French Open

[stroke]

Arnaldi next up vs an in form Tsitsipas. Definitely to me match of the tournament thus far.

[stotty]

Alcaraz was averaging just over 3600 RPMs on his forehand in his match with Korda. A handful were travelling over 100mph yet with clearance over the net, making the shot lethally quick yet safe. I find that remarkable. It's the ultimate BG forehand model, which can be injected with spin or flattened out on demand.

Interesting tweaks going on with his serve, too. Tweaking wouldn't be enough for me but at least his team have made a start.

I just love Alcaraz. He's the best thing since Roger.

[stroke]

Alcaraz was averaging just over 3600 RPMs on his forehand in his match with Korda. A handful were travelling over 100mph yet with clearance over the net, making the shot lethally quick yet safe. I find that remarkable. It's the ultimate BG forehand model, which can be injected with spin or flattened out on demand.

Interesting tweaks going on with his serve, too. Tweaking wouldn't be enough for me but at least his team have made a start.

I just love Alcaraz. He's the best thing since Roger.

There is absolutely no substitute for quantitative speed spin numbers.

[stroke]

Sheldon goes our way too tamely to FAA in straights. Med has his hands full with tight pants Machac, who has been playing very good clay court tennis.

[jimlosaltos]

Alcaraz was averaging just over 3600 RPMs on his forehand in his match with Korda. A handful were travelling over 100mph yet with clearance over the net, making the shot lethally quick yet safe. I find that remarkable. It's the ultimate BG forehand model, which can be injected with spin or flattened out on demand.

Interesting tweaks going on with his serve, too. Tweaking wouldn't be enough for me but at least his team have made a start.

I just love Alcaraz. He's the best thing since Roger.

It like Alcaraz has been in a funk since Cincinatti and suddenly found his A game this week. Great for tennis, great for us to watch.

Question: Where did you find those stats Stotty? I looked at the InfoSys stats on the RG site and they appear to have the same reporting bug where -- and this is a guess - they report service speed in a rally as the speed for the "winner" shot.

Here Alcaraz's winner shows 3,595 RRM great and presumably accurate but the speed of 196 Km/h is like wrong.

filedata/fetch?id=104463&d=1717259842&type=thumb

[stroke]

Med gets it done in 4 sets. He really competes well for an entire match, he never goes away. Zverev down 2-1 in 5th set vs Griekspoor.

[jimlosaltos]

Zverev V Griekspoor is a perhaps surprising dog fight into the fifth set. Every major Zverev gets into 5 set matches in the first week.

Just tuned in but the stats seem to say it's come down to break point conversion> Zverev has only converted 3 of 14 BP chances in 9 games, Griekspoor 3/9 in 7 games. So, Zverev has more break opportunities, more points won, higher percentage won on both first and second serve yet he's fighting to hang on.

[jimlosaltos]

This graphic really shows how Griekspoor is exploiting Zverev's deep court position by taking him wide.

On second thought, Griekspoor has been at the net a lot, winning 41/59 at the net. So nearly 1/3 of G's points were won at the net so far. On clay.

No way here to tell how many "Ws" are volleys. But we can still see the cluster short and wide to Zverev's stronger backhand side -- zip deep to his supposedly weaker forehand side.

filedata/fetch?id=104467&d=1717261068&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

I can't believe it. Griekspoor up a double break in the 5th set, needs only hold twice to win and -- Zverev breaks twice, now serving on serve at 4-4. Insane.

[stroke]

Zverev has won 4 games on the trot with some very high quality play. He is up 5-4 with Griekspoor up to serve.

[jimlosaltos]

Holy cow. Yet again Zverev goes to 5 sets in the first week of a major. Yet again he wins.

This time he came from down a double breaker. Some nerves on both parts but Zverev was clinical in the 10 point tiebreak and closed it out.

Many perhaps most ATP players would collapse down a double break in the fifth, Zverev just stayed the course.

On the other hand, he's put himself in this position over and over -- so he's had lots of practice. For what ridicule his second has gotten, we have to say it held up under tremendous pressure. Tremendous.

[jimlosaltos]

Ok, I'm glad I'm not Amelie Mauresmo having to deal with the scheduling.

A suspended match just started no Cartrier - Dimitrov vs Zizou at 2-1 in the second set.

Djokovic vs Musetti is supposed to start there in 4 minutes -- at 8 PM Paris CEST. So, let's say the Dimitrov-Zizou match runs 2 hours, the number 1 seek will hit his first point circa 10:30 PM. Maybe he can finish off the Italian quickly, maybe it goes to 2 am Sunday morning.

My sympathies for Djokovic are limited, but it's not fair competition.

[stroke]

https://www.sportskeeda.com/tennis/news-john-mcenroe-rebukes-carlos-alcaraz-s-coach-juan-carlos-ferrero-incessant-talking-french-open-3r-compares-stefanos-tsitsipas-father

I agree with McEnroe here. Obviously Carlos has tremendous respect for JCF, but I would not think this hyper chatter coaching by JCF would be sustainable long term for Carlos. It is just too much. Stefanos' Dad certainly is just as bad, but he is the Dad and Stef tried going without him, and then decided he wants him there even with all the annoying chatter. It is pretty comical watching Stef's mom and dad. Stefs Mom looks pretty annoyed with Apostolas often herself. One of the funnier occurrences in the drama box of Stef was one time the camera caught Paula Bedosa, sitting behind Apostolos, rolling her eyes when he said something. Apostolos certainly earns some eye rolls.

[stotty]

https://www.sportskeeda.com/tennis/n...itsipas-father

I agree with McEnroe here. Obviously Carlos has tremendous respect for JCF, but I would not think this hyper chatter coaching by JCF would be sustainable long term for Carlos. It is just too much. Stefanos' Dad certainly is just as bad, but he is the Dad and Stef tried going without him, and then decided he wants him there even with all the annoying chatter. It is pretty comical watching Stef's mom and dad. Stefs Mom looks pretty annoyed with Apostolas often herself. One of the funnier occurrences in the drama box of Stef was one time the camera caught Paula Bedosa, sitting behind Apostolos, rolling her eyes when he said something. Apostolos certainly earns some eye rolls.

Yes I heard McEnroe say that during his commentary. Chatter aside, I have questioned the partnership for quite a while because there has been little development in Carlos's game for a long while now. You get the impression Carlitos is an extremely nice bloke who just loves playing tennis. He's great at pulling the trigger on a tennis court but I suspect he'll find it very uncomfortably difficult to pull the trigger on his coach.

[stotty]

Novak clinches the first set against Musetti...high standard. Novak seems to have little or none of his foot speed and played in the clutch. Musetti is a hell of a talent and the match is far from over if he can just get more first serves in and raise his level in the clutch moments.

The conditions are heavy and slow. Matches must be a grind on clay when it's like that, even in today's power game.