2018 Western and Southern Open...ATP 500...Cincinnati, Ohio USA

[don_budge]

Roger Federer in the house and Stefanos Tsitsipas is here too. The Living Proof and perhaps some hope for the future. I am watching Stefanos play David Goffin as I type. All players are a challenge to Stefanos at this stage of his career and he cannot afford to rest on last weeks laurels or put to much credibility in his own press clippings. His "Next Generation" counterpart Alexander Zverev seems to have fallen into this trap somewhat and he seems to have a case of the jitters. Stefanos seems to be rather laid back in comparison the the fretting petulant Zverev.

Roger Federer has not played since he lost to Kevin Anderson 13-11 in the fifth set at Wimbledon and I haven't written a word about tennis in that span of time either. It's no coincidence or it is somewhat a product of personal problems. Take your pick. Or not. Who cares? Somehow I tend to believe that this crew does care. A consoling thought for one so isolated...by choice. It's good to be back. It's good to have Roger back.

I thought Roger made a big mistake in not playing at least one more tournament in the run-up to Wimbledon last month and thought he sort of short changed himself in the match play department of his training. My dear old tennis coach used to tell me that it took playing at least five tournaments in the preparation for a big event. An event you planned to peak for. I guess Federer winning two events in the run-up may have qualified as compared to five first or second round losing efforts. I still think he should have played the French Open. If only for the loyal tennis fans amusement. People like us.

But at any rate the traditional Big Four are here at Cincinnati or rather I should say were or supposed to be here. Nadal apparently pulled out from too much winning and Andy Murray got his rear end bounced out in the first round. Novak Djokovic took nine match points to win his first round and Roger plays tonight. The landscape is changing. Stefanos Tsitsipas is emerging as one of the most watchable players on tour. He is currently ranked number 15 in the world in a rather remarkable run over the last year. At twenty years old he is even well ahead of the twenty year old Roger Federer who was ranked at number 35 at a similar age. It's hard to compare between the two. Federer was emerging in the decline of the fast court/big racquet era and Tsitsipas is emerging at the end of the strictly back court era. It's a seventeen year or so phenomena that occurs in tennis. Major changes or upheavals throughout its history.

Here is the draw and its a good one. Notice that there are a number of high ranking veterans that are trying to make it back on the tour. Stan Wawrinka, Milos Raonic, Kei Nishikori and Andy Murray to name a few. Even Nick "Curious George" Kyrgios. Nick's father is Greek as is Tsitsipas. Would't that have been something to have these two from the same country of Greece. Home of Socrates and Plato. The Greek Isles and a host of very lovely and some lovable and plump women. I've had he pleasure of knowing a few. Alexander Zverev is in the house too. Here is another big chance for Zverev. Lots of big chances. He's the number three seed which only seems to increase the pressure on his frail psyche. Let's see how he handles the pressure. He seemed to sort of implode after his loss to Tsitsipas in Montreal. It is like he takes it personally when guys who are not supposed to beat him do beat him. Imagine the nerve of some people.

But be that as it may. We are counting down time on the career of Roger Federer. Man...he is looking sporty in his new garb. He should proceed to cash in on all other parts of his equipment by changing brands now. You know...pimp it up a bit.

[stotty]

I don't like the Tsitsipas serve too much. I have watched a number of his matches now. I think his serve could be a liability difficult to rectify.

[seano]

Don Budge - I hope you and yours are well and any troubles aren't too serious. Life can certainly test a person, it's not for the weak. Be well. I'm enjoying the summer tennis (except the absence of Federer) but looking forward to the lead up to and the US Open.

Sean

[seano]

Stotty -

Because of your previous post about not liking Tsitsipas's serve, I went and found a slo-mo of it on youtube. I can see what you're talking about, there're several things to talk about.
1) His set-up with his feet - his front foot is parallel to the baseline, the back foot is turned away in the other direction. Which leads to:
2) Foot/Leg structure in the trophy position - just before the racquet drop, his front leg (left leg) is bent in a unstable way in relation to the foot. I prefer the knee to be aligned directly above the foot.
3) Too much hip or twist rotation into contact - At contact, his hips have rotated too far around and are close to facing the net and his right leg is too far to the right. Is it toss location related? Can't tell from the views.
5) Internal Shoulder Rotation - he doesn't consistently get 180 degrees of shoulder rotation (racquet edge up to ball, opposite edge on the way down). Out of the 4 serves videotaped, only 2 were a full 180 degrees. My thoughts.

