In my experience whether people like Federer or Nadal has little to do with who was successful first, and much more to do with playing styles, but equally, the

In my experience whether people like Federer or Nadal has little to do with who was successful first, and much more to do with playing styles, but equally, the marketing images that have been built for them. Federer is presented as this sublime talent, to whom tennis is effortless and natural. Someone who is calm and collected, and is the suave beatiful exponent of the sport. Nadal is presented as the fighting underdog who is extremely passionate and managed to overcome his natural talent and skill limitations with grit, determination, and hard work. Which is kind of ironic, because once you set aside their playing styles, they both are almost exactly the opposite of their images. Federer was a highly volatile young player who greatly underperformed when he first turned pro, to the point he wanted to quit the sport, and took a long time to win his first GS. Nadal, on the other hand, burst into the scene almost immediately with a GS win, stuff came extremely naturally. Federer also puts far more hours into training and the gym, and has modeled his entire life aroundtennis, while Nadal, until recently didn’t come close. In fact, Nadal is famously quoted as saying that he didn’t go to the gym at all (I personally believe this was exaggerated, but it does have a grain of truth, in that his off court efforts, at least initially in his career, wasn’t close to the other guys).