Rafael Nadal will not compete in the French Open this year. In the same announcement, he also indicated that 2024 will probably be his last year of competition. A long list of Nadal idiosyncracies will soon fade from tennis broadcasts. Chief among those is his hyperactive pre-match energy in the locker room. Fortunately, the new Netflix docuseries “Break Point” has preserved those habits for posterity.
At the 41:27 mark of S1E2, Nadal is seen intensely performing shadow swings prior to his semi-final match against Mateo Berrettini at the 2022 Australian Open. He is also seen bounding around and jumping during the same sequence. While he does that before every match, during a tournament, there is a lot more space to do that once the majority of the other players lose and head out to the next stop on the tour.
Shadow swings are an under-the-radar controversial technique for tennis. To define the term, a shadow swing is simply going through the motion of hitting the ball… without hitting a ball. There are quite a few tennis instructors that advocate for the frequent use of shadow swings as a method to master technique more rapidly. The theory behind that idea is that removing the variability of the ball helps the player focus purely on form.
Other coaches and quite a lot of players scoff at the idea that shadow swings are anything other than a waste of time. That camp has the perspective that learning to hit a ball while systematically omitting the ball is nonsense. It is unlikely that Nadal uses shadow swings as a pre-match warm-up for stroke mastery. His mechanics are pretty much set at this point in his career.
In Nadal’s case, those shadow swings are a form of pre-match rehearsal. While we can’t get into his head, it is likely that he is visualizing the shots as he goes through the motions. It is almost like he starts playing the match before stepping onto the court. It’s a head start.
If you watch broadcast match play closely, many professional players occasionally execute shadow swings after missing a shot. In fact, one of the best ways to see that action is during streamed matches that don’t cut away to replays of the previous point. In that case, shadow swings are a primer for muscle memory of what the motion of the shot should be. It is a form of muscle relaxation building into the subsequent point.
During this same pre-match sequence in Break Point, Nadal is also shown springing through the player match staging area. He transitions from that movement to a bounding series of leaping high knee lifts. Nadal might be the best example of power skipping you will ever see before a match. That energy carries through to the meeting at the net for the coin toss. Unfortunately, that sequence isn’t shown for this particular match in the docuseries.
Recreational players sometimes try to emulate Nadal’s stroke technique, but the mechanics of his shots require racquet head speed and timing that is difficult to master with any consistency. Shadow swings, leaps, and bounds are actions that are much more accessible to all players.
If you want to play more like Nadal, the best first step is to start using shadow swings and amping up your pre-match energy. Fist pumps while exclaiming “Vamos” certainly couldn’t hurt either.
