Tomas Machac’s Defiant Angles
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
4d ago
Tomas Machac at the 2023 US Open. Credit: Hameltion 2024 is quickly turning into the year of Tomas Machac. The 23-year-old Czech reached his first grand slam third round in Australia, straight-setting Frances Tiafoe for a first top-20 win. A quarter-final showing in Marseille and a defeat of Stan Wawrinka at Indian Wells earned him a place in the top 60. Now, in Miami, he has dispatched top-tenner Andrey Rublev and outlasted Andy Murray for a place in the fourth round. The live rankings place him precariously in the top 50; tomorrow’s match against fellow second-week surprise Matteo Arnaldi gi ..read more
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More About Drop Shots: Alexander Bublik Edition
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
6d ago
Alexander Bublik in 2022. Credit: Getty If Carlos Alcaraz is the prince of the drop shot, Alexander Bublik is the court jester. We learned this week that Bublik hits droppers more than any other tour regular, about once every 14 points. That’s three times as often as tour average. No one else goes to the well more than once per 19 points. Persistence aside, Sasha’s results are mixed: He wins about 45% of those points. That’s unimpressive compared to the ATP norm of 54%, and it’s particularly weak next to Alcaraz’s mark of 62%. Assuming that drop shots are, on average, hit from a neutral rally ..read more
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Effects and After-Effects of the Carlos Alcaraz Drop Shot
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
1w ago
Also today: Wild cards and doping bans; Miami preview podcast Carlos Alcaraz in the 2022 US Open final It is not easy to analyze the drop shot. Players don’t hit it very often, they sometimes hit it from very favorable or very unfavorable circumstances, and the goal of the shot sometimes extends beyond winning the point at hand. We can point to someone who hits droppers well and seems to win a lot of points doing so, but how much is the skill really worth? Carlos Alcaraz is the poster boy for the modern drop shot. He loves to hit it–possibly too much–and when he executes, it’s one of the most ..read more
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All Hail the Iga Swiatek … Serve?
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
1w ago
Iga Swiatek at the 2023 US Open. Credit: Hameltion There are a million things to praise about Iga Swiatek’s tennis these days. This puts commentators in a quandary, because her matches are often so short that there isn’t time to list them all. She is world-class at nearly every aspect of the game. If there is an exception, it is her serve. While it is not a liability, it doesn’t appear to stand out as a weapon, and Swiatek continues to make technical tweaks to improve it. She doesn’t dominate first-serve points the way that Qinwen Zheng or Elena Rybakina does; she doesn’t pile up aces like Ryb ..read more
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The Clutch Defense of Emma Navarro
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
2w ago
Emma Navarro at the 2023 US Open. Credit: Hameltion The dizzying rise of Emma Navarro continues. She finished 2023 at a career-high 32nd in the rankings, rose to 23rd before Indian Wells, and now, on the back of yesterday’s upset of Aryna Sabalenka, she could crack the top 20 on Monday. Not long ago, many fans thought of Navarro as a vulture, riding a bunch of small-tournament victories to an inflated ranking. Now, with back-to-back wins over Elina Svitolina and Sabalenka on one of the sport’s biggest stages–and not on clay, her favorite surface–the doubters are quieting down. The American alr ..read more
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The Downward Slide of Stefanos Tsitsipas’s Backhand Return
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
2w ago
Stefanos Tsitsipas ahead of the 2023 US Open. Credit: Hameltion Yesterday in Indian Wells, Jiri Lehecka knocked out Stefanos Tsitsipas with a masterclass of precision power hitting. The Czech tallied 27 winners to Tsitsipas’s 8, and that’s only after a belated burst of energy from the Greek in the second set. When I wrote about Lehecka in January, I chided him for an “excess of self-restraint,” hitting too many balls down the middle to take full advantage of his baseline weapons. He avoided that trap yesterday, and Tsitsipas paid the price. Still, Lehecka didn’t seize upon every exploitable ed ..read more
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Yuan Yue Will Return Your Serve Now
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
3w ago
Yuan Yue at Wimbledon last year. Credit: si.robi Here’s an impressive stat for you: Last week in Austin, champion Yuan Yue won more than half of the return points she played. In fact, had she picked up just one more point against Wang Yafan’s serve in the quarter-finals, she would have won at least 50% of return points in each of the five matches she played. This isn’t earth-shaking stuff: There are about a dozen tournaments every year where the champion wins more than the 51% of return points than Yuan did in Texas. Iga Swiatek won 56% at the French; Aryna Sabalenka cleared 52% in Australia ..read more
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Can Sebastian Baez Find Success on Hard Courts?
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
3w ago
Sebastian Baez in Cordoba last month. Credit: jmmuguerza Sebastian Baez is a marvel. In an era dominated by tall, all-court sluggers, the five-foot, seven-inch Argentinian has carved out a place on the circuit as a throwback clay-court specialist. Just a couple of months past his 23rd birthday, he has already won six tour-level titles and reached a new career-best ranking of 19th on the ATP computer. The obvious comparison is Diego Schwartzman, another Argentinian on the small side who won titles and reached a French Open semi-final by grinding out victories and swinging above his weight. Schw ..read more
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Katie Boulter’s Game of Patience
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
3w ago
Katie Boulter in 2021. Credit: Chris Czermak You can be forgiven if you didn’t have Katie Boulter on your radar going into the 2024 season. Her career-best ranking in the top 60 was a bit misleading, stemming largely from a debut title on the grass at Nottingham, where she picked up the championship without facing a single top-130 player. Nothing she can do about that, of course, but when it came to things she could control, the results were not always so encouraging. She wrapped up 2023, at 27 years of age, with a career total of just 25 hard-court victories. Since then, it’s been a whole new ..read more
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Alex de Minaur’s Adequate Inaccuracy
The TennisAbstract Blog
by Jeff
1M ago
Alex de Minaur at the 2024 Australian Open. (Getty Images: Julian Finney) Last week, Tennis Insights posted a graphic showing the average first serve speed and accuracy–distance from the nearest line–for the ATP top 20. There’s a ton of fascinating data packed into one image. Hubert Hurkacz is fast and accurate, Novak Djokovic is nearly as precise, and Adrian Mannarino defies logic as always. The most noteworthy outlier here, especially just after his run to the Rotterdam final, was Alex de Minaur. The Australian gets plenty of pop on his first serve, hitting them faster than tour average, if ..read more
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