Sinner, Djokovic withdraw from Montreal.

To the surprise of no one, except perhaps the Canadian tournament directors. From 2025:

“I actually told them [Sinner and Alcaraz], because we were in talks when they withdrew, we talked to them for several days and then I said ‘Okay, we’re here… 2026 you’re gonna be in Montreal. Just make sure that happens.’ I’m very very confident that they’ll be in Montreal next year …”

— Toronto Director Karl Hale, via Nothing Major

This is becoming an entirely expected but nonetheless painful biennial kick in the teeth for someone who now lives in Montreal. The last time I attended the men’s event was 2022, which was great: 56-player draw, one week format, a grounds pass was like, what, $40?, Dan Evans made a run (hell of a match against Tommy). Some notable second-rounds I took in on a regular ol’ Wednesday:

• Medvedev vs Kyrgios

• Paul vs Alcaraz

• Fritz vs Tiafoe

• de Minaur vs Dimitrov

• Draper vs Tsitsipas

• Rublev vs Evans

• Cilic vs Khachanov

It’s similar to what I tweeted at the start of the Rome Masters this year:

In an ironic choice of words, ATP chief Andrea Gaudenzi defended the expansions last year saying “we need patience”:

Give this model five or ten years and I believe the Masters 1000s will have grown exponentially across all metrics and we’ll look back at this move as the foundation of that shift.

— Gaudenzi, for atptour.com

Metrics seem to be revenue and attendance records, with the ‘foundational shift’ being a watered-down product with a 1000 label slapped on. But hey, Canadian vendors can now sell $15 Stella Artois for 12 days and after about five of them you won’t be able to tell if it’s Carlos Alcaraz or Carlos Taberner from the upper decks. But it will probably be Taberner, because Sincaraz can afford to skip mandatory 1000s and the bonus pool and plug that money hole (and more) with a quick little detour to the Saudi Kingdom for a hit-and-giggle; three days and $6 million later, all is well.

The whole thing reads like some caricature of private equity: cash flow is excellent and no one is happy.

Maybe 500s are the new 1000s:

I’m in DC for a few days to attend the Mubadala DC Open, the only joint WTA and ATP 500-level tournament. I’ve grown to love smaller tournaments—even with a stacked field, everything’s just a little more chill, easy to navigate, and, dare I say it, fun. Some of the best tennis players in the world breeze by fans on their way to the practice courts or gym, the media center has the vibe of a summer camp cafeteria, and the crowds are refreshingly manageable. It’s a nice palette cleanser after the epic that was Wimbledon.

— Jessica Schiffer for Hard Court

On-site commentators said as much during opening rounds on Monday:

“32-draw now… so high quality from the very beginning. Day 1.”

— during Tabilo vs Griekspoor

Comm 1: “A nice draw. Plenty of talent, and now that it’s been culled down from 48 to 32 players it makes early clashes that are of more intrigue, if you will.”

Comm 2: “So many good first-round matches. There’s some tough ones. No feeling your way in now. You got to be close to your best from round one, if you’re a seed certainly, to get through.”

— during Fritz vs Bergs

For now, one can only dream to be surprised in 2028.

Draper to Defyer

Jack Draper was in D.C. with Andy Murray and a blacked-out stick:

Reports are that it is a ‘Defyer’ (not a typo); Wilson’s candy-red Babolat Aero-98 impersonation that has been used in a (way cooler) black snakeskin prototype colour-way by Korda, Khachanov, Kouame, and a host of other Wilson-contracted players.

Draper is coming from a ‘Dunlop Revo CV 3.0 F’ (again, not a typo…), which is reportedly much stiffer (at least in stock form), so perhaps this is part-contractual/part-health related in a bid to soften the blows to his ever-bruised arm. This year Draper has also added natural gut strings to his mains, and tweaked his serve to platform (although he was back to pinpoint on his brief grass stint). All of that is proving moot, however. Draper pulled out of D.C, citing the left arm injury again. This is looking seriously bad for the Brit.

But I didn’t really want to talk about the specifics of Draper’s racquet switch as much as what the trend indicates if we zoom out. I touched on this recently in the last mailbag; how the sheer weight of information and resulting analytics industry is pressing everything — tactics, styles, court speeds, even racquet specs — into a smoothed and narrow ideal.1 Is it because the game rewards knowledge translation more than ever?

Aero 98’s, Vcore and Ezone 98’s, and now the Wilson Defyer 98. They’re all the same: 305 grams in weight, 315mm in balance, 16 main strings.2 The only defiant thing in Wilson’s latest iteration is in its spelling. Save yourself the cash and get something like a Prince Synergy 98 for half the price. I tell people all the time: most of the racquet “tech” is gimmicky BS. Weight and weight distribution are major determinants of how a racquet will play. And I’ll keep saying that until Wilson sends me at least three brand-spanking-new Defyers (with strings and racquet bag, of course).

Anyway, I don’t want this to be a tennis-doomer piece as much as a measuring stick to look back on when it’s 2035 and 9 of the top 10 are more similar than ever. Could be wrong though. After all, who could have predicted the rise of the drop shot when someone like an 18-year-old Alcaraz exploded in 2022? What will be the next trend?

What about a rising one-hander in the WTA?

Lilli Tagger

Austrian. One-handed backhand. That’s right, Thie — I mean Tagger — has arrived.

She was the French Open junior girls champion in 2025 when I first saw some of her highlights. This wasn’t that long after I had written a popular deep-dive on Tsitsipas’ backhand, so the stroke was front of mind for me at the time.

Far from being an ornamental weakness, Tagger’s one-hander mimics other greats: an early straightening of the hitting arm with a deep slot position:

I’m bullish the one-hander in the women’s game more than the men because I think the slice can be even more effective on the WTA, where strokes trend flatter and slice is less common. Plus, it’s a less serve-dominant game. Ash Barty was a world number 1 with a predominantly sliced backhand not too long ago. I don’t think that could happen in the men’s game anymore.

Already in the top 50 of the WTA rankings, it will be interesting to watch her progression down the back-half of the 2026 season.

ATP trialling a 5/7-game ball change

This is an interesting development that has been waiting for action.

Matt Willis crunched the numbers showing the impact that ball wear had on unreturned first serve percentages.

Old balls are returned around 10% more than new ones. As Matt wrote, “Tennis is already massively short point and serve dominant, and changes like this nudge it slightly further in that direction.”

But I think this move could give hard court tournaments the green light to stray from the “medium-fast everywhere” era we are currently in. If balls are changed more regularly, slow/gritty courts like a classic Indian Wells surface become more palatable, and that can help reverse the short point trend and encourage different play styles to excel.

I also think there are certain strokes who will benefit from more regular ball changes. Fritz spoke about this issue against Sinner after the 2024 ATP finals:

“Something that got exposed today is when the balls got pretty worn out, I was struggling to generate any power with my backhand. It allowed him to take control of a lot of points. When the balls were newer, that wasn’t really an issue. I was able to stay in the points.”

Look at that difference in runway length.

That extra swing length in the flip gives Sinner around 6 km/h more speed and 500 more RPM on average, and that has marginal gains more so with old balls/slower conditions than it does when balls are pinging and the simple timing/redirected mechanics of Fritz can be rewarded (Data courtesy of TennisViz and Courtside Advantage).

Medvedev can’t wait. Keeping tabs on this.

Okay, one mail bag question I got around to finishing

Was Nadal’s return of serve position a vulnerability?

CourtVision has his own substack and answered this question himself if you want to check it out here. The comment further asks:

… Rafa was rarely in a position to truly neutralize a first serve and, by that, I mean that opponents with a great first serve often had a comfortable +1 to work with.

…So my question is: Do you think Nadal's deep return position was an actual structural weakness that elite servers could consistently exploit, or was it simply the trade-off that maximized the overall effectiveness of his return game over the course of his career?

This is an example of what CourtVision means by leaving his opponent with a perceived easy +1 ball:

One way to start answering this question is to look at this graphic that Matt Willis posted during Wimbledon last year:

If we exclude the freaks, the “returns-in-play” specialists like Medvedev, Musetti, Ruud, Cerundolo etc. are often being more defensive to help boost that stat: Ruud and Musetti employ the block return on faster surfaces; Medvedev returns from six metres back. But we see that once the return is in play, they win less than aggressive returners like Rublev. Inherent in any strategy is a tradeoff.

So, should Nadal have stood further in on first-serve returns? Well, he often did on faster surfaces. Compare Fed (green) to Nadal (orange) on grass courts (left) and clay (right):

But Nadal’s hard and grass court adjustment was still noticeably farther back than Federer or even Djokovic. Sometimes your tactical adjustments are limited by your technique: Musetti has a huge five-bevel grip change to make between forehand and backhand that results in blocks/chips; Medvedev has long swings with a unique grip change that requires a deeper position for more time.

The tradeoff Nadal made was that he would put a higher percentage of returns in play, and this was probably the right tactic given he was the best end-range player we’ve ever seen. A couple of years ago I wrote a Big-3 movement series, and with Nadal I spoke about his defensive-V footwork; that he could attack while moving backwards.

No one — not Alcaraz, not Djokovic, not Medvedev, not Sinner — had this combination of raw footspeed and racquet-speed off both wings from the ultra-deep:

So when Nadal was being ‘exposed’ with deeper, looped returns like the one that opened this comment, his tactic was: good luck doing it for a whole match. He was betting that his defense and end-range abilities were going to trump whatever +1 forecourt aggression you could muster, because Nadal made that court look awfully small for his opponents, especially in big moments.3 And 14 RG’s suggest he was probably right. We’ll never know for sure, but standing closer in/getting more aggressive on first-returns would have meant fewer returns in play, and less opportunities to use his incredible defense.

A note on AI/writing/Pangram

Kind of fits with some themes from this piece anyway.

Substack made waves last week with the announcement that you could now scan texts for AI writing. I like the move, not because I’m against people using it, but because I do think there’s way too much slop out there and this will likely result in less of it, at least on Substack.

I’m more of the view that if the writing is enjoyable I’m not overly fussed if someone used AI. My hunch is that it must be used as a tool way more than a crutch if the writing is to have any hope of becoming interesting. I genuinely don’t think AI could write an interesting tennis article. I’ve read loads of them already and I’m super bullish A Thread of Order. I’ve noticed that whenever I feed a first draft into ChatGPT or Grok I get something flattering like: “this is an 8.4/10 right now, but if you *10 suggestions that completely eradicate my voice into generic slop* then it will be a 9.5.”

No thanks.

Grade inflation aside, the exercise is helpful for catching spelling and grammar mistakes and helping to smooth transitions between paragraphs; I’m quite a choppy writer in that sense and I’m happy to use it as a rough editor that cuts 10% of my waffling.

Well that’s all for now. I’ll see you in the comments. HC

Much of the punditry coming into the final centred on Zverev’s aggression over the course of the tournament: second serves masquerading at first-serve speeds, the forehand consistently smoked, forward net play taken on. The question was: how well can he do that in a final?

The answer, at least initially, was: pretty damn well.

Down the other end, Sinner was experimenting with various return-of-serve depths in a bid to get his teeth into rallies; do that, and he inevitably will turn the match in his favour. But Zverev was playing with the freedom of a long-awaited slam now on the resume, ink barely dry, looking more like Delpo on the +1’s:

But on grass, in this heat, even the forehands mattered less than the serves. In the first set especially, Zverev hit ~45% of his serves unreturned, Sinner ~40%. Yet, their strategies to achieve that number differ quite markedly. Zverev hits the second-serve meaningfully faster and makes a higher percentage of his first, but his first-serve locations are less precise. Sinner, on the other hand, has been riding a step-change in accuracy on his first-serve that has seen him earn ‘bot’ labelling in 2026.1

The first real danger on serve happened with Zverev serving at 3-4. Sinner hit an average backhand drop shot at 40-15 to help get back to deuce:

And then Zverev gifted him a break point with his first double-fault of the match. The break point was cagey. Zverev’s second serve was slow-balled at 98, and his initial +1 forehand broke character and was more familiar; flat-footed and backing up. You could almost forgive Sinner for rolling in his next forehand given their history, but Zverev found his courage on the next swing, before Sinner made a poorly-timed shank. It was the only break point opportunity of the set.

