As usual, I do a quick racket matchup analysis before every grand slam final. I talk about what the rackets let the players do and how that translates on the match play on the court.
For the Roland Garros 2019, we have a repeat of the last year’s finals between Rafel Nadal and Dominic Thiem.
I’ve posted their specs before the Roland Garros in the post about Clay court winners specs. First let’s take a look at the Mass, Balance and Swingweight comparison.
Rafael Nadal with a higher swingweight, mass and balance (less headlight) which means he needs more time to prepare and execute his strokes and needs to have perfect footwork and be balanced when he hits the ball. Dominic Thiem has a bit more breeathing room and can hit a lot of his shots in the air, unbalanced and so on. A lighter, more headlight racket with lover swingweight allows him to do that. Overall Nadal has a higher ceiling when it comes to the weight of the ball (a combination of spin and pace) because his racket is able to transfer more energy to the ball, but only when he is well positioned and has the time to execute his strokes to achieve maximum racket head speed. This can be an issue especially on his forehand side if Thiem starts attacking that side with pace and a bit flatter shots, but clay works in Nadal’s favour here as it gives him more time on every shot.
It is also important to take MGR/I and Twistweight into consideration.
The MGRI/I and Twistweight might seem the same when put next to each other, but not if you know that most rackets have between 12 and 15 twistweight and 20 and 21,5 MGR/I and that the rackets on the opposite sides of these values feel and play very different.
Thiem has a higher twistweight which compensates for the lover weight and swingweight in the stability department. Expanding his sweet spot gives him more room for error while swinging fast and on out of position shots. He needs to swing faster than Nadal to achieve the same weight of the shots, and swinging fast means he will hit more balls out of the centre of the racket (sweet spot) and higher twistweight. Higher twistweight also means you can’t »carve« around the ball so much and have to hit through the ball more because it’s harder to change the racket face quickly because of the torsional momentum that higher twistweight provides. This also means he can’t generate such extreme angles as Nadal does and open the court as much, but he can hit through the court more. Speaking about hitting through the court, MGR/I is also very determinant in this department.
The difference in MGR/I is 0,26 and as I mentioned on the scale between 20 and 21,5 this is not negligible. Thiem has a higher MGR/I which enables him to hit through the ball more, rather than carving around it. It also gives him better depth control. Read more about MGR/I to understand this here. On the other hand, Nadal can carve more around the ball and hit better angles and open up the court more but doesn’t have the same depth control. Instead of depth, he relies on his topspin and high bounce to keep opponents behind the baseline.
To sum it all up, I think that Thiem shouldn’t get involved in heavy topspin exchanges as he could with some other opponents. This gives Nadal more time to set up his shots and he will always come out on top when that happens. The tactic should be to hit through the court and rush Nadal, especially on his forehand side as he needs more time there than on his backhand side (more leverage on the racket with 2 hands). In the last year’s finals Thiem seemed at times he was trying to implement something similar. What I didn’t like was, that he was trying to trade crosscourt forehands with Nadal’s backhand on a lot of occasions, which is also something Nadal is comfortable with. The ideal point for Thiem should be short, with a hard and flatter shot to the Nadal’s forehand side, forcing a shorter floating topspin response and then hit a winner or an approach shot after that and come to the net after that.
Another interesting factor might be the wind as it was in both of the semifinals matchups. The wind should benefit Thiem more as his racket is more forgiving overall.
Remember that this is just the racket matchup analysis, and there are many other factors in play, but to me, the understanding of what the racket enables you to is the foundation of how you build your game and strategy around that.
I try to make the finals more interesting as you can observe the different rackets and strategies behind them at work.
Nice! I heard Thiem’s racquet should have a SW of 345, does he changed ?
These are the specs according to Babolat. He does seem to play around with the amount of lead he is using, and he did in-fact switch away from the first generation of the strike.