Nadal with a heavier racquet for 2012

[Moralspain]

Nadal has switched to a heavier babolat racquet in 2012, he says he's gonna need 3 weeks-1 month to get used to it, he needs to take risks in order to have chances of beating Novak, honestly this can be seen as a desperate action to see if he can do better against the serbian player this year.
He has never changed the weight of his racquet and has won 10 GS etc, enough for most of the players hahaha.
This change now can work well and be the key (i hope so) to get more power, better serve etc..., but on the other hand these racquet weight changes are not easy to handle and he could end losing against many players he used to beat in the past only because he's now obsessed with recover the number 1 again and to do that he knows he will probably have to beat Nole in many finals.

All that said this shows he doesn't resign himself to the situation, with all he has achieved he could do that btw, i applaud his decision whatever the result is

"I had to make the change even if I am not better in the beginning,"

"We had to make the decision so that it will be better in the future,"

"Probably that hurts my game a little bit to begin with. Is that a risk at the beginning of the season - yes."

"But it was still the right moment, to change," said the 25-year-old Spaniard.

"If not now, then when?"

"I don't know if it's going to be enough to beat him now or to lose him 100 more times - I cannot predict that," Nadal concluded.

"My preparation is not the perfect one, and I'm trying to play with a little bit heavier racket, to get a little bit more power,"

(With the new racket) I'm losing a little bit of control now, sometimes I don't feel the forehand as good as before. But it's something that I believe can help me in the future.

After the Davis Cup final I had all the rackets prepared at home to change," the 10-times grand slam champion added.

"In theory I'm supposed to practise almost a month or at least three weeks with the (new) racket, but finally I practised only one week, and I'm here now, so probably it's not good enough.

"You can't think that everything will be perfect from the beginning, but you make the change thinking it'll be better in the future.

"There's no magic, but the new racket can help a little bit to improve my game. It's a risk I'm taking at the beginning of the season."

I think I played a fantastic seven, eight months during 2011. Out of the first eight months, I think, seven months were really, really good.

"I lost against Djokovic in all the finals, but I lost only against him. So that's a really positive thing, play almost every final in all the difficult and important tournaments."

[jayl0ve]

Not sure what to say about this.

I've always wondered why such a STRONG guy would use such a light racquet (without checking I believe it's around 11 oz or maybe even a little lighter!)...but he seems to be doing well with it. So why change it.

I think if he sticks with it though, we could see some insane power from Nadal in the near future...

[Ali-Iqb93]

Why not changing the string tension to get more power rather than changing the raquet ?

[jayl0ve]

That's not everything, with regards to power...besides, changing the string tension changes the 'feel' of the racquet a lot more than just adding weight does.

[Amazing Matheja]

LoL More power ?



Huhu ! Just kiddin'... I like when people puts themselves in danger to find a new way to win ! ^^

[jayl0ve]

I've always thought it was funny that a super 'buff' guy like Rafa uses a really light racquet...

...and anemic-looking Andy Murray uses one of the heaviest racquets on tour (after lead taping it up)

[SIeeepy]

Roger federer needs to take a page from nadal's book and finally switch to a larger frame

[Moralspain]

Roger federer needs to take a page from nadal's book and finally switch to a larger frame

Well Mr Federer is not a newbie and i'm sure he and his team thought about the pros and cons years back when Nadal started to beat him over and over again and kinda lost his hegemony, and if they decided to stay with the 90sq was because they believed that was the best decision.

If i were him i wouldn't have changed either, he has been the king of tennis for many years playing with that racquet, only because one single player started to beat you quite often (Nadal) is not a reason to change what helped you to be best player on the face of this earth (along other things, not just tyhe racquet haha)
Djokovic is now doing the same with Nadal, but it seems Rafa is obsessed with this situation and can't stand being beating over and over by Nole, and he's looking for something new.

That said, in my opinion if the 99% of the players use 98-100sq sticks is for a good reason i guess, they can't be all wrong.

BTW: i play with 98 but i used to play with a 95sq racquet in the past, results are the same