Acapulco ATP 500

[stroke]

Top 8 seeds:

Alcaraz
Ruud
Fritz
Rune
Norrie
Tiafoe
Paul
De Minaur

Interesting floaters are Shapovalov, Rune, Berenttini, Sheldon, Wolf.

[don_budge]

Potential snooze fest. Shame about that Roger Federer fellow. Nothing lasts forever.

[tommyhorton]

Thanks for the update. Thats a tough tournament-should be some great tennis. Excited to see the Americans back in action. I am curious to see how Francis does this year. He seems to love playing on the big stage. He has a lot of charisma, moves well, a big forehand and unbelievable touch around the net. I think he needs to stick some volleys to go along with his drop volley to keep opponents honest. I think Korda is the American with the most upside. He is so smooth and a clean ball striker-hope he isn't injury prone.

[jimlosaltos]

Thanks for the update. Thats a tough tournament-should be some great tennis. Excited to see the Americans back in action. I am curious to see how Francis does this year. He seems to love playing on the big stage. He has a lot of charisma, moves well, a big forehand and unbelievable touch around the net. I think he needs to stick some volleys to go along with his drop volley to keep opponents honest. I think Korda is the American with the most upside. He is so smooth and a clean ball striker-hope he isn't injury prone.

Love Korda! But he's out of Indian Wells. Bad sign that the wrist that ended his Australian Open run is still affecting him. Hope this isn't shades of Thiem/ Murray

[jimlosaltos]

Ok, I'm impressed with the stamina. But it remains insane that tennis has matches going to 2 am or worse.

Granted, Acapulco has late starts for good reasons, but .... just wrong. Look at the stands.

Rudd works out after finishing 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(2) in 2 hours 49 minutes vs Guido Andreozzi (and congrats to the 31 yo , 342nd ranked player on the good showing).


filedata/fetch?id=99895&d=1677606233&type=thumb

[stroke]

I am not certain what injury Berrettini had, as he pulled out after losing the 1st set vs Rune, and hardly winning any points, but he appeared to be just completely overwhelmed and simply not competitive. If Rune and Fritz both advance to the Final, it will be a very interesting mstchup.

[don_budge]

Nine Americans in the top half of the draw as compared to just three in the bottom half. What are the odds of that happening? Everything looks too suspicious these days. It's easy to read anything into everything if you have a half a wit about you. Not that it even matters. Who cares? Taylor Fritz with three nice wins on his way to the semi versus Tommy Paul. An interesting matchup if you are an American and if you are into tennis. Taylor takes out Isner in three, then a straight set routiner against Dennis "The Menace" Shapovalov. Somewhat impressive. Then his straight set takedown of "Downtown" Francis Tiafoe pulls off a three of a kind. A fourth American stands in his way now and Tommy Paul has shown some recent interest in joining the upper echelon of Americans in the world rankings. Thirteen Americans in the top 100 now.

Tommy Paul at number 23 and apparently climbing. Taylor Fritz at an oxygen deficient number five. How did he get to be so high? Does the girlfriend count for something? Nice little piece of eye candy for young Taylor. Another trophy. These two are actually three and three in their head to head over the years. Tommy with an unusual amount of motivation to beat his fellow compatriot ranked so high in the stratosphere. Paul has been sidelined for half of his career with injuries. Very, very similar games. Pretty decent serving motions. All this is just short of saying this is going to be an interesting match. I wonder what time it will be played out...here in Sweden. A seven hour time differential.

I believe it is an excellent opportunity for "The Demonic" Australian to get into Holger Rune's fragile eggshell mind. Holger now 2-0 in their head to head owns the psychological advantage. But di Minaur has the underdog thing going for him. I wonder if he can make it work. A less than dominating serve hinders his chances...yet he has made mincemeat of his half of the draw so far. Is he in that good of form?

[stroke]

Fritz really did not have to play at his best to beat Tiafoe. It was not really a high quality match. Tiafoe just made more errors than Fritz, and his serve is simply not as good as Fritz's. Nor his backhand for that matter. The only advantage Tiafoe has is a clearly better slice backhand and better hands/touch shots. I think Fritz will have to play better vs Paul, who is a real fighter out there. And I personally feel DB Fritz's girlfriend, Miss Instagram, is worth something. As far as the demon vs Rune, that could also be interesting. Both those guys are completely focused and engaged out there. As far as the Fritz ranking, I am personally not surprised. Fritz has a great game. He will probably not shine during the clay court swing, but he could definitely be in the conversation at the US Open. I could see him going even higher in the rankings.

