when he played well, he beat me, and when I played well, I beat him. At the beginning of my career, I beat him on clay, and on hard, it was much harder.

Nadal Why Federer in 2017 is the hardest version of Federer he faces:

Then arrived the moment I beat him a few times on the hard court. And then at the end of his career, I think he took a step forward. He was more positive, and for me he made a mistake at the beginning of his career, he played with the backhand Topspin, which gave me the opportunity to continue against his backhand. Then, at the end of his career, he starts entering and taking more risks.

Honestly, in 2017, it was the best level of his career – for me. You feel you are in his hands. Of course it’s on the hard drive. On clay, a little different. His playing was very, very active, his serve was hard to read for me, and it was hard to predict what was going on.

What makes Djokovic’s competition unique:

Opposing Novak is a little different. We can make strategies, but in the end… I need to perform well. Of course, we didn’t play the same style, but there was no clear strategy like my for Roger, where I would hurt his backhand. Against Novak, I don’t feel that way. It feels like I need a long time to play and know I have to adjust things.

Nadal Why Djokovic has the best ball control ever

I can’t play too much on his backhand, especially on the high ball, because then he’ll get the ball to a very difficult position faster, so I started using more pieces for him, sometimes good for me, sometimes for Novak, sometimes, it’s great for me. Don’t give him many angles. With Novak, when you can turn him on, if you don’t really do a lot of damage, he can turn you on more. In terms of control – control ball – I think he is the best I have ever played and I have seen it.



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