‘He Wasn’t Aggressive Enough’ – Biographer’s Rare Insight on How Rafael Nadal’s Uncle Pointed Out a Glaring Weakness in Roger Federer’s Game

Senior journalist Simon Cambers recently wrote a book about Roger Federer. He interviewed various people who witnessed Federer’s rise from close quarters and tried to build a narrative based on it. One of the most important people of them all was Toni Nadal, Rafael Nadal’s uncle, who revealed Federer’s biggest weakness.

Swiss Maestro Roger Federer recently played his last match at the Laver Cup. The 41-year-old inspired many in his long career and is among the all-time greats. Statistically, if we look at the greatest male tennis players of all time, right now, Rafael Nadal comes on the top with 22 Grand Slam titles. Djokovic and Federer have 21 and 20 titles, respectively.

What was the biggest weakness of Roger Federer, according to Toni Nadal?

Simon Cambers recently appeared in the Tennis.com podcast with Kamau Murray. The two discussed in detail the book and how it touches on different details about the Swiss legend. One important factor they discussed was the weakness in Federer’s game. Quoting Toni Nadal on this, Cambers explained it in detail.

“It’s sort of obvious because it’s all about the Federer backhand. When Federer was young, people thought Federer had a bad backhand, weak backhand. It’s obviously all relative, but it was definitely a weakness for him and quite a lot of people in the book talked about that,” he said.

Cambers further added, “Toni Nadal said Federer’s biggest mistake was that he allowed Rafa to pick on his backhand by just chipping that return back by blocking. He wasn’t aggressive enough, he couldn’t dictate rallies, and it was just easy on clay, especially.”

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Nadal was one of the top competitors during Federer’s illustrious career. While the backhand was a weakness Nadal exploited against Federer, it was not so easy, and for sure, other than Nadal, we can’t imagine anyone else doing it.

Federer vs. Nadal – the most iconic rivalry in tennis?

If we talk about the modern-day greats, the names of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer always come up. Both Federer and Nadal have over 20 Grand Slam titles and topped the ATP Rankings for a long time. The two were great friends off the court, but when they stepped on the opposite sides of the nets, it was always an intense battle.

‘Fedal’ clashed for the first time in the 2004 Miami Open. Nadal registered a thumping straight-set win, sending a strong message. Later, the two clashed again the next year in the same tournament. This time we got to see the real contest between the legends to be.

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Federer won the match after losing the first two sets and set the tone for one of the biggest rivalries the sport has seen. Over the years, Federer and Nadal played 40 matches against each other, often in the latter stages of tournaments. Nadal ended on top with 24 wins to his name, while Federer won 16.

What is your favorite Nadal vs. Federer match? Let us know in the comments.