2017 Wimbledon Championships...ATP 2000...London, Great Britain

[klacr]

Anyone see Berdych??? Thiem who? Solid performance from my Czech mate!
5 setter and I was fully confident whole time.

Hoping Djokovic-Mannarino channel a bit of their Isner/Mahut skills and go 70-68. Tough that they must play on Tuesday and whats tougher is the excuse the AELTC gave. Just to be clear what happened today; Djokovic and Mannarino were prevented from playing under a roof that cost an estimated 80 million euros.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[don_budge]

Oh, I forgot one more thing, the importance of the serve. I am not sure if this is in a thread somewhere. But there is one place where Baby Fed is not a baby Fed, the serve. To me he has a little hitch that he has overcome with lots of practice. He kind of tightens up at the bottom and then loosens up. My sense is that hitch can tighten up and throw off his timing when he is under pressure. With that hitch he will always have reduced looseness and the serve will flow less easily than it will for Big Fed.

I am not sure where Dimitrov picked up that hitch but if I had to guess it was one day when his coach told him to really hit it. So then he tightened up and thought about hitting it harder.

Regardless of when it started. His serve will break down.

We could compare him to Thiem who has a more fluid serve. It is less likely to break down under pressure.

But Thiem's dad is a tennis coach so he probably knew how to teach the progression better.

Everyone wonders why Dimitrov is not better. I wonder if the slight disadvantage in his serve might hold him back.

At that level, every little bit counts.

Here's the thread arturohernandez...my thoughts come back to haunt Dimitrov. This was written in October of 2013. If he would have heeded my words at that point he would have been on top of the world today. It's interesting to read back in hindsight.

https://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/forum/tennisplayer/2513-grigor-dimitrov

[don_budge]

Anyone see Berdych??? Thiem who? Solid performance from my Czech mate!
5 setter and I was fully confident whole time.

Hoping Djokovic-Mannarino channel a bit of their Isner/Mahut skills and go 70-68. Tough that they must play on Tuesday and whats tougher is the excuse the AELTC gave. Just to be clear what happened today; Djokovic and Mannarino were prevented from playing under a roof that cost an estimated 80 million euros.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

I saw a bit. I was switching around between Berdych/Thiem, Raonic/Zverev and Nadal/Mueller. I got mixed up on the Federer/Dimitrov time and missed it completely. It was over before I knew it. This is all working out in Federer's plan as he "conserves energy" which has been his mantra within a mantra. Preparation (conserve energy)...preparation (conserve energy)...preparation (conserve energy). He's no dummy. The matchup with Dimitrov is a fascinating one.

Here's is some talk about the first encounter between the real thing and the clone...

https://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/forum/tennisplayer/2513-grigor-dimitrov/page2

But back to Berdych and Thiem...too bad there are no highlights on youtube. Perhaps there were no highlights. But that is another consistent performance by your man. Although I would discount David Ferrer as a solid indicator. Thiem is also just a tad shy of being a full fledged indicator but Berdych's next opponent will leave nothing to doubt. Should Novak Djokovic win. Berdych is 2-25 against Djokovic. But one of those wins was at Wimbledon...back in 2010. When he made the finals. He has plenty of incentive one would think.

[don_budge]

Not a Great Start for Nadal...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU-dSBZyioY

Idiot.

[stroke]

Nadal has not made it this far for years. His grass court game was only viable because he was young and managed to simply will himself to win on a surface that was not ideal for his game. The reality is that he is playing better this year than he has in the last few years. He made the final of AO, won RG and made it to the second week of Wimbledon. I expect a similar result for the US Open (maybe quarters).

Nadal did not cave. He made some outrageous shots just to hang in there. He was simply playing with a losing hand. Always has but in the past could somehow make it through in these matches. At 30 this is a tough ask after having just won RG.

Federer looks like a freaking surgeon (or a piranha if you want to use a more carnivorous analogy). Grass courts suit his game. First strike tennis where long rallies are not the basis of your game.

I expect that he will exact the kind of revenge on Raonic that he exacted on Zverev in Halle.

Djokovic will have to play back to back. It might just throw him off at some point later.

Murray looks on track to get to the final now.

Stotty is right that Nadal was just hanging in there. But that is not unusual for him to simply wait for the attack and then counterattack. Just harder to do at his age on a surface that does not suit his game.

spot on, Nadal played so well and hard to hang in there as long as he did. All credit to both players in that match

[stroke]

Oh, I forgot one more thing, the importance of the serve. I am not sure if this is in a thread somewhere. But there is one place where Baby Fed is not a baby Fed, the serve. To me he has a little hitch that he has overcome with lots of practice. He kind of tightens up at the bottom and then loosens up. My sense is that hitch can tighten up and throw off his timing when he is under pressure. With that hitch he will always have reduced looseness and the serve will flow less easily than it will for Big Fed.

I am not sure where Dimitrov picked up that hitch but if I had to guess it was one day when his coach told him to really hit it. So then he tightened up and thought about hitting it harder.

Regardless of when it started. His serve will break down.

We could compare him to Thiem who has a more fluid serve. It is less likely to break down under pressure.