The tie-breaker was a classic grass shootout of the highest quality: eight unreturned serves in the 16 points, no mini-breaks, only two errors. The entertainment factor becomes less about rallies and more about admiring two players holding their nerve when each swing of the racquet carries so much importance. Sinner blinked first at 7-8. The longest rally of the breaker, some might forgive Sinner for daring Zverev with the mid-court forehand here, who met the moment on the front foot:

That was the first set Sinner had lost to Zverev in six meetings, and the way it happened made one think that perhaps Sinner’s 2026 grand slam season was cursed in a particularly cruel way; here was a man who had won everything except the tournaments he really wanted, and who was now losing to his once-passive bunny in a very non-passive manner.

Whatever the case, it made for a particularly gruelling mental challenge.

There is an underrated psychological burden that comes with being the better player in a game of fine margins. As the underdog, Zverev could devote his attention to the simple strategy of hitting the crap out of the ball. But as the heavy favourite and now absorber of said aggression, Sinner had a more complicated task. Every point became a decision: stand further back? chip the return? more slice? more drop shots? match the aggression, or try to absorb it? In the first set Sinner seemed less concerned with imposing his game than measuring Zverev’s.

But midway through the second we started to get some answers, perhaps. This truly was the first forehand you felt Sinner connect with, after nearly 90 minutes of play.

It wasn’t enough to earn a break, however, and we entered another tiebreaker. This time Sinner was able to open up an early lead, and the weaknesses in Zverev’s serve (a lack of precision) were exposed by the tour’s most ruthless first-serve returner:

In the early games of the third Sinner was getting his teeth into Zverev serve points and tried three drop shots, losing the point on two of them. One of them is particularly egregious because he had 0-30 and could have smacked the forehand in either corner such was his positioning:

But it has been a part of the Sinner game ever since he vowed to be less predictable following his US Open Final loss to Alcaraz last summer, and the Italian has been true to his word, because he has made a habit of deploying the dropper in big moments. Perhaps none were bigger in this match than when Sinner faced break point at 3-3 in the third set:

The tactic itself may have paid dividends in more ways than one, because in press Zverev mentioned that he hyperextended his knee and that it only affected his serve after; he couldn’t push off as forcefully. The quote has some credence, because while Sinner had been getting looks on the Zverev serve in recent games, it was the very next game where the Italian finally broke, recovering after his own slip and profiting off one of Zverev’s more errant forehand drives:

The Zverev forehand was admirable in intent today — and often found the mark — but I was always skeptical of this shot aggressively threading the needle in BO5 against an all-time great. Gill Gross gave the numbers on his recap: Zverev made 27 forehand unforced errors to Sinner’s 13, and while I don’t have the official numbers I have him at 17 winners off that wing from my own notes. It reminds me of Zverev’s yo-yo performance chart that Matt Willis recently tweeted:

The fourth set felt the most inevitable. I must admit that once the result felt likely, I couldn’t appreciate the match for what it was on an aesthetic level; classic grass shootouts — even of the high-quality variety — are definitely not the sweetspot for tennis in 2026. Servebotting is a weed to be managed, no matter how many analysts praise it.

But this final set is also where Sinner’s other other elite skillset shone (yes, besides the serve, the groundstrokes, the drop shots…). Sinner’s end-range capabilities were rolled out across the scorched turf on several occasions. Here in the first point; a game he eventually broke in:

And when serving for the match, with Zverev making a big push to get back in the set:

The takeaways swirling through my head, without much structure:

It made you realise again that there are levels to this game. That while Zverev clearly is the best player in the world behind Sincaraz and Djoker, capable of pushing them in ideal mental states with an A game firing, Sincaraz are always adding and operating with elite B, C, and D games when all the pressure is on their shoulders. Sasha finally took a step forward in aggression after more than ten years of passive play, and I applaud him for that, but this was essentially a free swing at a second major (and who knows, maybe he does carry that mentality for the rest of his career). Sinner lost one match last year after winning two slams and decided he’d add drop shots and elite serve accuracy like it was some online Amazon order. No biggie. He won in four sets and still didn’t get broken all match. I always say I’m bullish on guys who show me adaptations, so of course I’m bullish Zverev after this tactical performance, but it’s tamed by the fact that I don’t think his forehand technique can reliably produce that level of aggression for five sets the way Sinner and Alcaraz and Djokovic can. He will miss too much. He will continue to go deep, but where is the signature win? Is an injured Fritz enough signal? Maybe.

Anyway, I should finish on Sinner and note that the year is very much salvageable now, as crazy as that sounds. Sinner is his own monster; he set the bar this high. That he continues to jump over it in the face of Roland Garros adversity (last year’s epic loss, this year’s disastrous one) is testament to his other, other, other big strength: his mentality:

“Honestly I just tried to accept the situation and be as present as possible with the right attitude, and I think today this was the biggest key.”

That’s all I got. I’ll see you back on the North American hardcourts. While we’re at it, if you’ve read this far, I’ll do a Mailbag in the coming weeks, so drop a question, and upvote others you like as well. HC

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The forehand aggression has been a feature of Djokovic’s when facing off against Sincaraz. Up until this year’s Aus Open match, The 2023 ATP Finals was the best example of post-peak Novak’s tactics in quicker conditions: lethal pinpoint serving followed up by a huge increase in risk-tolerance on the forehand, both in terms of speed, and change of direction.

It’s well noted that Sinner usually hits the ball heavier (i.e., more speed and spin) off both wings than Djokovic, but the forehand is where Djokovic can step up and even out-shine his usually more-powerful opponents.

Given this, I wonder if Sinner will make an effort to make this a match of more backhands than usual. Novak is often touted as possessing the greatest backhand of all-time, while his forehand is the one that is often overlooked in that conversation. But I think post-prime Novak is something inverted in these affairs; it’s the Serb’s forehand that clearly is a candidate for greatest of all-time, given how well he returns off that wing, changes direction, handles pace, and can be lethal in both directions from end-range. And if we take the AI’s interpretation of shot quality in this matchup, we can see that Novak’s backhand is the shot that has been on a steady decline and is the clear weaker wing (currently good enough for 8th in 2026 shot-quality rankings) whereas the forehand has been getting better and better since 2024.

In Australia, Djokovic got to hit 40 more forehands than backhands, and it was the wing that delivered all the damage and won him the match.

Yes, the Djokovic backhand was tidy — especially in comparison to Sinner — but I do wonder if Sinner should have played to that wing a little bit more, or have been content to trade middle with more intent, as Brad Gilbert and Gill Gross observed in their preview:

Avoiding damaging forehands and using his own excellent backhand has been a feature of Sinner’s in his recent wins over Alcaraz. He starved Alcaraz for forehands in Monte Carlo, and did the same thing in the second set of the 2025 US Open final; the only set he won that day:

Let’s not forget how pivotal Sinner’s backhand down the line was in last year’s Wimbledon final:

He’s got the swing length to be damaging from that wing, even in defensive positions:

And it was a clear tactic last year to go big with the backhand when playing into the Alcaraz forehand:

I think it’s a shot that he will need to lean on today. It gets Djokovic covering more distance when running to his dangerous forehand, and opens up space into the backhand. This from their 2024 Australian Open semifinal:

It’s going to be warm out there today, and the court will be playing more like a hardcourt given the dry fortnight they’ve been having. I think this favours Sinner — heat issues aside — as he can inject more pace on serve and off the ground, and creates a slightly higher contact point. I don’t think the heat will become an issue physically on a grass court with shorter points.

Speaking of serves, Gilbert observed that FAA got a lot of reward for the wide serve (I noticed this on the ad-side especially), where the 39-year-old Serb gets punished for losing a bit of reaction time. Keep an eye on the Italian’s serve trends today; it’s been a key shot of his as the forehand has somewhat wavered in 2026.

Well that’s all I got. Looking forward to catching this one on replay. See you in the comments. HC

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The serve and forehand have been firing for the Canadian — the usual backbone of his game — and so far he has only been broken once the entire tournament: when serving for the match at 5-3 in the fourth-set yesterday.

But I’ve also liked the backhand setup adjustment FAA has made in recent months, lowering the takeback that is better suited to handling faster, lower incoming shots. Compare his Indian Wells set up to the grass season:

And recall this little note from February after FAA’s title in Montpellier:

And square that with the stark difference in bounce height that players must confront only days after leaving la terre battue of Paris:

It’s still the weaker wing for the Canadian, but at times it held up quite well against ADF’s flat and compact left-side. Recall the crucial set point in the second set tie-breaker:

On grass, however, players with a weaker topspin backhand often navigate Wimbledon by possessing an elite slice. Berrettini, Dimitrov, Musetti and even Federer all leaned heavily on it.

But in this department I think there is room for improvement with the Canadian.

FAA’s typical slice backswing is low and abbreviated. It works for low and short balls, but it lacks the racquet head speed and high-to-low swing path necessary to tame more difficult incoming balls with any real authority. Compare FAA with the slice backhand speed and spin leaders in Dimitrov and Evans:

Notice how Dimitrov and Evans get the hitting hand pulled higher. They create a much better stretch in the hitting arm/shoulder muscles, and have more length to accelerate the racquet head, as well as the option to still hit down on higher and rising balls. Musetti and Federer also have this higher setup:

Oh, and let’s not forget Carlos:

Getting the hitting hand above the ball and leaning over it creates something akin to “compression” (if you are a golfer), as all great slicers do. I think FAA is often lacking these elements, resulting in his slice floating. The best ones flirt with the net tape before knifing low into your opponent’s ankles.

And this is fleshed out in the data. Compare Dimitrov and FAA backhand slice averages:

A higher speed, lower net clearance, and more spin. You can see why Dimitrov excels on the lawns of SW19. From the 2025 notes:

Like most shots in the modern game, the players with the most intent, revealed through racquet speed, possess the most dangerous versions. The slice is no different. 2024 Data:

Against Djokovic — a player who relentlessly probes weaknesses — FAA's improved topspin backhand may hold up. Whether the slice does could prove just as important. Keep an eye on that come Tuesday.

I’ll be back with more field notes later in the week. See you in the comments. HC.

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Conditions

Grass courts have a way of dragging modern tennis back to more quaint origins: topspin is muted, slices and volleys are rewarded, aggressive footwork can be punished, and precision can have its way over brute force. I think this is especially true in the early rounds, when the grass is still green and slick. But as the tournament progresses — especially if accompanied with warmer temps — the soil firms up and that playa-coloured baseline emerges.

Compared to most of the grass lead-in events, Wimbledon has typically been on the slower side in recent editions:

Temperatures are mild for opening rounds and expected to warm up toward the middle weekend:

A look at some serving trends for the seeds:

And some first-serve returning data of the top 20 and some chosen ones:

Alright that’s enough data. Let’s take a look at the draw and my picks.

Prefer to listen? I did a podcast version this afternoon thinking I wouldn’t have time to write this post. Be warned, it’s a gloriously unedited one-take on Quicktime:

But I’m a tennis sicko, and I prefer written content. Apologies to my Monday lessons for low-energy.

First Quarter

Sinner def. Medvedev

Sinner has been focusing more on heat measures than the field in recent weeks, given that element has proven more dangerous than the actual opponents in recent months. Medvedev is looking to snap a poor run of slam performances, and most people overlook him on grass, but it’s where his most recent slam semifinal run occurred in 2024. Has a tough opener in Cilic. Ruud is surely just here for some strawberries? Nakashima has a deadly serve and backhand, but the forehand and lack of net-game willingness holds him back from taking the next step (so far. There’s always time). Jodar has limited pro grass experience, but made a quarterfinal run in the 2024 Junior event. Is he fit? Tommy Paul has a lot of wins but no titles, and that trend might continue this fortnight.

Seeds Upset:

• Feeling it: Quinn def. Darderi. Both big forehands, but Quinn will use the net more; Hurkacz def. Ruud.

• Maybe? Pinnington Jones def. Nakashima

Quality Qualifier: Soon Woo Qwon is climbing his way back up the rankings after serving 18 months of mandatory military service in the Korean Armed Forces.

First-Round Match: Cilic vs Medvedev.

Dark Horses: Hamad Medjedovic has all-court firepower: serves, forehands, backhands (plus a drop shot on this wing).

