Watching Rafa in Miami:
Three Lessons

John Yandell

What lessons can you learn from watching Rafa Nadal practice? Hit every forehand with 4000rpm? Keep your water bottles perfectly aligned?

Sure. But--seriously--watching him this week in Miami, I saw three things that are critical for players at all levels--but are sadly rare. Rhythm, posture, and timing.

Focusing on these elements I could feel myself absorbing them directly, I began imagining myself doing them and noticing how that looked and felt in my mind's eye. When I went on court later after the second day the effect was incredibly positive.

I believe any player can have the same experience. And create it on demand. I call it the osmosis effect. (Click Here for more on that.)

You can create it by watching pro tennis live--or watching highly skilled local players, or by watching video, or from our stroke archives, and hopefully from this article as well.

In fact it's the principle that underlies much of the material on Tennisplayer. So let's take a look at what I saw and felt and absorbed.

Rhythm

You've all warmed up with this guy. Or maybe you are this guy--from ball one in the warmup, blasting every shot as hard as possible. Whether it goes in or not. And a lot don't.

Blasting every ball whether the other guy can get to it or not. And many he can't. Blasting every ball whether it feels good or not. And it couldn't possibly feel that good.

Then when the match starts, this guy can't find the court and either makes mega error after mega error, or has to slow the ball way down, push, and completely alter his alleged "strokes" to get the ball in the court.

That's not the way to become a good player and it's not what good players do. The truth is that, typically, the better the player, the slower the warmup. It's true of Djokovic, of Federer, of accomplished players at all levels--and yes, of Rafael Nadal.

It's supposed to feel good to hit the tennis ball. All I can say is that watching Rafa warmup made me feel good. And you don't get that feeling sometimes watching him playing matches.

I watched him practice from ball one a couple of times at the Miami Open. He started out hitting forehands I would estimate at about half speed or less. One after another with a gorgeous even rhythm.

The other really interesting thing was the shape of his stroke. Of course Rafa is famous for the swinging overhead reverse finish with the racket coming back over his head. But in over an hour of groundstroke practice I saw him hit that finish no more than 3 or 4 times.

Instead he was going out and through and then around his shoulder. Over and over. Again starting with that slow rhythm and gradually, almost imperceptibly building speed, swing speed and ball speed.

Everything was relaxed yet precise. That's a feeling I still have in my mind and I plan on trying to keep it.

Posture

The second related factor is posture. I probably should probably stress this a lot more in more of my articles. Basically the image I got from watching Rafa was of a straight line from the ground up through the sky.

His torso was upright or erect. The whole swing is rotating around that line.

There is no bend forward or to the side from the waist. And no tilting the head of the head down or to the side.

Timing

By timing I am talking about a specific aspect of timing--the timing of the preparation in response to the ball. And this is something I have written about many times over the years.

But it's still a problem at the club levels. Late timing is an epidemic. The ball bounces on your side of the court. And you are standing there in ready position.

At the San Francisco Tennis Club I had to stop riding the exercise bikes by the window overlooking the indoor courts. It was just too painful to see players who had no chance to execute a good technical swing because, ball after ball, they were standing flat footed during the interval of the ball flight.

At the bounce these players would then try to react and prepare and execute. I just couldn't continue to let those images into my brain.

In pro tennis the players are hitting forehands up to a hundred miles an hour or more. But their movement and motions are in sync with the speed and flight of the ball.

It happens sometimes within a second or less so it's difficult to see, but universally the best players in the world are turned and coiled around the time of the bounce. Yes, when they are forced this timing can vary by a fraction of a second.

But not Rafa in practice. And not as a goal or a model. Time and time again, I watched Rafa sync the completion of the turn to the bounce on the court.

At that moment the ball was on the court you saw these checkpoints. Opposite arm stretched across the body. Shoulders fully turned a few degrees past 90 degrees to the net. Outside leg coiled in a semi open stance. And that gorgeous erect posture.

From this position, Rafa was ready to pull the trigger. And he did, time after time. Starting with a smooth slow rhythm and building to a smooth faster rhythm. And hitting with tremendous extension in the forward swing before letting the arm relax and wrap naturally around his shoulder.

On to the Red Clay

So for me what was the effect of watching and absorbing and visualizing these gorgeous world class elements?

Later after the second day of watching Rafa practice, I got a chance to hit on a pristine European red clay court in south Miami.

Even though my grip is far more conservative than Rafa's and I have minimal wiper in my forward swing on most balls I was able to call up those feelings of even rhythm, posture and relaxed extension.

When you apply the osmosis technique it's hard to separate how it feels in your mind and how it actually feels in your body. In any case it was special and after a while I felt I could go anywhere with more forehand and vary the arcs and spins while staying in perfect rhythm.

Which I can normally do but just not always with such pleasure, confidence and force. I can't really describe it other than to say it feels like some special mental/emotional zone.

It made me think about playing a Norcal tournament. I wondered, at age 65, could I win a Norcal 4.0 tournament? And I have Rafa to thank for that idea. Here's hoping you can get the same feeling and inspiration from the images here.