Sean

[don_budge]

Stotty -

Because of your previous post about not liking Tsitsipas's serve, I went and found a slo-mo of it on youtube. I can see what you're talking about, there're several things to talk about.
1) His set-up with his feet - his front foot is parallel to the baseline, the back foot is turned away in the other direction. Which leads to:
2) Foot/Leg structure in the trophy position - just before the racquet drop, his front leg (left leg) is bent in a unstable way in relation to the foot. I prefer the knee to be aligned directly above the foot.
3) Too much hip or twist rotation into contact - At contact, his hips have rotated too far around and are close to facing the net and his right leg is too far to the right. Is it toss location related? Can't tell from the views.
5) Internal Shoulder Rotation - he doesn't consistently get 180 degrees of shoulder rotation (racquet edge up to ball, opposite edge on the way down). Out of the 4 serves videotaped, only 2 were a full 180 degrees. My thoughts.

Sean

I don't like the Tsitsipas serve too much. I have watched a number of his matches now. I think his serve could be a liability difficult to rectify.

If you are a true connoisseur of service motions, which I believe I am, you hate the service motion. You hate it on one hand and on the other you realize that this is one of the things that I am referring to when I maintain that young Stefanos Tsitsipas has a vast amount of potential waiting to be mined and one would hope and pray that it is in the cards that someone is going to instruct this young man on how to get it right.

You start with the set up position and you work your way through a perfect backswing. You can get away with less than a perfect backswing but why would you? If it ain't right...it is wrong. In this case it is wrong.

What I don't understand is how a coach could let a player of this magnitude in ability and talent get away without a perfect service motion. But the serve is probably the most misunderstood motion in the game today as the modern game serving paradigm is hit it as hard as you can and back up behind the baseline. This is another part of the game that has been engineered out of the game along with the volleying and approach game.

Right from the get go when a player is beginning to physically develop I get real perfectionist on them. Harping on the necessity of the perfect backswing...set up too as the two go hand in hand. You can get set up to move on the ball with just about any sort of backswing but the problem will be one of rhythm and that tennis matches are won many times by the narrowest of margins. All that it takes is a double fault here or there or some kind of nervous twitch and you find yourself on the losing end of the stick.

I watched the first set of the Tsitsipas/Goffin match last night here in Sweden and it looked to me as if there was some little change in the service backswing but it wasn't what I would be looking for. Stefanos should probably read my "rollercoaster analogy" of the service motion and get himself rolling into his serve. Rolling...rolling...rolling. Greased wheels. Zero friction. As it stands there is quite a bit of friction and this is where there is room for improvement but that only goes if there is a move in the right direction...otherwise it turns into as Stotty observes...a liability.

Roger is rolling. At least for the time being. Looking for signs of rust and lack of match play. The fact that he can pull off these disappearing acts from the tour and come back and compete is further proof that he is the "Living Proof" and how far he actually is ahead of the rest of the tour.

Thanks seano...it all comes down to one of two things in the end. The final analogy. Life and death. When you get hit by that first train you have to get up and keep your head up but sure as there is tomorrow another train is going to come down that track and finish the job if you hang your head.

[stroke]

One serve I do like is Kyrgios. He won his 1st round match, bringing all his too cool for school ridiculous drama, nursing a so called right knee issue. His serve though is just a scary fast twitch motion, the best serve in tennis to me sub 6'10(and maybe Raonic).

[stotty]

Seano, I will have to source some clips on the Internet to take a look at what you are saying. The stance set up isn't unusual...granted the rear foot is pointed away from the baseline more than most. I guess the question is does the stance suit the serve? I don't think it does, not quite.

But by far the biggest problem for me is the lack of 'rollercoaster' as don_budge points out. I have seen the serve up close and personal from 15 feet away and there is definite rhythm break around that trophy position at times, right where you don't want it. I would like to see him lag the racket a bit more early in part of the swing. A little flexion in the wrist like Roger might create a lovely and highly desirable lag. He could have the strings face the ground (like Roger) as commences the early part of the swing going rather than have the racket go back on edge like that. I really don't like to see a racket on edge like that, better to have the face more closed...it's more likely to lead to much better things.

I have a kid with the exact same swing path as Tsitsipas who I am currently doing the above with. It will be interesting to see if I can succeed.

I need to take a look at some clips of Tsitsipas and may post again later.

I think the Kyrgios serve is a purely natural phenomenon. It can certainly stand up to scrutiny and has proved technically sound under the most extreme match situations. It's a good one. But no one finesses a serve like Roger. I am beginning to think it's the greatest serve a of all time.