Almost went with… Tommy Paul, but I find the forehand is such an Achilles’ heel in big moments. It was the case against Ruud in Paris, and last week against Cerundolo at times as well.

Toughest Draw?

Getting ahead of myself: Quinn vs Mochizuki would be a contest between one of the biggest and smallest forehands on tour. Quinn vs Jodar would be two of the biggest going toe-to-toe.

Second Quarter

FAA has a good draw here and will be looking to build on his Roland Garros run. Djokovic comes in with zero prep but that hasn’t really factored in recent years so it’s hard not to pick him here. I think grass could become Tien’s best surface in time. Fucsovics could be a tricky second-rounder. No one talks about Rublev, but he makes the first weekend oh so often. Tough opener against his compatriot. Fonseca had a promising grass campaign last year, but right now he’s a low-floor/high-ceiling guy and RBA loves SW19. Norrie has been sneaky good here and has an interesting opener vs Zheng. Is Rinderknech fit? He took down Zverev last year. Fokina finally got his maiden title, is that good or bad so close to Wimbledon? A friendly opener helps.

Seeds Upset:

• Feeling it: Tarvet def. Rinderknech

• Maybe? RBA def. Fonseca; Safuillin def. Rublev

Quality Qualifier: Columbia senior Michael Zheng has qualified at all three majors this year.

First-Round Match: RBA vs Fonseca; Rublev vs Safiullin; Djokovic vs Wu

Dark Horses: Safiullin made the quarterfinals in 2023 and has good form right now; he won a challenger before RG and has come through qualifying here.

Almost went with… Learner Tien was tempting as hell, especially because he has beat/played close the two seeds in his section in ADF and FAA this year. Tien vs Djokovic would be a clinic in ball control.

Toughest Draw? Rublev.

Getting ahead of myself: Tien vs ADF was a thriller in Indian Wells earlier this year. A grass rematch would likely deliver.

Third Quarter

De Minaur has grass pedigree and a recent finals appearance in 's-Hertogenbosch, but he’s been a touch off his best in recent months. Shelton’s clutch gene has been very expressive in recent weeks, but when does that wear off? Arthur Fils is reportedly fit and healthy and has been able to train at Wimbledon these past two weeks, courtesy of being coached by 2001 champ Goran Ivanisevic. Tough opener, but if he survives that, I actually think he could make a deep run here. Mensik serves and returns very well, and on a surface with an average rally length of 3.63 shots, that’s going to count. Cobolli made the quarters here last year and has a great draw. He’s kind of an up-and-down player, but a recent taste of the big-time fused with a good draw will bring out his best. Humbert gets a rematch against Sunday’s winner in Eastbourne, Zizou Bergs. Khachanov has been below his best. In fact, I don’t think he’s beaten a top 20 player since his run in Toronto last year.

Seeds Upset:

• Feeling it: Majchrzak def. Tabilo

• Maybe? Virtanen def. Shelton; Collignon def. Fils

Quality Qualifier: Otto Virtanen serves big, hits big. Shelton isn’t breaking at a clip that would help him avoid some shoot-out tie-breakers.

First-Round Match: Fils vs Collignon.

Dark Horses: I think GMP is a 50/50 match with everyone in this quarter; that’s a feature and a bug. Majchrzak made the fourth-round last year and has form again.

Almost went with… Shelton. His draw is pretty good outside of this first-round. He’s been winning matches he probably should have lost recently (Giron, Fritz), but just doesn’t break often enough to give me confidence.

Toughest Draw? Fils. Collignon is tough. Berrettini is dangerous. Mensik is tough and dangerous.

Getting ahead of myself: Cobolli vs de Minaur would be a middleweight classic and we all know it.

Fourth Quarter

For the second year in a row Fritz gets the most dangerous floater in the draw, and this time I don’t think he survives. Zverev opens against Blockx who he is already 2-0 against. Cerundolo won Queens but Munar is a sneaky big server and can hustle from the back. Lehecka has the game to rush the opponents of his opening couple of rounds. Tiafoe and Bublik both face dangerous, big-hitting openers but I feel they will survive and collide in round 3. Arnaldi made a deep run at RG and got some reps in at Eastbourne.

Seeds Upset:

• Feeling it: Munar def. Cerundolo;

• Maybe? Halys def. Arnaldi; Sonego def. Etcheverry

Quality Qualifier: Mackie Mcdonald has the kind of eastern-bunty forehand made for grass, and made the fourth-round here in 2018.

First-Round Match: Fritz vs Draper, duh. But also a lot of interesting other ones in this section: Moutet vs Giron. Kokkinakis vs Bublik. Tiafoe vs Atmane.

Dark Horses: Alex Michelsen didn’t play any lead-ins but his under-powered game is well-suited: great flat backhand that he can redirect at will; moves forward well.

Almost went with… Tiafoe. Feel like this is a big chance for him, but his draw seems littered with high quality potentials.

Toughest Draw? Tiafoe.

Getting ahead of myself: There’s really no need when we have Draper vs Fritz in round 1!

Business End

Sinner def. Zverev

After making this draw what has surprised me is that I picked so many seeds to the round of 16. I’m usually more interesting than that. This is unlikely to actually happen of course (grass has a way of making predictions even more foolish than they already are) but of the semifinalists especially, I felt they all had these conditions: (a) good draws through at least the first three rounds; (b) form; and (c) a history of performing well on grass.

Condition (b) may seem at odds with Djokovic, but I think his loss to Fonseca was completely fine, and I don’t care to assess his non-slam match performances at this stage of his career. Slams are all that matter. 1000s are training for the goat. So far at Wimbledon it’s taken Sinner or Alcaraz to stop him, and I think that will continue.

Condition (c) may seem at odds with Zverev, but despite zero titles on this surface, his grass win-loss is only a hair worse than his hardcourt stat. I don’t think winning Roland Garros will magically relieve him of match pressure in big moments, but it certainly won’t make it any worse knowing you’ve got the Coupe des Mousquetaires in your cabinet.

But should Zverev face Sinner in the final I don’t think mentality is the issue, as we’ve seen in recent months. There’s just no edge for him to pick at; Sinner serves as well — if not better for grass — and the Italian has much more capable and trusting offensive weaponry.

Well, let’s see how it plays out. See you in the comments. HC.

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Taylor Fritz owned a dominant 7-1 H2H against Tiafoe coming into today’s final, losing only their initial encounter at Indian Wells in 2016, but their fates have shifted recently. Fritz has spent much of the past year managing a troublesome knee injury, while Tiafoe is in the throes of a 2026 resurgence built on a renewed commitment to take his career more seriously.

At the end of 2025, Tiafoe hired Mark Kovacs, a tennis biomechanics expert and CEO of the Kovacs Institute. This became one of the more interesting side-stories of the 2026 season, because Tiafoe’s talents have long been obvious and strong enough to carry him over any technical shortcomings, at least onto the fringes of the top 10 and pointy end of slams. Tommy Paul called Foe’s technique “busted” growing up, but it didn’t matter; there’s little equity in the Lord’s gifts.1 He won the prestigious U/14 Les Petits As and broke into the top 100 as a teen, and perhaps his backhand is the only shot that looks conventional.

Given his flatter all-court style and limited movement, grass is Tiafoe’s best surface, where he can recruit his slice and net skills more effectively, and get away with more bunt forehand returns. But what was interesting today was Tiafoe’s second-serve return position. So often wedded to the baseline, Tiafoe took the majority of second serves from deep positions. I liked this aggressive forehand return followed up with enterprising North-South movement.

Here’s Tiafoe’s second-serve return chart from Halle:

Big Foe also went farther back to return first-serves today, which again is unusual. Halle is on the quicker side even for grass, and most players move closer to the baseline to cut off angles and minimise any court position deficit on this stuff. Matt Willis displayed this recently:

This wasn’t the only tactical tweak on display.

I loved Tiafoe’s rally strategy on the break point here, biding his time through the Fritz backhand — a solid, but not overwhelming shot — until he could turn this into a hands contest with the short chip:

Tiafoe has always had a preternatural awareness of his racquet face, but in a game demanding ever more power and spin, recruiting the whole kinetic chain has become an essential feature of today’s best players. And maybe no one understands the kinetic chain of the serve better than Mark Kovacs. He helped Jakub Mensik in 2024, and has published an eight-stage model of the serve that emphasises back leg vertical drive — something you could hear him saying on the courtside pods at the Australian Open this year.2

But early in the year the serve looked the same. In fact, all his game did. It’s hard to change at 28. By early March during Tiafoe’s Indian Wells encounter against Flavio Cobolli, Greg Rusedski had this to say after the 1-0 changeover of the first set (I obsess so you don’t have to):

“You look at his serve and you think ‘it could be so much better’, the use of his legs. It’s very much an arm-y sort of serve. I wonder if his new coach is going to work on that area when they have a little bit of time away from the tour.”

Well, tweaks started to be visible circa the clay season. The most notable being a more tucked, almost Djokovician takeback in the hitting arm compared to his old motion. Here’s a side-by-side from Miami earlier this year (left) with this grass season (right):

The other significant difference is that Tiafoe is now coiling his upper body more. Look where his shoulders are aligned on identical ad-side first-serves from Miami versus Halle:

So what has happened on the grass in 2026?

Through eight matches these past two weeks Tiafoe’s first-serve percentage has shot up to 66% from his 52-week average of 60%. The speeds and accuracy are almost identical, so he’s not making a tradeoff there, he’s just making more of them. Against Fritz in today’s final that number was 74%, and his final service game of the match finished with five first serves in a row. Even during his Stuttgart title run in 2023, Tiafoe averaged just 58% first serves in play.

Eight matches is still a small sample, but I’m always bullish on players who embody this knowledge translation because this is what the best players have always done; a kind of mind-body alchemy where information becomes action.

With Wimbledon around the corner in one of the most open fields in recent memory, the Tiafoe/Kovacs side-story could arrive front and centre.

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Other Items

• I didn’t have time to cover Paul/Cerundolo, but this is the second time the Argentine has won a grass title over Paul (Eastbourne 2023). Highlights

• Jack Draper returns to action in Eastbourne, and back to a pinpoint serve?

• ATP Fantasy update: I’m back on top of the league heading into Eastbourne and Mallorca! The top 10:

That’s all I got. See you in the comments. HC.

This newsletter is about the tennis. I pride myself on bringing technical analysis that is hard to find elsewhere. I can tell you why Zverev won the final. I can’t tell you what to think about him as a person.

On Sunday, Zverev defeated Flavio Cobolli 6-1 4-6 6-4 6-7(5) 6-1 to win his first Grand Slam title. Here’s how he did it.

Zverev admitted to being incredibly nervous in today’s final, but he masked those emotions with clean, aggressive hitting in the opening set, especially off his forehand wing:

Following an early exit from Wimbledon last year, Zverev flew to Mallorca to meet with Toni and Rafael Nadal for some career advice. I wasn’t privy to those discussions, but the sparknotes were: hit the fucking ball.

Of course, Zverev already knew this. But hearing it from a 14-time Roland Garros champion in a Mallorcan seafood restaurant at 1am probably hits different.

Zverev’s “in-attack” score — a measure of how often a player hits from an advantageous court position — has hovered between 26-27% in recent years, but in the opening set on Sunday that number was up at 34%. He looked to continue the trend early in the second:

Down the other end, Cobolli was coming to grips with a bad matchup and the possibility of a quick afternoon: his best serve is the high angled kicker out wide on the ad-court, right into the 6’6” Zverev backhand meat grinder, and he struggles to swing the serve out wide on the deuce court, into the German’s more vulnerable forehand.

But the Italian made adjustments. The serve got flatter, the forehand often flighted, and the drop shot was deployed to good effect:

The match came alive at 3-3 in the second. Zverev looked to be cruising to another easy hold up 30-0, but he made a poor drop shot attempt off his forehand +1 that Cobolli scrambled down, and then at 30-15 went back to his old faithful backhand +1. Given how deep Cobolli was here after the return, a linear backhand approach was never going to apply a lot of pressure.