[don_budge]

Nine Americans in the top half of the draw as compared to just three in the bottom half. What are the odds of that happening? Everything looks too suspicious these days. It's easy to read anything into everything if you have a half a wit about you. Not that it even matters. Who cares? Taylor Fritz with three nice wins on his way to the semi versus Tommy Paul. An interesting matchup if you are an American and if you are into tennis. Taylor takes out Isner in three, then a straight set routiner against Dennis "The Menace" Shapovalov. Somewhat impressive. Then his straight set takedown of "Downtown" Francis Tiafoe pulls off a three of a kind. A fourth American stands in his way now and Tommy Paul has shown some recent interest in joining the upper echelon of Americans in the world rankings. Thirteen Americans in the top 100 now.

Tommy Paul at number 23 and apparently climbing. Taylor Fritz at an oxygen deficient number five. How did he get to be so high? Does the girlfriend count for something? Nice little piece of eye candy for young Taylor. Another trophy. These two are actually three and three in their head to head over the years. Tommy with an unusual amount of motivation to beat his fellow compatriot ranked so high in the stratosphere. Paul has been sidelined for half of his career with injuries. Very, very similar games. Pretty decent serving motions. All this is just short of saying this is going to be an interesting match. I wonder what time it will be played out...here in Sweden. A seven hour time differential.

I believe it is an excellent opportunity for "The Demonic" Australian to get into Holger Rune's fragile eggshell mind. Holger now 2-0 in their head to head owns the psychological advantage. But di Minaur has the underdog thing going for him. I wonder if he can make it work. A less than dominating serve hinders his chances...yet he has made mincemeat of his half of the draw so far. Is he in that good of form?

Apparently the Tommy Paul versus Taylor Fritz rivalry took a seismic shift yesterday. So much for the girlfriend effect. She'll probably defect to the Paul camp eventually...women can be so fickle. It's a woman's perogative to change here mind.

Meanwhile on the other side...I watched Holger Rune walk out of the lockerroom after they split sets. He took an inordinately long time to return to the court. I noticed that Rune had really bowed legs and thought to myself, knowing what I know, that in the long run this sort of physique creates friction on the joints and the question of longevity came to mind. It creates wear and tear. Well it didn't take long. Rune has started to cramp and has fallen behind a break in the third. di Minaur started giving him a lot of high spinning shots to prolong the points so he must have noticed something too. He got into Rune's head alright...right through the legs.

[stroke]

Clearly a very big win for Paul. I think Rune will get his fitness thing straightened out. I too have noticed he is bow legged. Borg was bow legged. Both Fritz and Paul were cramping at the end of the match. It just turned into who could survive it better.

[don_budge]

Clearly a very big win for Paul. I think Rune will get his fitness thing straightened out. I too have noticed he is bow legged. Borg was bow legged. Both Fritz and Paul were cramping at the end of the match. It just turned into who could survive it better.

I think it is interesting to consider the entire scope of the landscape. In Paul's case...this is a very important win career wise. He has reached a point in the rankings and his development that this will validate he is on the right course. Potentially a huge confidence booster. He has had a number of these lately, yet this might be the most important. I am not sure if he has the big game to take it to the top ten echelon night in and night out. The serve is such an important facet of his wheelhouse...as 10splayer used to say. He needs to take that nice service motion and kick up about two notches so that he can knock the likes of Djokovic, Medvedev and Alcaraz off balance with not only the first delivery but the second as well. He also needs to come up with a big weapon on the forehand side. He needs a stroke that commands respect if the opponent ventures over to that side of the court. He must make them pay. I don't believe that is in the cards for him and he will settle in somewhere between the top ten and twenty.

Rune is another story and his is a tale of the mind. He is not so different from all of the other standard issue out there on the tour. He also needs to reconsider his service motion and try to eek out another 20% efficiency rating out of it in terms of speed, spin and placement. Sure it looks impressive...but he needed something like a bazooka last night against di Menaur to knock him off balance and keep things short. Too many long points and not enough dictation.

Fritz continues to collect experience and this is going to be his only hope. I don't see him any higher than he is at the time being. He is actually rather fortunate to be there. Once these players get to the point where they are used to the high stratosphere and the oxygen level they are comfortable with they seem to have a period of dipping into the valley. The dip is inevitable at some point and the key is to get back on that horse and exhort it up the hill once more. I don't know if Fritz has that kind of giddy up in his gait. In his game. The same is true for Fritz as all the others...what more can be eeked out of the serve. How important is that serve motion? Well...just think Roger in the later stages of his career when he was still chalking up service game after service game at under a minute or thereabouts.

