2021 Mutua Madrid Open...ATP 1000...Madrid, Spain

[arturohernandez]

There is no player on the tour who compares to Roger Federer in this regard. His affinity of being able to win his service game in under or in approximately a minute is unparalleled. He has the ability to deliver the ball to any point in the service box with the combination of spin, speed and placement to win games at love or at fifteen.

It's hard to use Federer as a model. As far as I know from a very short meeting with Lundgren at the Men's Clay Court tournament, Federer always had a great serve and great forehand. He worked a lot on the backhand especially the topspin 1hbh and Federer's volleys. Apparently, he was not a good volleyer early in his junior days.

We could think of Dominik Thiem who had a clear hitch and worked on his serve to get it to the level at which it is now. It's not perfect but it is very good.

If we want to use Federer, it is clear that he emphasizes fluidity rather than strength. It's fluid. Is that the main distinction here?

I remember a teaching pros' son telling my son to hit harder at 12. I kept telling him to hit loose and be fluid. He was plenty strong at 16, 17. But if you hit hard at 12 and keep doing it, then there is no fluidity, no feel to hitting the ball.


Are the problems with a serve due to a lack of looseness?

[stroke]

Zverev and Ruud are favorites tomorrow, both at an implied probability of 58% winning their respective matches. At this point, Ruud looks maybe to be the pick to win the tournament. His stat lines, winners to errors, is looking very good.

[jimlosaltos]

Zverev has now beaten Rafa (3 times in a row) and Thiem, back to back on Clay at Madrid.

If you're looking for easy answers: He has, at least temporarily, fixed his second serve.

Zverev's points won on second serve, against some of the best returners on tour, is up roughly 10 points from his year's average.

Technique? Focus? Or Madrid's big bounce? ( caused by using Roland Garros crushed brick at 2,000 ft altitude).

Here's Sasha's Madrid 2021 Serve Points Won in Madrid, 1st, then 2nd, in each round:

1st 2nd
Nishikori 75 65%
Evans 80 56
Nadal 82 43
Thiem 78 53
-----------------
Average
79 54


But the past year, Zverev has been second to last amongst the tour's top 105 players in second serve points won: 52w 1st 75% second 45%

List sorted by second serve points won, in descending order (i.e. from Benoit Paire down to Rafa ! <g> )

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[don_budge]

Zverev and Ruud are favorites tomorrow, both at an implied probability of 58% winning their respective matches. At this point, Ruud looks maybe to be the pick to win the tournament. His stat lines, winners to errors, is looking very good.

Zverev has now beaten Rafa (3 times in a row) and Thiem, back to back on Clay at Madrid.

If you're looking for easy answers: He has, at least temporarily, [B]fixed his second serve.

It's good to see the young man...man up. He doesn't have the horse in the barn yet. Matteo Berrettini seems to have his own ideas. The win against Aslan Karetsov was well earned last week and he doesn't think he is done just yet. If he bags this trophy he has the Italian clay courts in Rome coming up. Both Zverev and Berrettini have tough draws at Rome. Zverev projected to meet Nadal again in the quarters and Berrettini projected to meet Mr. Djokovic in his quarter. The final today...take your pick.

[stroke]

Thiem just looked out of sorts and had no answers vs Alex. Also, his forehand lacked his usual rpm's(per the stats provided by TennisTV). Matteo just overwhelmed Ruud. Matteo's serve and forehand were the biggest shots on the court and he bludgeoned Ruud. Oddsmakers have Alex favored today, but like DB, I see this one as a toss up. Alex definitely needs to direct almost all rally shots to the Berrettini backhand, and keep his double faults to a minimum.

[stroke]

Matteo winns 1st set in tiebreaker looking like the better player with a better serve and a better forehand. A lot of forehand winners for Matteo, he hit with more mph''s and rpm's on his forehand. 1st set Matteo had on average 360 more rpm's on his forehand than Alex.

[stroke]

Going to a 3rd. Alex gets 1 break to win 2nd 6-4. No break points in 2nd for Berrettini.

[stroke]

Great professional win for Alex. He showed as Novak as showed for a long time, sometimes there is just no substitute for that complete high level balance on the forehand and backhand.

[don_budge]

Great professional win for Alex. He showed as Novak as showed for a long time, sometimes there is just no substitute for that complete high level balance on the forehand and backhand.

Good to see him man up. He may be acquiring a new level of maturity. He has been a bit too emotional in the past. Too much drama. This was a really good win for him to come back from losing a tough tie-break in the first set. That being said...the tennis was extremely boring and I couldn't watch it for any long period of time and completely lost interest at 3-all in the second set. I watched it on Eurosport here in Sweden and Jonas Björkman was one of the commentators. He should know better. Jonas played at the highest level for many years and even longer as a doubles specialist. It never ceases to amaze me how hard the commentators work to try to keep the interest level up. As far as I am concerned in a match like this that is just an impossible ask. My wife was watching with me and she actually agreed with me. I was somewhat surprised to see he won when I read your post.

[jimlosaltos]

Matteo winns 1st set in tiebreaker looking like the better player with a better serve and a better forehand. A lot of forehand winners for Matteo, he hit with more mph''s and rpm's on his forehand. 1st set Matteo had on average 360 more rpm's on his forehand than Alex.

If we're to believe the ATP stats, Matteo averaged 91 mph on his forehand for the 12 games of the first set, pre Tiebreaker, a full 20 mph faster than Zverev, yet Zverev ended the match about 5 mph faster.

And since we have a streak of picking on Zverev's second serve. He went from winning only 36% on his second serve in the first set, to 55% for the match.

I was only able to watch the first two sets. But it seems as if Matteo just ran out of gas.

[stroke]

It did appear Matteo tired.