The game got messy real quick, and after a four-deuce tussle, Zverev’s forehand cracked at the worst possible moment:

“I always feel though, that Zverev is good for one of those [a loose service game] in a set. You will get one chance. And if on that chance, you can get Zverev to hit a forehand under pressure, you’re in business. And yes, he’s been hitting the forehand well in most of the situations, but in most of the situations he hasn’t been under pressure. I’ve seen it so often.”

— Robbie Koenig

I’ve always felt Zverev’s forehand has a lot of moving parts that can make timing the ball difficult, especially given his wingspan, and especially under pressure.

And so it was great timing when Matt Willis dropped another banger chart during the final showing the variance in Courtside Advantage/TennisViz forehand performance ratings between Zverev, Sinner, and Alcaraz.

Sinner’s worst 52-week performance (7.1) is only slightly below tour average (7.3)

So yes, Zverev can have good forehand moments, and good forehand days. But he’s always vulnerable to greater swings in performance.

And what of our worthy finalist? While his TennisViz numbers are modest (he’s ranked in the 60’s for 52-week forehand and backhand stats) I like his swing: he coils the upper body so well, and uses gravity to help start that racquet move into a great slot position:

Devout readers might have remembered Cobolli featuring in a quiet February post highlighting the excellence of his running forehand:

That shot was starting to warm as he closed in on the second set:

But there’s a good reason Cobolli is in the 60s with his groundstroke ratings: he misses more than the tour average. On both wings. That he found himself in the final of a grand slam being competitive with the third-best player in the world is testament to how high the highs can be for the young Italian. Cobolli had kept the third set even-keeled until he was serving at 4-5 30-0. From here he made four errors in a row to hand Zverev a commanding 2-1 sets lead. Getting passive is a temptation under pressure. Getting loose is a sin.

The fourth set was the best of them all. I say best because it had all the drama and uncertainty that only sports can provide: Zverev looking to finally get over the hump, Cobolli looking to make that hump a little bigger. Zverev’s serve deserted him in this fourth. He had been cruising along in the high 70s — an absurd feat that has become his normal — when all of a sudden he had double faults leaking into his opening game to hand Cobolli the break.

They traded several breaks along the way before Cobolli eventually served for the fourth set at 5-4 when Zverev started to show signs of cramp. His team delivered pickle juice from the player’s box, but the more powerful effect was the fact that it constrained Zverev into becoming a free-swinging aggressor.

We advanced to a tie-breaker. Zverev’s Roland Garros tie-break record is ludicrously good: 27 won, just 3 lost. 90% win rate. For perspective, a GOAT-level tiebreak record that Federer and Djokovic have is around 65% won.

This was the moment where Nadal’s advice needed to be honoured. The signs weren’t good in the opening point; old habits die hard; the backhand +1 from the deuce court, and a tentative drop volley that the nimble Cobolli slid up and ripped past.

But Zverev would get out to a 3-1 lead off the back of another long rally. The first serve was missing, and the second — which averaged in the 180’s against Mensik — was getting rolled in at 160.

At 4-3 Zverev hit a passive return that Cobolli again clubbed for a forced error.

At 5-3 Zverev double faulted.

At 6-5 Cobolli lit a forehand down the line to send us to a fifth set:

“You can look at all the numbers you want, but when their games came under the microscope of the tiebreak, it was Cobolli who was prepared to be braver and bolder.”

— Robbie Koenig

But there’s a Sisyphean endurance to Zverev. While it seems destined that he will be forever tight and passive in big moments, one of his great strengths is in his ability to show up again and again, and push for point after lung-busting point.

Zverev won the fifth as he won the first, 6-1.

In the post-mortem it turned out Cobolli was struggling physically himself, and perhaps that largely explains his level in the fifth, which lacked the explosiveness of movement or clarity of thought that punctuated much of his performance, gifting match point with another missed overhead.

The “best player to never win a major tag” now passes to Nalbandian and Co.

And where does this leave Zverev moving forward? In the post-match press conference he was asked if he will play more freely now. ‘Perhaps’ was his answer (I’m paraphrasing).

It’s going to be interesting to watch, because while Zverev got the slam win that eluded him all these years, the demons in big moments were not conquered; the forehand passivity was still there. To his credit he kept pushing that rock up the hill, maybe in the hope that it would become lighter, or crumble before he did. It didn’t, but for one afternoon in Paris, it stayed still.

I’ll see you in the comments, and then on the grass. HC

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Note: All data courtesy of Courtside Advantage and TennisViz.

This is the more captivating semifinal in my opinion. Zverev has looked largely unperturbed by carrying the weight of favourite, and Mensik feels like a surprise semifinalist, but his resume says otherwise. At just 20 he already owns a Masters 1000 title (Miami 2025) and a stack of top 10 wins.

Their only meeting occurred recently in the altitude clay of Madrid, where Zverev won 6/4 6/7 6/3 in an evening encounter. This match is slated for the daytime slot, but conditions in Paris will be slower given the cooler temps.

At first glance many people tag Jakub Mensik as an heir to the Zverev archetype — rangy, big serve, great backhand, excellent mover, weaker forehand. All that is true, but the differences between them are still important.

• Both men average around 125mph on serve. Zverev averages a higher percentage of first-serves (73%) but doesn’t look to spot-serve, resulting in fewer aces (avg. 7). Mensik goes for smaller targets, only making 61%, but averages a much healthier 11.7 aces/match.

• On return, Mensik assumes a more aggressive court position, especially on second serves. He uses the return as a means to attack his opponent while they are still stuck inside the baseline. He’s often using this return +1 inside-out forehand:

Zverev is more content to use all of Chatrier’s real estate, relying on his weight of shot and court coverage to get back to neutral:

Here are the charts of second-serve return contact points from Madrid. Zverev was almost exclusively returning from the back wall, whereas Mensik was often close to the baseline:

• That difference in return location also reflects their appetite for forward movement and net play. While Zverev’s net game has been a slow evolution, Mensik arrived on tour with out-of-the-box feel and court sense in the forecourt:

Both men would back their backhands against anyone, and in 2026 Zverev’s is ranked third on the TennisViz rankings with an 8.14 rating. Mensik’s is a very respectable 20th with a 7.39. They are two of the most pronounced power position backhands on tour:

Given how evenly matched they are on serve and backhand, the forehand may ultimately decide this semifinal.

Zverev’s forehand has long been susceptible to breaking down under pressure, or at least getting passive in big moments. The German has made a concerted effort since last year to increase his aggression on that wing, and his speed and spin stats are among the heavyweights in 2026. When given time Zverev loves to hit his forehand crosscourt with spin. He will look to pull Mensik out of court by breaking the sideline with that shot, rather than try and rush the Czech with more middle strikes:

The big question is: will he commit when the moment arrives?

Mensik is an interesting case. The Czech owns one of the slowest and flattest forehands on tour, and is also below tour average for in-percentage. I’ve highlighted before how Mensik has a “weak stretch” in the hitting arm muscles, given he drops the racquet and starts the swing with an uphill battle, whereas most great forehands time their drop with the uncoiling of their hips:

You can often spot evidence of this weaker stretch in the “palm-up” follow through (a lack of long-axis internal rotation of the upper arm) and over-rotated shoulders.

But if there’s an area of relief for Mensik (or any weak stretch forehand), it’s in the inside-out forehand from higher contact points. Here the lack of racquet head speed biases contact on the inside (left-side, from this back perspective) of the ball, with the over rotating shoulders creating a sort of fade to the shot that careens away from opponents:

There aren’t many players on tour who favour this shot direction from their forehand +1 as much as Mensik. In fact, only Davidovich Fokina surpasses him in the top 30 (by 1%), with the caveat being that the Spaniard still goes into the deuce court 33% of the time — a good 5% more than Mensik.

Here’s a collection of some of the hardest/heaviest hitters of the forehand with their serve +1 forehand shot directions the last 52-weeks, ranked by how often they play into the deuce court:

Players with great racquet head speed tend to favour the inside-in/crosscourt forehands on the +1 because they: (a) have the topspin to play over the high part of the net (when playing inside-in) and pull it in on a shorter down-the-line path, or to break the sideline; and (b) can generate the pace or width to make attacking the opponent’s forehand a low-risk/high-reward strategy. It’s unsurprising that Fils — the tour leader in shot speed and spin — is the player happiest to hit his +1 forehand into opponents’ forehands; it’s a high margin play for him in terms of making the shot and hurting the opponent.

Technique dictates tactic.

Strip away the biomechanics and the matchup becomes surprisingly simple. Mensik needs to make it a match of serve +1 and return +1, with the view of finishing at net as often as possible, preferably with more of those sliding angled drop volleys (for pure entertainment reasons). He also needs to use the drop shot to break Zverev’s baseline comfort.

Zverev needs to make it a match of rhythmic neutral baseline exchanges; if the German is at neutral he is ahead in this matchup. He won 57% of baseline rallies in their last encounter, and overall enjoys much more success in longer rallies. A look at their 52-week stats for rally length win-percentage:

Mentally, the psychological burden sits almost entirely on Zverev's side of the net. So far he’s handled that well, but he’s had two days to mull over this match and will surely be feeling the nerves at this stage of the event. Then on the other side of the net, you could say that Mensik performs his best as an underdog. He nearly pulled out of Miami in 2025 with an injury and only decided to play last minute, and his .500 record against top 10 opposition is only marginally worse than his career ATP record of .612. He clearly relished that status against Fonseca in the quarterfinals, and played with a chip on both shoulders that perfectly balanced his quiet demeanour with a ruthless game plan. He seems to know his game well for just 20 and leans into that disrupting style.

Physically the two days off should mean both have near full tanks, but I wonder if Zverev’s fitness and experience will play a factor down the stretch should this go four or five sets.

I'm leaning Zverev in five. Mensik's game is built to disrupt, but over five sets disruption is hard work, mentally and physically. Eventually I think Zverev's greater comfort from neutrality will prevail.

See you in the comments. HC.

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Fonseca Arrives

Turns out the “overhyped” Joao Fonseca was hyped just the right amount, as he stormed back from two sets down against 24-major champion Novak Djokovic in the third-round on Friday. Yes, Novak lost his legs down the stretch, but at times that didn’t even matter, because Fonseca’s forehand and serve found it’s mark — and its mach — when he needed it most. The break point late in the fourth featured a 186 km/h second serve into a fearless forehand:

Why does that look familiar?

There is no defense for unconscious firepower of this sort, you just have to pray Fonseca misses when he does it against you.

What was also of note to me is just how important that Fonseca backhand line/middle was for trafficking more balls into his forehand, where he can unload at speeds that render opponent anticipation and movement irrelevant:

“This is looney tunes. Him [Fonseca] regularly hitting forehands 111, 113 mph… I mean, Novak is especially good with shading and putting himself in the court, to anticipate where the balls going, to know based on his ball flight where the most likely place that they can put it safely is, and he got stood up 20 or 25 times in this match, where it was in the flow of the rally and Fonseca just lit one up, and Novak was just still. And it wasn’t because he wasn’t trying to run for balls or manage his energy.”

— Andy Roddick’s Served

Other areas that proved pivotal:

• Fonseca’s nasty kick-serve was getting Djokovic in very uncomfortable return positions — high and wide — and it reminded me of how well Jodar handled that shot in Madrid.

• Down the stretch it was the Brazilian who used the drop shot off the back of his blistering pace, whereas the opening sets had seen Novak expose Fonseca with that shot more often.

• Fonseca has been criticised for his athleticism, but this was a step forward in speed and endurance (he came into this match off the back of another five-set win from two sets down against Dino Prizmic).

• Clutch serving in big moments. Three first serves around the 210 km/h mark from break point down at 6-5 in the fifth. The speed has been there for a while, but these were on a dime when he needed it most.

One Slam Slam

Nine of the 16 third-round matches went the distance following the shock loss of Jannik Sinner in the second-round to Juan Manuel Cerundolo. Add in the Fonseca win over Djokovic, and Alcaraz’s injury absence, and many players took the court knowing that this edition would crown a new men’s grand slam champion. Asked if he was feeling the pressure, Frances Tiafoe was honest:

“100 percent, 100 percent. I came out tight as hell today. God. And this is the reality, man. It’s fun to be a part of, man. I was telling some of my homies: it’s fun to be part of, man. You’re part of history, however you want to look at it. Whether you get it done or not, you’re part of history, and it’s just fun to be a part of.”

