Iga Swiatek DEFENDS Rafael Nadal’s legacy by calling out people who term him a ‘clay specialist’

As an athlete, you are often given the tag of being a certain kind of athlete. You can either be attached to your strength or weakness. Being attached to your weakness is certainly not desirable, but sometimes being attached to your strength is also not desirable. Limitations start surrounding you and you start getting too comfortable in your comfort zone and anything else that you achieve is almost not considered.

Often a cricketer is labeled to be too defensive, and his aggressive side of his is completely dismissed. A swimmer often is suppressed to one style and not allowed to explore the other. Well, tennis is no exception to that tag. A live example of this is the great Rafael Nadal.

Nadal for years has been called the King of Clay. It’s all said with good intentions. However, the number of times it’s said makes one wonder that can he even hold a racket when not playing on clay. Repeatedly being called a clay court specialist has formed an image about the legend that he can only play on clay.

World No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who herself is a huge Nadal fan, came out in support of her idol. “Rafa, he’s called clay court specialist, but he won so many tournaments on hard court & grass. The goal is to be good everywhere..saying the player feels more comfortable on clay, I think that’s the most proper thing to say,” said Swiatek in a recent media bite.

She strongly believes that Nadal’s horizons of play are much broader than just clay. As evidence has won multiple titles on hard and grass courts. She believes calling it a favorable surface is fine but a specialist is extreme. Nadal has eight Grand Slams outside the French Open, which is more than many players’ total Grand Slam cabinet. It easily proves that he has had a lot of success on other surfaces too.

Related: Flickering like a candle in the wind — Rafael Nadal’s tennis career

Reviewing Nadal’s hard and grass court career

Undoubtedly Rafael Nadal has been the best clay court player ever. He has won more than 60 percent of his titles on the surface, having 14 French Open titles to his name. However, one should not overlook his record on the other two surfaces. He has done well on both, hard and grass, over the years. Nadal has 514 wins on the hard court. He is fourth behind Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Andre Agassi in the Open Era. He has also won two Australian Open and four US Open titles. Nadal also won the 2008 Olympics singles gold medal on a hard court in Beijing.

Nadal has won 4 titles on the grass. They include two Wimbledon titles, one Queens Club, and one Stuttgart Open. He has a win percentage of over 70 on the surface. He had an incredible run in 2008, where he won all his 12 matches on the surface. That year also saw him beat the Grass court master Federer in a tight 5-set final at Wimbledon. These stats clearly support the fact that Nadal, to an extent, is an all-court player and he should not be labeled as only a clay-court specialist.

In case you missed it:

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