Rafael Nadal contested an epic rivalry with Novak Djokovic over the course of their careers.
They pushed one another to their limit and helped raise the standard of the sport to new heights along with Roger Federer.
No matter the surface, Nadal playing his great rival Novak Djokovic was always an exciting matchup for fans.
But aside from his beloved clay, there was one surface in particular that Rafael Nadal enjoyed playing the Serbian on, and it was tough to separate them.
Rafael Nadal says if he preferred playing Novak Djokovic on grass or hard courts
Nadal and Djokovic played one another in 60 matches from 2006 until their final competitive meeting at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Four of those matches came on grass courts, and they each won twice, with Djokovic winning their 2011 and 2018 matches at Wimbledon.
Nadal on the other hand, won their 2007 Wimbledon semi-final and the final at Queen’s in 2008, before he beat Federer to win his first title at the All-England Club.
Given their close matchup on grass, Nadal says that he preferred to play Djokovic on grass courts rather than hard courts. The concrete was a surface Djokovic dominated in their rivalry.
“Of course my game adapts well naturally to the clay but I love playing on fast courts,” the two-time Wimbledon champion said during an appearance on Andy Roddick’s ‘Served’ podcast.
“It’s true that I finished my winning with a couple of US Open titles, but my second best surface was grass. Honestly I prefer to play against Novak on grass than on hard courts.”
Rafael Nadal explains why grass was his ‘second best’ surface
Nadal was able to adapt and succeed on each surface throughout his illustrious career. The Spaniard became just the second man in the Open Era to win each Grand Slam more than once after his monumental 2022 Australian Open victory.
He was also the man to end Roger Federer’s five-year unbeaten run at Wimbledon and from 2006 to 2011, he made five finals and won two titles at SW19.
Contrary to what some may think, the 22-time major winner enjoyed playing on grass and thinks it was a better surface for him than hard courts, but admitted he countered a big problem during the middle of his career.
“I played the final in 2006 and 2007, I won 2008 and 2009 I was not able to play, but then I won in 2010 and I played the final in 2011,” Nadal told Roddick.
“The problem that I had was that there arrived a point where I was not able to play on grass anymore for a lot of years. It’s not like I forgot how to play on grass, it’s simply that my knees were not holding up, and I was not able to slow down.
“To play on grass I needed to feel the control of my knees and my knees were super bad. So after that 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 my knees were not good enough to play on grass. Then I recovered well from the knees so then I started playing again well on grass in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
“So during this period of time that were important years of my tennis career, my knees did not allow me to play on grass, that’s the truth. For me it was painful because I felt that my chances were bigger if I was healthy enough on grass.”
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