— Ben Rothenberg for Bounces

There’s a huge amount of pressure on the remaining seeds, and a serious pinch of belief in the non-seeded survivors.

• World number #85 Zachary Svajda is into the fourth-round having felled #25 seeded Francisco Cerundolo in five sets.

• #106 Jesper de Jong joins him, overcoming #13 seeded Karen Khachanov in five sets.

• #115 Jamie Faria pushed #19 seeded Tiafoe to five sets.

• #102 Francisco Comesana and #105 Berrettini played a nail-biting five setter (15-13 in the final set tie-breaker!).

• #50 JM Cerundolo outlasted #69 Martin Landaluce in a fifth-set tiebreaker over 6 hours.

In last week’s mailbag I spoke of this being a “weakened era” more than a weak era, because in my mind, the four other youngsters of their cohort who had the best chance to challenge them were all injured and missing: Fils, Rune, Draper, and Musetti. These were the four players who last year would have loved this opportunity but through Achilles tears and bone bruises and hip strains have been sidelined right when the gap opened.

The Australian Open had a “one point slam” before the tournament started this year. It pitted amateurs against pros, with one point deciding the winner, and a million dollars on the line for the champion. An amateur won the title, and we saw Sinner fault, Amanda Anisimova miss the return, and Pedro Martinez spray a rally backhand against Jordan Smith, in a riveting display of what pressure does when dialed to 11.

Well this Roland Garros has now become a “one slam slam” for those still alive: a once in a lifetime opportunity where only two men from the top 10 remain (FAA and Zverev). Zverev is the heavy favourite on paper given his history and form this year, but off paper there are plenty of doubts around how he will meet the moment. It’s a favourable draw and his to lose, and that must be torture, made all the worse by how early Sinner lost. It’s 10 restless nights, should the German reach the final.

So, what are my predictions from here?

Draw Prediction

It’s easy to get caught up in the “anyone can win narrative!”. While that seems more true than ever, I still feel like if we zoom out and look at big or surprising runs, those players with form (match toughness, confidence) and class (high ceilings) tend to survive these situations. Five sets is painful, but also merciful to a missed opportunity or two. Using that framework I came to this:

In the quarterfinals I’ve got Berrettini vs Arnaldi, FAA vs Cobolli, Rublev vs Ruud, and Jodar vs Zverev.

In the semifinals I’ve got Berrettini vs Cobolli, and Ruud vs Zverev.

In the final I have Cobolli versus Ruud.

I have Ruud winning the title. The Norwegian is peaking (Rome final, Geneva run), has the serve and forehand-plus-one firepower to hit through slower second week conditions, and the experience of going deep in slams — and here at RG twice. It’s known on tour that he loves the Roland Garros Wilson ball (whereas the ATP clay events use the Dunlop), and while Fonseca is a huge danger, Fonseca’s legs might be a question mark after back-to-back five setters, not to mention the emotional toll of how big his last 48 hours have been.

Why I didn’t choose Zverev? I think the emotional toll of carrying the “don’t fumble this one!” opportunity for 10 days will be difficult. It’s one thing to be crowned favourite after your nemesis loses in the quarters or semis, but it’s another thing to carry that burden for over a week. A lot of restless nights, a lot of anxious points. Especially if he finds himself in a projected quarterfinal with a big hitter like Jodar, or a semi against Ruud/Fonseca/Rublev, or even Mensik with his serve; how’s he going to handle that moment? Will he get tentative? Should he come through everything, it will be a pretty big mental feat considering his scar tissue and history of what happens to him when playing with pressure deep in slams. Hats off if he does it.

Why I didn’t choose Jodar? He’s the other betting favourite behind Zverev and Ruud. Despite his excellent clay season and overall very high ceiling, he’s still an unknown quantity in terms of his fitness. By all accounts he’s got a head to match his shoulders, and I think cooler conditions will suit his aggressive style, but at times the legs have looked shaky (versus Fils in Barcelona) and this tournament tests your legs like no other. This week we find out where he’s at.

How’s everyone’s ATP Fantasy doing in this carnage? I’ve come through pretty well all things considered:

Let’s see how it shakes out. See you in the comments. HC.

*Final side note: no spoilers but the Rafa documentary on Netflix is great.

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Several comments had questions regarding Sinner. The most lively centred on his aesthetic appeal for the broader tennis fan: is Sinner boring to watch?

A couple of years ago I wrote an article on the encroachment of pickleball and padel onto the tennis scene. Within that piece was the consideration of why we watch sports, with a quote from Stephen Mumford being central:

“Sport makes us run faster, jump higher, exhibit the maximum strength. It is an entirely artificial contest, insofar as its prelusory goals tend to be worthless or worth little. But what is important about them is that their pursuit creates the athletic beauty we seek: fully-exerted human bodies, graceful style, intricate tactics and real drama.”

— Ways of Watching Sport1

David Foster Wallace circled something similar in his famous Federer piece for the New York Times:

“Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.”

“The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty.”

— Roger Federer as Religious Experience2

Mumford and DFW highlighted something 15-20 years ago that is now coming to a head in today’s quant-saturated sports era.

I think there are three main ingredients that maximise viewing pleasure in tennis. The first is what we could call visible mastery: the seemingly effortless elliptical swings and footwork that send the tennis ball whirring back and forth with net-flirting precision. The second is to have something important at stake, so that risk-taking carries meaning. Finally, we must have uncertainty — not only of who will win, but how they will win.

That last element is what is being examined here. If I were to address the thread’s two sides faithfully, I think it goes something like: Sinner’s power alone is something to behold, and his ability to problem-solve in the medium-term (introducing the forehand drop shot, refining the serve to bot-godly levels) is genuinely incredible to follow. This I wholeheartedly agree with, and as a tennis sicko I will always be in awe of Sinner’s game. But the counter has merit too: Sinner’s game is the apotheosis of a ubiquitous style that leaves little room for variation; the point of perfecting the two-handed topspin backhand is to render the slice useless, just as perfecting the three-pointer rendered the mid-jumper useless in the NBA:

If you’ve been reading this blog the last few months, you may have noticed that I’ve been circling around this theme of tactics dying, of pure racquet head speed (‘best stretch wins’) becoming the endgame of polyestered tennis. Many others are hinting at this:

Zverev has talked about it a lot. It’s not tennis anymore, and I’m paraphrasing, but everyone is just ripping off both wings. The skill aspect of playing a short slice, a deep slice, playing high and heavy and catching the next one on the rise as a redirect, using the variation that we see Carlos do so well, that’s kind of gone out the window, because if you play a slice on a slow court and the ball checks up a little bit, guys will take full cuts on it.

— Chris Eubanks for Andy Roddick’s Served

“I feel like the biggest thing is that the traditional patterns in tennis are gone. I feel like ten years ago, if you were pushed deep in the corner, you were taught ‘alright, hit that heavy over the net crosscourt and get back in the point’. I feel like guys now, if your weight is behind the ball and you’re balanced, you have the option to just green-light it big down-the-line whenever you want. Guys are more aggressive from every part of the court now than they were ten years ago.”

— Sam Querrey with Karue Sell

It’s easy for me and other diehards to love watching Sinner paste his backhand against another hapless opponent in another 1000s city. Of course, not having Alcaraz or another worthy challenger to chase it down is bad for tennis; if any player dominates without a worthy adversary it’s bad for tennis. But challengers inevitably arrive.

My bigger concern is about the further homogenisation of the game itself.

Here I will replug a notion I walked out in the padel tennis piece regarding “middleweight tennis”…

I’ve tweeted multiple times (here, here) recently that “middleweight tennis”— involving players who aren’t big enough to servebot and who use their footspeed and racquet work to win points — is the sweet spot in 2023.

Dan Evans is the perfect canvas: his old-school game creates great contrast against multiple play-styles. Watch this three-minute highlight of Evans vs Alcaraz from the US Open.

This is as padel-y as pro tennis could ever get:

Dan Evans got to #21 in the world as a 5’9’’ slicing anachronism. I don’t think it’s an accident that his match highlights feature prominently on TennisTV’s YouTube page, or that they dedicated a highlight reel video to him despite a lack of silverware; Evans hits different.

To me, his legacy is mainly about showing what tennis could be when shot power, racquet skill, movement, and IQ were perfectly in balance. Think also of the famous Sincaraz rally from Miami several years ago:

In this particular rally, Alcaraz’s variation shot-percentage jumped to 54.5% and Sinner’s to 25%. The rally featured five slices, two angles, one drop shot, and one running back half-volley forehand, all welded onto the sliding open-stanced modern footwork patterns and drilled together at breakneck speed.

Tennis has always put its thumb on the scales when the game needed adjustments in service of aesthetics — slower balls/courts post-Sampras, shot clocks, fifth set tie-breakers. The question now is, how do you put the poly-genie back in the bottle, should the tour-wide trend toward more double-fisted baseline power continue?

Aesthetics without competition becomes exhibition. Competition without aesthetics becomes sterile optimisation.

Is this a weak era?

I wanted to answer this because it’s something that has been discussed more broadly given the domination of Sincaraz + Djokovic at the slams in recent years. My answer is that the last strong year we had was 2019 before Covid. The Big-3 were all competing and Thiem and Medvedev were becoming genuine threats:

So yes, it’s been a weaker era.

Since then we’ve had a transition out of Fedal and into Sincaraz. You could argue everyone else from that time largely plateaud: Zverev and Medvedev held their bridesmaid status; Tsitsipas/Berrettini/Rublev/Ruud etc. weren’t able to meaningfully improve their weak backhands.

But then we got a cohort of younger guys who had the kind of athleticism and shot quality that could become threats — Rune, Draper, Fils, Musetti — but one-by-one, each has had their progress stalled by long-stints on the sideline with injury.

Rune, Draper, and Fils were all rising in mid-2025 (they were ranked #10, #4, and #14 respectively coming into last year’s French Open). Musetti was the only one who had a healthy 2025, but even his best effort — a semifinal match at RG with Alcaraz where he had a lead — was cut short by injury.

Instead of late 2025/early 2026 becoming the period where the chasing pack strengthened and arrived, they have been completely gutted, adding Alcaraz to the sidelines since April. Less a weak era, more a promising era weakened.

Sinner’s low-ball weakness?

I don't think “going under” Sinner is a weakness in the traditional sense, because Sinner's backhand is actually excellent at countering slice for a two-hander, given how much racquet speed he can generate with his forehand-y swing path, but I still think it is a better tactic than going toe-to-toe with him because at least by slicing low to him it forces him to be slightly less aggressive — he has to dedicate more units of racquet head speed to lifting the ball — and this gives the opponent a little more time and height to work with.

I kind of directly answered this question in this Dimitrov vs Sinner Miami final from 2024, and we saw at Wimbledon last year how effective Dimitrov’s slice worked against Sinner in favourable conditions like grass.

So, does Sinner need to develop a better slice? Maybe. But the number of players who own an effective slice capable of getting the ball low there and a dangerous forehand to unload on the next ball (Alcaraz, Dimitrov, Berrettini… is that it?) is few and far between. This is still the tour’s problem much more than it is Sinner’s.

I like Jodar’s backhand for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s much flatter than his forehand, so it’s naturally a bit of a rhythm breaker for his opponents (Norrie and Kyrgios have this feature), but he also gets the racquet head in a higher power position, so he is adept at stepping into high balls (or second serve returns) and drilling it back with speed. As Macdam mentions, he is pretty compact so he can take it quite early.

Is it an outside/nextgen setup? Yes. Frauderer asked for a kind of decision tree or “cheat sheet” for techniques. This won’t be exhaustive, but one thing to notice is that if a racquet head has a “weak” slot position, where the racquet tip doesn’t lag inside the ball line very well (think Jodar or Rublev’s backhand compared to Sinner/Fils, or RBA’s forehand compared to Nadal), then the racquet path must be flatter, going “through” the ball rather than angular and rolling over it. Conservative grips can help in this regard (I touch on this near the end of best stretch wins) but closing the strings in the slot is also helpful, and one way to notice that push feature is to see that locked-wrist finish, where the racquet head is more upright, rather than rolling and pointing right from this view.