Casper Rune has sort of reached a pinnacle of sorts himself. He got to that altitude where he was sort of maxed out and you see what happens. He loses the momentum to make that next climb and even to hold his position. There is some backsliding going on. All kinds of players come to mind. Then you have this huge consortium sort of jockeying for position from the level of Fritz to Paul. From number five to number twenty-five. It is such a tough thing to get to the top and stay there. Burn out is inevitable. It looked to me as if Novak sort of took the day off against Medvedev the other day in the other tournament. The statistics and analysis is just meaningless if he wasn't hitting on all eight. He surely didn't need to win that match. He knows it too. He has the experience. The longevity. The awareness. He knows the score on the micro and macro level. He knows where he is on the food chain. He is on the top and has been there forever. He knows when to ease off on the reins and when to coast. Not sure where his schedule will take him. Apparently the COVID police are still in control of the United States of Dysfunction. I haven't heard a peep about the "virus" in a long, long time here.

[don_budge]

I think it is interesting to consider the entire scope of the landscape. In Paul's case...this is a very important win career wise. He has reached a point in the rankings and his development that this will validate he is on the right course. Potentially a huge confidence booster. He has had a number of these lately, yet this might be the most important. I am not sure if he has the big game to take it to the top ten echelon night in and night out. The serve is such an important facet of his wheelhouse...as 10splayer used to say. He needs to take that nice service motion and kick up about two notches so that he can knock the likes of Djokovic, Medvedev and Alcaraz off balance with not only the first delivery but the second as well. He also needs to come up with a big weapon on the forehand side. He needs a stroke that commands respect if the opponent ventures over to that side of the court. He must make them pay. I don't believe that is in the cards for him and he will settle in somewhere between the top ten and twenty.

Rune is another story and his is a tale of the mind. He is not so different from all of the other standard issue out there on the tour. He also needs to reconsider his service motion and try to eek out another 20% efficiency rating out of it in terms of speed, spin and placement. Sure it looks impressive...but he needed something like a bazooka last night against di Menaur to knock him off balance and keep things short. Too many long points and not enough dictation.

Fritz continues to collect experience and this is going to be his only hope. I don't see him any higher than he is at the time being. He is actually rather fortunate to be there. Once these players get to the point where they are used to the high stratosphere and the oxygen level they are comfortable with they seem to have a period of dipping into the valley. The dip is inevitable at some point and the key is to get back on that horse and exhort it up the hill once more. I don't know if Fritz has that kind of giddy up in his gait. In his game. The same is true for Fritz as all the others...what more can be eeked out of the serve. How important is that serve motion? Well...just think Roger in the later stages of his career when he was still chalking up service game after service game at under a minute or thereabouts.

Casper Rune has sort of reached a pinnacle of sorts himself. He got to that altitude where he was sort of maxed out and you see what happens. He loses the momentum to make that next climb and even to hold his position. There is some backsliding going on. All kinds of players come to mind. Then you have this huge consortium sort of jockeying for position from the level of Fritz to Paul. From number five to number twenty-five. It is such a tough thing to get to the top and stay there. Burn out is inevitable. It looked to me as if Novak sort of took the day off against Medvedev the other day in the other tournament. The statistics and analysis is just meaningless if he wasn't hitting on all eight. He surely didn't need to win that match. He knows it too. He has the experience. The longevity. The awareness. He knows the score on the micro and macro level. He knows where he is on the food chain. He is on the top and has been there forever. He knows when to ease off on the reins and when to coast. Not sure where his schedule will take him. Apparently the COVID police are still in control of the United States of Dysfunction. I haven't heard a peep about the "virus" in a long, long time here.

Paul needs to follow up with a nice little thrashing of "The Demon" and send him staight into the fire of hell. A tournament win here is a must for Tommy Paul. If he doesn't get the win then the week is a wash more or less. If he does...he can go deep in the next month or two. Provided he stays healthy.

[stroke]

Paul is a slight underdog vs the demon. It will be a very tough turnaround to recover and be ready to battle the demon. Demon is tireless and no one on tour moves better. Paul has a great serve to me for a guy his height. Fritz's to me is really good, certainly behind the giants, Nick and probably Hurkacz, but it is very good.

[don_budge]

Borg was bow legged.

I think not...check out his gait at 3:36.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6PW9pNevIg