Former ATP player Andy Roddick recently offered an interesting perspective, admitting that Wimbledon might be Rafael Nadal‘s best shot at winning a Grand Slam at the moment.
The Spaniard’s chances of winning a Grand Slam are naturally always the highest on clay at the Roland Garros. He won the event 14 times with very few losses and only against really amazing players, cementing his legacy as the greatest clay-court player of all time.
Roddick, however, came up with a pretty interesting take on his ‘Served with Roddick’ podcast, explaining how Wimbledon might be the Grand Slam where he’s most likely to win again.
The American was talking about Nadal’s decision to skip Wimbledon. Roddick agreed that his decision to skip was the right one; however, in the American’s mind, Nadal could have challenged for the title also at SW19.
“He (Nadal) could have won matches and made a run [at Wimbledon] if he chose to play, but I get it. Switching surfaces sucks for the body. All of a sudden, you go from building up reserves on clay, grinding out matches, your bodywork, and all of a sudden you’re dealing with lower back issues on grass because you’re bending and twisting and that’s not of need to him.”
With age and injuries, it may be challenging for the Spaniard to grind out matches like he once did, and that’s why the fast low-bouncing surface, on which he didn’t have a lot of success in his career, may provide him a helping hand.
“Listen, he made the right decision, but in my mind, I’m going, I have had the thought, I don’t know if I fully believe it, but that (Wimbledon) might be his best bet to win a Slam or get to a last four right now, even including clay.”
“So, based on what his body’s capable of doing, the movement, speed, gets a little help on the serve, all the adjustments that he has to make, for his body now, are kind of adjustments that he has to make on grass anyway.”