[don_budge]

Tsitipas and Zverev...The Path to Wimbledon

Interesting to compare these two. So different but on similar paths. Which player will take the chosen path and which will take the "right" path? Tennis like life metaphors itself and the other. "The Path of the Ball", Bill Tilden might just as well as called it. Instead of "Match Play and the Spin of the Ball". Life takes on a whole new meanings sometimes...in the wink of a young girl's eye. Take mine for instance.

But these two guys are guaranteed to play many, many times in the future. It's a given, given that the depth of tennis isn't really all that deep. I like what Tsitsipas had to say...about being clever. It takes a clever man to get to the top of men's tennis and stay there and it appears this kid just might have an inkling. It's only an inkling mind you compared to the end of the ride...but nonetheless it is a step in the right direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9GaFZw-czY

"I'd say that I played more clever this time. I...I kind of fooled him when I was on the court. I did some things he didn't expect me to do and I changed my plan since last week. As I said...I got lots of experience last week and today I managed to put it out in a match."

In these few words and in a couple of rather simple sentences Tsitsipas manages to utter a couple of very important Bill Tilden's axioms spelled out so lucidly in "Match Play and the Spin of the Ball". First of he says that he played clever and by this I am assuming that he learned something about his opponents relative strengths and weaknesses and he learned how and when to play to either side. Whether that means forehand or backhand with certain speed or spin or mixing up depth to bring his opponent to a part of the court where he is less effective. It's a mouthful if you read between the lines. It resonated with me coming from such a young tennis mind. He mentions the word experience. Old man experience. He speaks volumes...that old man does.

He says that he changed his plan. This is the beauty of the Tsitsipas game compared to that of a Zverev. He has flexibility built in and he can ADAPT to different circumstances such as court surface, weather, psychological nervousness and so on and so forth. This is a maturing tennis mind and hopefully an indication that he is a student of the game. I would recommend he might just study the don_budge teaching paradigm a bit...to connect the dots in his path to the summit.

Zverev on the other hand looks to be a psychological basket case. I watched him play Robin Haase and lose last night. I only watched the third set. Zverev lost his first serve of the third set and it was all but over at that point. His nerve seemed to be shot. He started with the looking over to his father and the gesturing. He gave it a couple of big fist pumps and screams of self encouragement only to see it backfire in another break of serve. He broke back and had a good chance at the match but as I mentioned...his nerve was shot. He has encountered a lot of problems since his initial success and he got all of the publicity and favourable seedings. It only served to make him nervous and unsure of himself and more importantly...his game. His game is a one dimensional game as are most in the modern era of tennis therefore if it starts to go wrong where does he have to turn to? The answer is...nowhere except in what he always does. There is no plan B.

As we dissect the Tsitsipas serve (more specifically the backswing where the fault lies) we might say something about the Zverev serve. For all of his brute serving we are finding that sometimes he can't seem to fight his way out of a paper bag. The big reason is because his service motion lacks the fluidity of a "rollercoaster". At no point in his serving does he start to "roll" on his serve like a Roger Federer does. Federer gets on his serve sometimes and he just turns into a runaway train. Roger doesn't do it with brute serving either...he does it with cerebral serving. His placement is the biggest component of his control (control being speed, spin and placement). He certainly serves with enough pace to be effective and he does spin the ball superbly. But it is his laser like precision that allows him to bully his opponents on his serve. Once he establishes who is boss on his serve he can start to chip away at the opponents and take liberties with his returns.

Zverev does not have anything even close to resembling this sort of tactical serving. Sure he serves big but when his nerves start to get twitchy he starts to miss here and there opening the door just a crack to invite the eager opponent in. Tsitsipas is going to have to learn to dominate his serve as well. David Goffin showed the young upstart just how it goes when you begin to wear that target on your back as the newest and greatest. The other players start to lay low for you and tend to bring their better performances out against a guy they want to naturally put down...back down with the rest of the crew. It's the nature of things on the tour.

But if Stefanos can learn to "bully" his opponents and get on a "roll" with his serve this is what is going to separate him from the herd. That and thinking tactically and intelligently about the game he is playing. He will order his game as he must order his life. He cannot fall into the trap that Zverev has. Zverev has this sense of entitlement now. He feels that he is seeded number three and should be given some kind of pass to the semi's. It ain't going to happen. He is wearing a really big target right now. Right between the shoulder blades.

[don_budge]

One serve I do like is Kyrgios. He won his 1st round match, bringing all his too cool for school ridiculous drama, nursing a so called right knee issue. His serve though is just a scary fast twitch motion, the best serve in tennis to me sub 6'10(and maybe Raonic).

