Toni Nadal has not only been Rafael Nadal's coach for most of his amazing career, having helped him in his growth path since he was very young and having led him to the top of professional tennis with truly absolute dedication.
After stopping working with Rafa to spend more time together with his family and be more present at the Academy in Manacor, Toni was also the coach of Canadian ace Felix Auger-Aliassime for a short time helping him with his valuable advice.
Uncle Toni gives several interviews throughout the year and is never trivial when asked to express his thoughts on modern tennis.
He has repeatedly repeated that the game has become too powerful and fast in recent years, reducing the spectacle and limiting too much the importance of tactics within matches.
Uncle Toni has a suggestion
During a long interview with 'Le Monde', Rafa's former coach highlighted how modern tennis is too power-based: "First of all, the serve has taken on too much of a role in the modern game. It's like if a football match started with a penalty,it would be absurd.
That's what happens in tennis nowadays, because it has become increasingly difficult to respond to the needs of current players.
If you face a player like Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, who serves the first and second over 220 km/h, the show for the fans is miserable and the only possible tactic is to hope that the storm passes."
In the last years of his legendary career, his nephew Rafael had also complained about the evolution of tennis and the direction the sport was taking.
In the same interview, Toni proposed a possible solution to this problem: "The height of the net has never been changed, the problem is that the current players are 1.90 m tall and are also more powerful than in the past.
My suggestion is to reduce the size of the rackets, because the very nature of the game has changed."
We will see if the ATP management will listen to his words and evaluate changes for the future.