Fritz with an extreme example:

From the last mail bag:

IQ merchants

Dan Evans, obviously. I’ve sung his praises for years because he carried the torch of what tennis could be when it comes to variety of heights and spins, and creating pressure through net sneaks and angles. He’s head and shoulders above the rest in that regard (maybe Musetti is the best top example now).

Because the type of player you’re describing is endangered, nowadays I often find enjoyment in specific qualities dialed to 11 in certain players. I think Tien’s precision on the forehand down the line is the tour’s worst paper cut, subtle but so effective. In contrast, Fonseca’s willingness to unload the extended-grunt-forehand always creates an atmosphere that the Brazilians lean into.

Tommy Paul uses a super flat backhand hard crosscourt, and without a big forehand, he also does well to get forward and mix it up.

Moutet is one of the last true counterpunchers, and his touch and racquet work usually makes a highlight or two.

In the women’s game, Ash Barty was the last top player with great variety. Her slice was unrivalled and her forehand used much more spin than most women, so her ability to mix up flights and spins was her greatest weapon, in that her ball was so different from what you often see on the WTA tour. Muchova’s movement and court craft is up there.

I often just love great technicians as well. Rybakina and Jovic for the women off the ground, Djokovic and Sinner for the men.

Roland Garros - Quick Thoughts

• Really looking forward to Safuillin versus Ruud. The Russian has been on a sneaky tear through Challengers and qualifying, and has a big aggressive game that could rush Ruud in these hot conditions.

• Altmaier is also a tough test for the fourth-seeded FAA first up.

• Fonseca vs Prizmic Round 2 could be a cracker. Two of the best youngsters with a likely third round against Djokovic.

Who am I picking?

I think the semis will be Sinner vs Medvedev and Djokovic vs Zverev. Wanted to pick Ruud, but I think his draw is daunting.

That’s all I got. See you in the comments. HC.

*If I didn’t answer your mailbag question here, I’ll try and answer it directly in the comments section of the last mailbag, so stay tuned for a notification.

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Note: All data courtesy of TennisViz and Courtside Advantage.

Jannik Sinner defeated Casper Ruud 6/4 6/4 in the final of the Rome Masters on Sunday, breaking a fifty year drought for Italian players, and extending his Masters titles win streak to six. Sinner heads to Roland Garros as the overwhelming favourite in a bid to complete the career grand slam just months after Alcaraz accomplished the feat in Australia.

How do you beat Jannik Sinner?

That’s the question everyone is asking as the Italian continues one of the most dominant stretches of tennis the sport has ever seen.

One answer is “be Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic”.

That’s unhelpful advice for tour mortals, but I think another (somewhat related) method has always been: use more variety.

That’s not a licence to wax poetic with shot selection as much as it is a mandate for an opponent to find patterns that avoids linear baseline exchanges, because Sinner’s gunslingin’ groundies are both metronomic and lethal when fired from the hip.

“Brick wall” is often the moniker ascribed to consistent baseliners, but Sinner’s wall has a Majin Buu (if you know, you know) quality to it; he hits hard, and trying to go through him just makes his shots seemingly stronger.

Going back to our mandate of variety, perhaps a better term is being “unconventional” in a way that avoids the wall entirely. Who are the players that recently troubled Sinner and what do they do?

• Medvedev goes under the wall. Grigor Dimitrov did the same at Wimbledon last year with biting slice backhands. If done well, this can force Sinner to spend more units of racquet head speed on spin, lifting the ball higher, and reducing his ability to rush you with speed.

• Bublik’s brand of big-serving chaos nabbed a win at Halle last year. This is the Kyrgios playbook of giving no rhythm: high-risk serving, drop shots, slap forehands, serve-volley.

• Mensik served lights out and took cuts on return in Doha, although Sinner was off his best level.

• Alcaraz goes everywhere — under, over, short of it, but on clay his forehand is especially good at going around the wall.

Djokovic and Alcaraz are his only peers from neutral baseline, although Fonseca gave a youthfully exuberant attempt at going through the wall in Indian Wells, and Jodar made similar impressions in Madrid recently.

But on clay, with the extra bounce and kick from spin, the obvious option is to try going over the wall — especially on the backhand side (Fedal, anyone?). Often times the best clay courters have the highest net clearance, and thus, the highest bounce. Here’s the top-20 (plus Ruud, Nadal, and Tsitsipas) combined average groundstroke net clearance for clay matches the last 52-weeks.1

Musetti is the ultimate altitude trader; he clears Ruud even by around nine centimetres off both wings, but these two stand out in their commitment to height more than other current players. Coming into today’s final, it was always going to be an adjustment for Sinner having dug his way out past Medvedev:

A good example of everything we’ve touched on so far could be seen in the break point Sinner converted down 2-0. After a nervy start, Sinner got even by wrestling Ruud into more linear backhands; Ruud must have felt he was hitting the ball cleaner towards the tail of this rally, but this just played right into Sinner’s slot:

This was what Ruud was hoping for more of: his flighted ball catching Sinner on the rise, granting him time and height to unload on his forehand:

It was working quite well through the first eight games as Ruud arrived serving at 4-4, but it was at this juncture that Sinner switched it up.

“Don’t confront the bounce” is a famous philosophy of Jose Higueras, who advocates for players to move back and buy time and timing. Sinner did just that, opting to flight his own forehand into Ruud’s backhand. It sparked a run where he won 17 of the next 21 points. I was checking the Courtside Advantage stats live during this portion and recall the Italian’s average forehand groundstroke net clearance ballooning over 100 cm.

Within this run of points was the initial break in set 2, capped off with this open-stanced line backhand drive.

You can see how Ruud doesn’t quite measure that last jumping backhand. He’s too far from the ball and jumps quite a ways left. It’s not as natural for him as it is for Sinner, who does it more than anyone these days. Gill Gross made a good point on his Monday Match Analysis recap, highlighting how with Sinner’s low hands setup, jumping into backhands is an effective way to keep the ball in an ideal strike zone and allows Sinner to swing with a flatter swing path, injecting more speed:

Gill made a quick montage of all Sinner’s great jumping backhands:

But to Ruud’s credit he kept the score to one break down the backend of set 2, and got a look at a break point at 3-4:

That’s a 103 mph forehand winner.

It was an interesting moment given I’d been digging into some forehand numbers for Sinner, Zverev, Djokovic, and Alcaraz that Courtside Advantage had supplied me with.

For the 2025 season, here’s their forehand shot speeds for pressure points versus non pressure points:

Sinner increases his speed under pressure. He increases his spin more than the other three as well. In other words, he is swinging faster under pressure.2

Once again I find myself thinking of this strange Majin Buu quality to Sinner’s game: the bigger the ball, the bigger the moment, the stronger he seems to get.

That recipe bodes well for Roland Garros, where once again Sinner is chasing history.

That’s all I got. I’ll see you in the comments. HC

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Jannik Sinner defeated Alexander Zverev 6/1 6/2 in the final of the Madrid Masters on Sunday to clinch a record-breaking fifth straight Masters title. Sinner has now won his last nine encounters with Zverev.

There’s not much to unpack from this match. Sinner played above average — which means his level was very good by anyone’s standards — and Zverev played poorly, and didn’t try anything new either.

Let’s get some of the match notes out of the way quickly.

The first is that Sinner’s deep return position is a major headache for Zverev. The German enjoys a 52-week average of 39% of his first-serves going unreturned, but on Sunday that number dropped to 24%. Then on second serves, Sinner essentially starts in attack or neutral with one swing of the racquet: the ultimate return +1. It’s the most vulnerable spot for Zverev, given he’s inside the baseline and having to back up to handle the weight of shot.

Add in the German’s preference for backhands from middle, and you realise there is just zero threat or pressure for Sinner. He knows he’s getting to neutral at worst after the return.

The one area you might have thought Zverev would have an advantage is on the serve, but Sinner’s recent serve improvements were on full display here: he averaged under 38 centimetres from the lines on first-serve accuracy (Zverev was at 58cm, which is his average). That’s a stat that I’ve repeatedly brought up for the Italian recently, but I keep having to do it because it’s insane how much he has improved that shot in the space of six months.

And that notion of improvement is really what I want to spend the rest of the piece talking about.

Sport is often compared to the brutal and competitive elements of nature and evolution, the “survival of the fittest” and all that. Turns out that is a misquote. It is actually better summarised as “the one that is most adaptable to change.”

After the 2023 Wimbledon Final, Djokovic said this of Alcaraz (emphasis added):

“He surprised me, he surprised everyone in how quickly he adapted to grass this year, because he hasn’t had too many wins on grass and obviously him coming from clay and having the kind of style that he has, you know...the slices, the chipping, the net play. It’s very impressive.”

I haven’t played a player like him, ever, to be honest. Roger and Rafa have their own strengths and weaknesses…Carlos is a very complete player. Amazing adapting capabilities that I think are key for longevity and a successful career on all surfaces.”

This quality of being adaptable is something I look for in young players, because I think Djokovic is right (and has been a prime example of someone who adapted their games over generations).

And this is why Sinner, Alcaraz, and Djokovic have performed best in slams over the last couple of seasons. They not only have an acute self-awareness that enables them to identify their weaknesses honestly, but a freakish ability to patch them at a speed that makes the rest of the tour look untalented by comparison:

• Alcaraz lost the 2025 Wimbledon final and then immediately patched the running forehand in New York, two months later. (Not to mention his serve and backhand tweaks throughout 2025)

• Djokovic’s serve and forehand potency goes way up when playing Sincaraz.

• Sinner’s serve underperformed in that USO Final, and he went to work on it, making tweaks in the Fall that have improved massively. He also vowed to add more variety, and has implemented the drop shot more in 2026.

“He’s [Sinner] worked on that shot this week quite a lot — the backhand drop shot crosscourt — looking to add that element to his game. We’ve seen the forehand drop shot being used a fair bit this season… Of course, it was just a couple of months ago that he was doing a post-match interview with Jim Courier, and he was saying ‘my backhand drop shot is terrible. Sometimes it doesn’t even arrive at the net.’ But already some huge improvements this week.”

— Robbie Koenig

A couple of years ago I did a Gill Gross mailbag and one of the questions was how I think on-court coaching (then quite a new thing) might evolve in the next few years, given the bucketload of data available. My answer was basically: I don’t think it’s going to become important during matches, but I do think the data will help players target what they can improve in practice so that they can bring better skills to the matches.

And I think this answer was largely on point.

The lack of data has never been the bottleneck; Zverev knows — and openly admits — that his forehand isn’t very good, that he needs to be braver in big moments. But in 2026, Zverev still does this on his +1 after losing 11 sets in a row:

The bottleneck is acting on data. Whether that’s a skill issue or a courage issue probably differs from player to player.

In academia this might get labeled ‘knowledge translation’. Someone creates new knowledge — say, biomechanics fundamentals, physical therapy and conditioning best practices, mental performance approaches, or rally/serve location data — and then someone goes out and tries to apply it technically/physically/mentally/tactically in a meaningful way.

Sinner and Alcaraz are masters at taking in new knowledge — technical, tactical, physical, mental — and implementing it quickly on tour. And in 2026 the speed with which data can be created and disseminated means it is a major weapon for players who can use it. I think this is partly why it took two years for Djokovic to fix his serve in 2009-2010, but that Sincaraz can tweak and move in a matter of weeks; the information is more abundant now.

One of the things that is often said in tennis (and pro sports more broadly) is that going sideways means going backwards, and I think this is true. Over the last ten years we’ve seen a tour-wide adoption of hitting harder, deeper return positions, sliding and open-stanced movement, implementation of the drop shot more often, and gravitating to lighter, more powerful racquets and string setups. You have to keep up just to stay where you are.

I’ll use forehand speed trends as a clear example.

Here are a collection of various sources reporting on some top forehands over the last ~10 years:

“Two years ago, Hawkeye technology determined that, on average, Rafael Nadal’s forehand produced 3,391 revolutions per minute. Jack Sock, with his extreme western grip, was second at 3,351. The two also had the fastest average forehand speed, 77 miles per hour, and are generally considered to have the fastest racket-head speed when swinging at the ball.”

