Originally Posted by
Jeff_Black
PEDs in tennis seems pretty pointless, it can maybe have some benefits, but as others have said considering how mental the game is, the game is not being dominated by your sterotypical athletes that can hit hard, run fast amongst other things. So if you can hit harder, run faster, it isnt the whole picture. Every player can smack balls, run fast, hit 200 km/h serves and have the same access to sport science when on the Pro Tour. It's the little 1%ers that the best do .
Most of the other players who had links to PEDs and who copped suspensions and had results like Petr Korda and Marin Cilic didn't last long anyway so these guys are something special.
Djokovic is easily the most clutch player in the modern game, and on par with Nadal at least in the current era for mental strength. And PEDs has nothing to do with that. Likewise with a guy like Sampras before them.
BUT I can understand the link to Nadal and PEDs considering how some pointed out how big his body was at a young age, 17, 18, 19. You look at him in his first Wimbledon Final and he's 19, and then go back and look at Djokovic when he was 20 and he was way smaller and skinnier then Nadal.
Not only that but there was that whole Operation Puerto ordeal that is still unfinished where the Spanish Courts were permitted to destroy dozens of blood samples of athletes, notably cyclists, and from my understanding, some tennis players as well. Since been overturned I think? Hence why it's ongoing.
Alberto Contador for example one, and cycling for example is probably one where PEDs probably do have an effect considering the repetitive motion of the sport.
Even still with the above, I think Nadal is just an extremely well coached guy who has a really really good Plan A, but a not as great plan B who's fine tuned and adjusted his game over the years to be better on all surfaces.