But Thiem's dad is a tennis coach so he probably knew how to teach the progression better.

Everyone wonders why Dimitrov is not better. I wonder if the slight disadvantage in his serve might hold him back.

At that level, every little bit counts.

speaking of a loose, no hitch motion, Gilles Muller

[arturohernandez]

Yes! Very fluid. You can see how it did not break down.

[arturohernandez]

Thoughts about Grigor Dimitrov...food for thought.

I think that Grigor Dimitrov has a hitch in his backswing that will prevent him from being the kind of server that a player of his makeup needs to be. It's in the backswing...this prevents him from fulfilling the potential of his service going forwards.

If he develops the kind of serve that I believe that he potentially has it will lift the rest of his game as well. To serve like a Gonzales...instead of attempting the Federer imitation might be in his best interests in the long run. Perfect service motion and the complimenting tactics...that's the ticket.

Thanks for the link! I remember reading that some time back.

The problem is that Dimitrov is tight too early in his backswing. Look at how his racket head is held up. For Fed the racket drops down naturally. He is not forcing anything.

There is a famous Russian coach Larisa Preobrazhenskaya who was quoted in the NYTimes as learning technique very early in life being the most crucial part. Once bad habits are learned they are very hard to break.

Somewhere one of Dimitrov's coaches didn't give him the right drills to incorporate more throwing into his serving.

It's obvious that Dimitrov imitated Fed. But the problem is that he did not learn like Fed did.

Ironic that all that talent can get him so close to the top. And yet the lack of coaching to correct this minor flaw was not made earlier.

I see it at almost every lesson locally and the junior training is the worst. NO ONE seems to be worrying about the serve and developing the right throwing motion.

Dimitrov could have learned to serve better in Compton with Richard Williams who figured out that his girls should throw footballs American style.

The pdfs are a bit funky but it shows the source of his problems.

[stotty]

Thanks for the link! I remember reading that some time back.

The problem is that Dimitrov is tight too early in his backswing. Look at how his racket head is held up. For Fed the racket drops down naturally. He is not forcing anything.

There is a famous Russian coach Larisa Preobrazhenskaya who was quoted in the NYTimes as learning technique very early in life being the most crucial part. Once bad habits are learned they are very hard to break.

Somewhere one of Dimitrov's coaches didn't give him the right drills to incorporate more throwing into his serving.

It's obvious that Dimitrov imitated Fed. But the problem is that he did not learn like Fed did.

Ironic that all that talent can get him so close to the top. And yet the lack of coaching to correct this minor flaw was not made earlier.

I see it at almost every lesson locally and the junior training is the worst. NO ONE seems to be worrying about the serve and developing the right throwing motion.

Dimitrov could have learned to serve better in Compton with Richard Williams who figured out that his girls should throw footballs American style.

The pdfs are a bit funky but it shows the source of his problems.

I have a kid I teach with a problem not dissimilar to Dimitrov. He is 10...nearly 11. It can be a tough problem to crack...a hitch. I should know. I have encountered enough of them and I am not above seeking second opinions or drafting in someone I feel might be more senior. If it were that simple to rectify a Dimitrov type problem, the world would be littered with the most amazing servers....which it currently isn't. You have to assume Dimitrov has had some good coaches who must have seen what we see and had a go at smoothing things out.

Dimitrov I think cuts inside a little too much with his racket arm. His racket at the end of the wind up is way over the other side of his body...way more than Roger's. He seems to struggle to overcome this in the next stage of the serve and we get this hitch. It stands out all the more because he has a serve which is being compared to Roger's.

But as I mentioned earlier, some things just aren't as put-right-able as they might seem.

The kid I teach is talented but it really isn't that easy to rectify his problem...and I put my heart and soul into the job. He is intelligent and attentive so I have no excuse there either. It's a bugger when you can't blame the student!

[stotty]

I will be on Centre Court tomorrow....watching not play of course.

I am not too looking forward to watching the whinge bag, but I am looking forward to watching Roger. It won't be easy tomorrow if Raonic serves well but I do feel Roger will always find a way a through that match.

[arturohernandez]

Maybe a video would help perhaps in a new thread on serves. At 10 I would ask more about his throwing motion. It is so much easier to throw well first and then incorporate the throwing motion into the serve.

[stroke]

Sam to me certainly looks like the better player out there vs Murray, bigger better 1sr and 2nd serve, better forehand. And he is down a set.

[bottle]

Sam to me certainly looks like the better player out there vs Murray, bigger better 1sr and 2nd serve, better forehand. And he is down a set.

It's all about belief. Hard to have it with sankapu eyes like Boris Karloff.

[gzhpcu]

Muller's wide serve is phenomenal...

[don_budge]

Sam to me certainly looks like the better player out there vs Murray, bigger better 1sr and 2nd serve, better forehand. And he is down a set.

Sam Querry appears to be in control of the fifth set as Andy Murray has an injury or problem that has hampered his belief in himself for the moment. I don't trust Murray though as I have seen him feigning injury in the past. Come on Sam...Make America Great Again!!! If not great...give us something to be proud of!