Nick "Curious George" Kyrgios is the one player on tour that can really bully you with his serve. Even more so than an Isner or a Raonic. That is because he has a bit more to back up the serve than the other two. Isner and Raonic are both a bit more vulnerable on the backhand side than perhaps Kyrgios is. The Kyrgios backhand is a rather curious shot...in warm up it looks as if his opponent might have a field day on it but when it comes down to crunch time it is the backhand that sometimes is the element of surprise as he hits almost ridiculously good shots off of that wing.

But the serve is a bully machine and he knows it. Many times he just crushes his opponent to 6-6...often looking as if he is just "too cool for school" to bother playing hard on his opponents serve. The rhythm is tough to come by. He is pummelling you on one hand with his serve and then he is playing it soft on your serve. But once the tie-break is on he is playing a different game and playing both on his serve and yours. It is a primal tactic and one that only he could probably get away with.

[stroke]

Primal tactic that only he could get away with is a good way to put it. And I would say he a way more than a bit more to back up his serve than players such as Raonic, Isner, and Karlovic(and past players like this such as Goran and Tanner). His forehand is huge, his backhand is very good, and his movement/foot speed is top shelf(if he wants to play). And his slice bh is very good. He has basically dicked around for the 1st 2 rounds of a Masters 1000 tournament and won both. I used to think this would just not work(see Fognini, Sock, Tomic) but Nick is truly stand alone.

[stotty]

Primal tactic that only he could get away with is a good way to put it. And I would say he a way more than a bit more to back up his serve than players such as Raonic, Isner, and Karlovic(and past players like this such as Goran and Tanner). His forehand is huge, his backhand is very good, and his movement/foot speed is top shelf(if he wants to play). And his slice bh is very good. He has basically dicked around for the 1st 2 rounds of a Masters 1000 tournament and won both. I used to think this would just not work(see Fognini, Sock, Tomic) but Nick is truly stand alone.

Just shows what a talented player can do to a bunch of robots...dick around and still win.

But don't underestimate a robot. Djokovic is the game's greatest ever robot and even the talented have their work cut out taking him on. Virtually the whole forum, the whole world actually, have Roger down as a better player than Novak. The stats/facts in slams tells a different story. Novak has beaten Roger twice in his own back yard...at SW19 and is well up in their slam encounters. How can that be? Roger seemingly does everything better and has thrice the natural talent? I guess it's because Novak just does one thing only but does so it well....he specialises. I am looking forward to seeing how Novak and Roger will match up next time round. I hope play each other again soon.

don budge, seano: I cannot find too many worthwhile clips of Tsitsipas serving. I would like to see various rear views but cannot find too much out there. I am sure there will be soon. Here is a side view clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4VxKzb5diw

It's not too terrible and there are certainly some very good points. I am not keen on the backswing and there is definitely a hitch in there. At Wimbledon he did numerous double faults right in the crux when I watched him. His second serve was, at times, slow and he visibly lacked conviction and belief in it. I wonder what/if his coach will do to improve it. It needs to get a little better.

[stroke]

Just shows what a talented player can do to a bunch of robots...dick around and still win.

But don't underestimate a robot. Djokovic is the game's greatest ever robot and even the talented have their work cut out taking him on. Virtually the whole forum, the whole world actually, have Roger down as a better player than Novak. The stats/facts in slams tells a different story. Novak has beaten Roger twice in his own back yard...at SW19 and is well up in their slam encounters. How can that be? Roger seemingly does everything better and has thrice the natural talent? I guess it's because Novak just does one thing only but does so well....he specialises. I am looking forward to seeing how Novak and Roger will match up next time round. I hope play each other again soon.

don budge, seano: I cannot find too many worthwhile clips of Tsitsipas serving. I would like to see various rear views but cannot find too much out there. I am sure there will be soon. Here is a side view clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4VxKzb5diw

It's not too terrible and there are certainly some very good points. I am not keen on the backswing and there is definitely a hitch in there. At Wimbledon he did numerous double faults right in the crux when I watched him. His second serve was, at times, slow and he visibly lacked conviction and belief in it. I wonder what/if his coach will do to improve it. It needs to get a little better.

I like Novak and I do not think you can give him too much credit or heap too many accolades on him and his career when one looks how he has competed vs Nadal and especially Fed. No only is Fed so talented but the crowd is always so much with Fed and not Novak when they play each other. One can sense that Novak actually wants the crowd love that comes so naturally to Fed. He has overcome a lot in some massive wins vs Fed.

[gzhpcu]

Maybe because Novak’s game is boring, little variation.

[don_budge]

Meanwhile it is raining in Cincinnati.

[stotty]

If only Chung could serve. How can a player come this far down the line yet have such a technically challenged serve?

Del Potro leads 6-2