— Greg Garber for ESPN, March 29th, 2017

“Mark Hodgkinson’s book “Fedegraphica” found in 2016 that one of Federer’s forehands traveled at 75.4 mph on average. His flat forehands, with little or no spin, moved at an average of 78.11 mph, quicker than his typical topspin forehand at 76.06 mph or heavy topspin at 74.08 mph. His topspin forehand averaged roughly 47* revolutions per second (less than Nadal’s 55 rps but more than Novak Djokovic’s 45 rps average).”

— Amy Lundy for fivethirtyeight.com

* (Federer’s 47 revolutions per second = 2820 revolutions per minute; Nadal’s 55 = 3300; Djokovic = 2700)

“Thiem’s pre-injury numbers (of 1,564 forehands examined):

• 87.5 percent in the field

• an average speed of 77.6 miles/hour

• an average topspin rate of 2,978 rpm”

— Florian Goosmann for tennisnet.com

If we dropped these reported metrics into 2025, even peak Thiem looks pedestrian:

The last three years alone — all post-Covid ball editions — have seen dramatic increases. In 2023 the tour average for forehand speed was 75 mph (120.7 kmh). Less than three years later it is currently 78 mph (125.5 kmh).

To Zverev’s credit, he has increased his forehand speed since 2023, but so have his harder hitting peers:

It’s interesting that the younger players of this cohort — Draper, Fils, Alcaraz, Sinner, Musetti — are the only ones who have been able to add more speed and spin, whereas Zverev, Tsitsipas, and FAA have made marginal spin/speed tradeoffs. It might be an equipment factor (are the youngsters using collectively more powerful/lighter frames on balance?), an appetite for aggression that is more native to them, or simply those younger players reaching physical maturity in the intervening years.

Another point to keep in mind is the court positioning of these players. Arthur Fils and Lorenzo Musetti play from farther back than Alcaraz and Sinner on average, so they have more time to load up, and more court length to play with, when hitting their forehands. Aggression is often this speed/positioning tradeoff:

Matt Willis made this forehand rally contact-point graphic for clay (52-week) that does a good job visualising how top players position themselves in rally in terms of depth, as well as how forehand hungry they are.

Arthur Fils is the hardest hitter on tour, but he also plays a little deeper and only makes 82% of his forehands. It’s a good tradeoff because he hits the absolute crap out of the ball and therefore still does a lot of damage, but someone like Zverev is even deeper than Musetti and Fils, yet hits softer, is less forehand hungry, and is only making 84% this year. It’s worked against the rest of the tour, but when playing Sinner those numbers just don’t add up; Sinner will not gift you errors. For how deep Zverev operates, he either needs to hit way bigger than he is trying to, or missing way less (Musetti is making 87% this year).1

That’s all I got. Rome gets underway tomorrow. I’ll see you in the comments. HC.

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Back in December I was asked in a mail bag which young player I had my eye on for 2026. Jodar was top of that list, largely because he had a long physique and forehand slot position that was always going to print massive speed and spin stats:

His start to the year on hardcourts was fine for a rookie, but since switching to the clay Jodar has minced most of the competition, winning a 250 title in Marrakech, and reaching the semifinals in Barcelona, where a red-hot Arthur Fils was physically too strong in a great match of power shotmaking.

Here in Madrid, the atmosphere was FIFA-esque despite the 11pm start time, with Fonseca’s ever-present Brazilian fans proving equally loud against the local hope.

Stylistically, Fonseca and Jodar are similar: big bodies slinging the felt at triple-digit speeds and dizzying spin rates. But having seen more of both in recent weeks, there are subtle differences in how they go about their games. Jodar’s forehand is a little heavier (spin) on average, his swing is longer, and he likes to get on the front foot (left) more often, like Sinner. He averaged 3224 rpm tonight to Fonseca’s 2909 rpm (though their 52-week averages are only separated by around 150 rpm).

On the backhand (in general, and in this match) you get the sense that Fonseca is happier to trade, whereas Jodar wants to hurt you close in, and rush you from ball one. The Spaniard stepped in on his front foot more aggressively, and from more attacking court positions, and it was a pivotal shot on numerous occasions:

What does that difference in footwork aggression look like? I have no data for this but one quirk I’ve noticed Fonseca nearly always does on his backhand second-serve return is this little double-pivot where he turns both toes/feet left after the split-step and lifts his right foot off the ground. It’s not the preferred footwork for attacking second serves, and I see this all the time from him. Compare to Jodar, who’s right foot doesn’t pivot after the split-step — it stays grounded and helps him push off that leg to keep his forward momentum — which is a more aggressive way to return the second-serve. I rarely ever see Fonseca step in like Jodar nearly always does:

And if you watch that match with a keen eye on that you’ll notice it over and over again. Jodar was getting on top of the high second-serves and playing downhill with his backhand at every opportunity in the rally.

Beyond the technicalities, I think there was a general tentativeness from Fonseca that we’ve rarely seen thus far in his career. Whether that was because the early game plan was to get the ball low to Jodar with slice, or simply nerves of playing a younger opponent, I don’t know. Early on that tactic was paying dividends:

But Madrid is altitude clay. Aggression is rewarded here, and neither of these youngsters are great from end-range (yet). You felt whoever was the aggressor had the upper hand:

“It was the first time I was facing an opponent younger than me on the ATP circuit, and that made me nervous. It’s a situation I need to get used to. The most important thing in today’s match was the mental aspect. My attitude on court needs to be better. It’s an area I need to work on.”

— Fonseca, from José Morón

There were moments of brilliance from Fonseca:

But overall the variety often looked more like a lack of intent from Fonseca, and his identity as The Forehand Kid looked shaken (and perhaps, stolen?).

Jodar comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up. Look at the breakdown of their shots tactically. Jodar hit 92% of his groundstrokes as “core shots” — topspin through the baseline — compared to Fonseca’s 76%. For a comparison, when Fonseca played Sinner in Indian Wells, the Brazilian played 86.4% as core shots.

And just to drive the point home:

There was a level of conviction in Jodar’s game that Fonseca couldn’t match, and the young Spaniard held it all the way through the finish line. Match point:

Who’s a good comp for Jodar? Maybe Tomas Berdych is a decent name, although Jodar’s forehand has much more spin. But both guys looked to play hard and through you, and they got on the front foot at every opportunity. I also think the serve is underdeveloped given his height, and there’s a lack of physicality and end-range explosiveness off the ground that might end up hurting him in best-of-five formats for now, but these are good problems to have once you’re already on tour; while he took a little longer to arrive, he was spending that time sharpening the axe:

“I’m very, very happy with my level," Jodar said. "I’ll just try to recover well and think about the next match.”

“Joao is always a very tough player, so these matches are decided by very small details and various small points. I think I did a great job in those points, trying to play my game.”

— Rafael Jodar for atptour.com

Yes I had both in my Fantasy Team!

Alright that’s all I got. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out. I’ll see you in the comments. HC.

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Munich

Ben Shelton won the Munich 500 on Sunday, defeating Flavio Cobolli 6/2 7/5. Shelton is the first American to win a clay court title above the ATP 250 level since Agassi won in Rome in 2002.

Last time I wrote about Ben Shelton (after he won Toronto) I was questioning whether his patient return strategy was really where he was going to close the Sinner/Alcaraz gap (emphasis added):

While it clearly worked this week, I think Shelton needs to get more offensive on returns against the top guys, not less. Developing a crush-and-rush, or returning deep on second serves with the intent of hitting an aggressive ball like Alcaraz does with his North-South game. He needs to find more ways to move forwards, not sideways.

This week in Munich, we got a taste of a more aggressive Shelton on return. Compared to his 2025 run (where he lost to Zverev in the final), the American’s return averaged 6 mph faster — up at 82 mph. It didn’t take long to get an example in today’s final:

Shelton’s more aggressive returning strategy registered a 7.2 return-rating for the week — even better than his more consistent Toronto run — and it surely contributed to his whopping “in attack” rating of 34%. That number would lead the tour if he kept it up.

It must be said that Cobolli was out of sorts today compared to his flawless semifinal match, and after navigating a tricky opening service game, Shelton took advantage, going up a double break to ensure the first set. Here’s another example of Cobolli’s preferred serve getting absolutely minced.

The second set was more competitive, because Cobolli’s baseline game lifted as Shelton’s faded somewhat. But I want to shelve that entirely and focus on another area of Shelton’s game that I think needs to improve if he’s to be a bonafide top-5 guy: his net game.

Shelton’s nasty lefty serve is the perfect delivery to follow forward, especially on clay; opponents are positioned deep, and are often off-balance dealing with an uncomfortably kicking ball. The second serve kicker is also hit with less velocity, meaning Shelton can get closer to the net to play his first volley. Here he plays it well inside the service line:

Yet, so often in this match I felt Shelton volleyed too deep and too straight against one of the fastest players on tour.

If you watch someone like Alcaraz volley on clay, look how often they are played short.1 Here’s a collection of his volley charts from his recent Monte Carlo campaign (note: these aren’t serve-and-volley only, they are all volleys):

Now compare to Shelton’s this week:

Shelton’s chart against Fonseca (bottom left) could pass for an Alcaraz, but the others are works of heavier hands. Here are some visualised:

I’m being critical here because he’s top 10, but we know Alcaraz is cutting the outside of this one for a shorter, more angled stretch volley that ends up rolling over ‘MUNICH’:

First one could have been short, second one could have been short angled:

Shelton is currently below tour average for net points won (61% versus tour average 65%).2 That’s got to get better if he’s going to threaten the top brass, because I don’t see a world where he beats these guys from the back of the court.

The good news is that Shelton isn’t one to shy away from the net. He’s going to get better at this the more he does it, and when he does, that’s when I think genuine upsets could be on the cards.

Barcelona

Arthur Fils defeated Andrey Rublev 6/2 7/6 in the final of the Barcelona ATP 500 on Sunday to clinch his first title since returning to the tour in February, having been sidelined for eight months with a back stress-fracture. Despite missing the Australian Open, Fils is now 6th in the race to Turin.

Arthur Fils has the biggest forehand on tour in terms of speed and spin averages. The Frenchman used to own a backswing that matched those numbers, but in 2026 Fils returned with a shaved backswing that didn’t harm his ability to inject pace:

Rublev’s forehand is also a gem, and he doesn’t shy away from going toe-to-toe with anyone on that side, but what really separated these two in terms of baseline shot-making was their backhands. Long time readers may be familiar with Rublev/Sinner swing comparison:

An excerpt:

Look how deep Sinner’s racquet tip gets behind him, as well as how much closer the Italian’s hands pass near his shorts pocket. He has a bigger ‘flip’ of the racquet head, and therefore more length to accelerate the racquet head, as well as a more in-to-out path to aid with topspin (you can see how much more closed Sinner’s strings are as well). Nadal was very similar to Sinner in this style (and was also incredible from deep positions, unsurprisingly).

Well look at Fils in a similar comparison. Not quite as slinky and slingshotted as Sinner, but the Frenchman owns an enviable slot position:

These technical differences may seem inconsequential on first viewing, but they have downstream tactical consequences. Fils is going to generate more racquet head speed more easily. Their 2025 backhand speed and spin averages:

And more racquet head speed on tap means that the Frenchman can be strong off that wing from wider and deeper positions.

It was a decisive factor in the hard-fought opening game of the second set, where Fils escaped from 0-40, wrestling control through the backhand channel a couple of times:

There’s a perk of being able to play from farther behind the baseline on this surface. Your opponent’s great shots — deep, hard, spinning up at unpredictable angles off pocked clay — don’t kill your ability to reply with a great shot, because the venom dissipates out of the ball after the bounce, and you give yourself a chance to adjust to the trajectory after as sometimes erratic bounce. That was the difference often in this match. Fils operated from well behind the baseline, but still had the firepower to dictate his fate:

“It’s almost like they are hitting exactly the same level, but Fils can defend better. He’s moving around the court faster, and he can get to balls that Rublev can hit big. Rublev can’t get to the same balls when Fils hits big.”

— Tennis TV

As the commentators mentioned, it’s also important to have the movement ability to play from far back: you have to be able to cover more real estate. Rublev has never had that elite end-range ability to defend from the corners, and it’s probably why he’s leaned in to his baseline hugging style. Here Fils showcases modern tennis movement, hitting that open-stanced lunge forehand before the right leg even posts.

