You never want to just take a player and say, oh, I want to copy him, because usually a copy is never as good as the original. So, what’s really important is you take something that you like from such and such, but it’s really important to blend in your own style.
Take e.g. Medvedev a lesson from him would be keep an extra ball in the court. It’s errors that lose the match. It’s not winners that win the match. So, what you can learn is keep the ball in play.
The greatest thing we can learn from Rafa is probably the hardest for juniors. If you don’t know the score with Rafa, he could be up 5–0 or down 5–0 and he has the same attitude, which is so incredible. He has an incredible fighting spirit. It’s hard to replicate. What you don’t want to do is to say, “I would love to hit a Rafa forehand”. Well, Me, too, but that’s not not realistic, but what you can do is getting inspired by that big weapon of Rafa’s and decide to work more on your strengths.
(Inspired by the podcast episode #77: “The Best Coaching is Done over Dinner” w. Brad Gilbert on The Adam Blicher Show — Dissecting High Performance in Tennis)
Want to listen to the full episode: buff.ly/3anuHYS