Here’s Djoker perfecting it eons ago:

Fils did blow a lead in the second. He completely lost his range when serving for it a 5-3, and then had triple match point on Rublev’s serve at 5-4, which he was unable to convert, and then got broken again to hand Rublev a chance to serve out the second set. There were clearly some finish line nerves here, but he did well to regather and get himself in a tiebreaker, where again the backhand was able to wrestle with Rublev’s forehand from deep positions:

Rublev had struck a couple of good forehand drop shots in this second set in response to the impenetrable wall that was the Fils baseline game, and the Russian tried it again off the back of that 3-2 point:

And the match point was a perfect encapsulation of how this whole thing unfolded. Fils weathering, then overwhelming, the Rublev baseline game from the shadows, the Russian’s backhand unspooling on a ball he attempted hugging the baseline.

“It was terrible," Fils said about the end of the match. "The end of the second set was just about the mental [pressure]. The whole match was a bit tough because I was a bit tight. I played well for a set and a half, but when I had to close, I started to think a little. But I'm very happy with the way I played the tie-break.”

— Arthur Fils for atptour.com

Last year it was Lorenzo Musetti who was the young challenger to Sincaraz for Roland Garros. Right now I say that Arthur Fils is that man. There’s still plenty of clay court tennis before we arrive in Paris, but the physicality and firepower has been awesome to watch. His win over Jodar in the semis was an example of his fitness and movement separating himself from another young massive hitter, and I remember last year what a great match he played against Alcaraz in Monte Carlo.

Let’s hope he stays healthy. I’ll see you in the comments. HC

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Blustery grey April skies along the French Riviera turned Sunday’s final into a Tough Mudder version of tennis between the two apex players on tour.

“I think today was really difficult conditions, because I just consider myself that I play great tennis when there is a lot of wind. Today's wind was a little bit tricky because it wasn't in just one direction,” Alcaraz said. “It was twirling around. One point you play a point with the wind helping and the next point it was totally opposite. So it was tricky to understand where the wind goes.”

— Alcaraz for atptour.com

You wouldn’t have known it early on, with Alcaraz lacing a couple of forehands to earn an immediate break:

But as deadly as the Spaniard’s forehand remains, this match was decided by their backhands. Alcaraz gifted the break back immediately with some long errors from his backhand, and it was a constant blemish throughout today’s encounter.

Alcaraz only made 79% of his backhands (well below his 84% average), compared to Sinner’s typical 86%. The Italian owns one of the heaviest two-handers on tour, courtesy of a forehand-esque swing path that whips deep inside his hands. Alcaraz’s is far more compact by comparison, resulting in less speed and spin:

There are tradeoffs to these swings.

Alcaraz’s is better suited to crush-n’-rushin’ second serves.

Sinner’s is better suited to trading blows from behind the baseline with industrial inputs of speed and spin.

On a calm day and faster surface, those differences might blur, but on slow clay in the wind I think Sinner’s swing has an edge. Run the point over and over again, and the results skew.

Here’s each man’s maximum slot depth to compare:

To stay with our casino theme, I once likened groundstrokes to a poker hand: Djokovic, Sinner, and Alcaraz holding pocket Aces — elite forehand and backhand combos that should win more often than they lose — but like a game of Texas Hold’em, the better cards don’t win every hand, because within tennis’ river cards are wind and form and surfaces and fitness and confidence and matchups and luck and numerous other variables that make accruing any single point a messy and uncertain affair, but play enough points and the underlying edges start to assert themselves.

Sinner will always have the backhand edge in slow clay rallies because Sinner’s is the gold-standard for modern-day baseline crushing, but tucked up the Spaniard’s sleeve has always been his freakish ability to have Federer-level feel when taking the left hand off, and welding that skill onto vaporising footspeed that helps him steal points at a tour-leading clip when in defense:

But these feats of end-range slicing are a fine art, calligraphic in flourish, and best attempted in studio conditions. The wind meant this match was always going to be about playing with more patience and margin, and employing more stock topspin shots:

1-2 40-15 was the first lengthy exchange of the match (18 shots) and we got a glimpse into the Sinner game plan: go heavy into the backhand until the Spaniard taps out:

On return Alcaraz was standing deep and doing his best to get the ball up and out of the strike zone of Sinner, but as the Tennis TV commentators noted, with the damp court conditions, perhaps the Spaniard wasn’t getting the bounce necessary to trouble Sinner enough, and this point at 3-4 0-30 was a crucial one in the match. Here we see the intentions of both men so clearly: Alcaraz backing up on return to rip forehands into higher altitudes, Sinner slowly turning the screws into a backhand battle, until Alcaraz cracked:

And on the theme of return, the patterns of both in the early games were as expected: Sinner, consistent in his position and trying to get the ball quickly back on Alcaraz’s laces, whereas Alcaraz applies a bipolar strategy, sometimes dropping back to flight the ball high and heavy from the Rolex sponsor, sometimes closer in trying to rush one back from the baseline. This graphic from Matt Willis does a great job displaying these differences:

I don’t have additional graphic data for serves and returns, as the internet on site was down in Monte Carlo, but last year in Rome, Sinner didn’t do enough on second returns closer in, and he got minced that day. When he opts to take it early, if he doesn’t get a good chunk of the ball, he has to recover sharply back-and-middle, and that sets up the Alcaraz forehand drop shot perfectly, who so often plays it in the opposite direction of his opponent’s split-step:

But Sinner had his return measured today, and this line attempt was perhaps his best:

When Sinner does occasionally back up on return, Alcaraz’s first instinct, especially on the Ad-side, is to serve-and-volley. Here Sinner showed his class with a perfectly angled crosscourt pass (he had plenty of practice in the Miami final):

We got to a tie-breaker and what had been noticeably absent was Sinner’s lethal serving accuracy that had been so pivotal these last months. The percentage had tanked into the 40s. Then in the tie-breaker, he made 6/6 first-serves with all the precision and speed of Miami. In contrast, Alcaraz only made 2/6, throwing in a double fault down set point at 5/6.

“I would say that the important moments, the important points, I didn’t play well,” Alcaraz reflected in his post-match conditions. “I think I had so many opportunities in the match that I didn’t take it. So many games, points, so many 15/30, Love/30. I think the first tie-break, I didn’t play well and I think he just played unbelievable tennis when it mattered. I think that was the key today.”

— Alcaraz

Sinner has been open about Roland Garros being a major goal in 2026. And one of the major tactical shifts that happened today was the Italian’s willingness to find more forehands of his own. So often content to rip his “lefty forehand” (backhand) and maintain a central court position, today Sinner stepped left and found more forehands, with 60% of his groundstrokes coming off that wing. In contrast, the forehand hungry Alcaraz was reduced to just 46% forehands today — 9% less than his 2025 clay campaign average.

“Interesting split today. I was just thinking to myself, it looks as though he’s [Sinner] looking for the forehand a bit more today, and those numbers back that up. 63% of the balls he hit today have been forehands. Coming into this match it was 49%.”

— Tennis TV

That’s definitely a good idea: hit more forehands, make Alcaraz hit backhands. But the interesting thing about all this tactical chat is that these edges feel as small as ever; that perhaps they aren’t meaningful enough to overpower the random level your going to bring on any given day. Perhaps that’s also why Alcaraz was up a break in both sets: tactics are becoming less relevant when you have 100mph capabilities off the ground. As I wrote in the ATP Finals:

Conditions shape rivalries. But watching Alcaraz and Sinner trade their particular brands of violence, you get the sense that any pre-match punditry of balls and surfaces is slowly becoming a futile exercise in materials science; whether it’s red brick or acrylic resins, these two play a version of tennis that is less about building points and more about obliterating plans. Big moment trigger-control has defined their fates thus far.

Maybe there’s not much rhyme or reason to their results in terms of surfaces if you zoom out and consider how close several results have been. A thought I’ll keep in mind.

Anyway, here’s the point of the match. A classic two-shot pass:

This angle helps you appreciate how good that first pass was. Laces:

That was to break.

But true to the theme of this match, Alcaraz lost it the very next game. The Spaniard often missed his spots on serve, and Sinner returned with incredible depth from here on out, just relentless deep middle stuff that was Djokovician.

Alcaraz again squandered a service game from 40-15 at 3-4, and this point at deuce had all the elements we have covered today: the suffocating return, the backhand trade delta, and the more proactive forehand hunting to finish it off.

Sinner’s season has done a complete 180 since losing to Mensik in Doha: three Masters 1000s on the trot, a win over Alcaraz on clay with some sort of new blueprint.

In the larger scheme of this clay swing, I don’t know how much stock to put into this result. As I mentioned, for all the tactical adjustments, this could have easily been Alcaraz in straight sets, and it’s hard to know if this Sinner tactic is meaningfully better than what he was doing at Roland Garros last year, where he dominated the opening 90 minutes with some of the best power hitting you’ll ever witness on clay. Time will tell.

"We came here trying to get as many matches as possible, getting good feedback before other big tournaments coming up. Today was a high level from both of us," Sinner said in his on-court interview. "It was a bit windy, a bit breezy. Different conditions from what the tournament has brought. The result is amazing. Getting back to No. 1 means a lot for me... I am very happy to win a big title on this surface. I haven't done it before and it means a lot to me."

— Jannik Sinner

ATP Fantasy Update

Great to see over 150 sign up for the Thread of Order Fantasy game. As I mentioned, I’m going to have a prize for first place, which is currently SimonW, who put up a mammoth 4624 points, using his Bonus Ball and Triple Bounce (not saving up for a slam!?) on Sinner.

That’s all I got. I’ll see you in the comments. HC

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You’ve got just under 20 hours since this email went out to create a team before the first week (Monte Carlo) kicks off.

You can join the Thread of Order league with the code: 2298-KG32F

I’ll be planning a prize for the year-end winner of the Thread of Order League. Depending on numbers, I might also plan prizes for the swing season winners as well.

If we get a decent number of users I think it could be fun to use the Substack Chat function here a bit more to share how things are progressing.

Looking forward to seeing your teams once the tournament begins on Sunday. Good luck beating my absolute fire team for Monte Carlo.

I’ll hopefully be back Monday with some thoughts around shot quality/Roddick’s take on clay.

See you in the comments. HC

Back in mid-February there was talk of Sinner having a “slump”. He’d just lost to Jakub Mensik in the Doha quarterfinals — his first event since a five-set upset loss to Novak Djokovic in Australia. The Italian was unperturbed in his post-match presser:

I've had two incredible years and now I'm having a little downturn, but it's not something that worries me. I know I can play better tennis.”

— ubitennis.com

In that same interview the Italian revealed that Roland Garros is a major goal in 2026, having come agonisingly close last year, losing a bonafide classic to Carlos Alcaraz:

“One of my biggest goals will be Roland Garros, but that goal is still far away… The confidence to play good tennis is there. Indian Wells is usually a tournament where I struggle a bit, we'll see what happens there, while in Miami I've always played well.

Sinner has not lost a set of professional tennis since that interview. Twelve matches and 24 sets.

The scary part is: this is business as usual. It was just last fall, after a four-set loss to Carlos Alcaraz in the US Open final, that Sinner went on a tear, running up a 24-1 win tab, including an 18-match streak to finish the season, dropping just one set along the way to Alexander Zverev in Vienna.

But while the P&L sheet is back to Sinner-standards, the means have been a little different in 2026. I touched on Sinner’s “meh” baseline game in Indian Wells:

Dare I say the Italian’s baseline game in Indian Wells has been a little underwhelming when using his “I’m a computerised slingshot sent from the future to destroy you” yardstick.

In the desert, Sinner made up for it with obscene serving accuracy.

Well the same thing happened in Miami, but to an even greater extent. The numbers:

• 11.7 aces/match (52-week avg. is 6.7)

• 70% first-serves in (avg. 66%)

• 86% first-serve points won (avg. 81%)

• 52% first-serves unreturned (avg. 44%)

• 126 mph first-serve speed (avg. 123 mph)

• 4 double faults for the whole tournament

What is upstream of these numbers is the lethal accuracy. Sinner made a technical serve tweak after a disappointing performance during the US Open, showcasing a better coil in Beijing, but it wasn’t until Paris that Sinner had some sort of serving epiphany (~match 16). In 2026 he’s averaging 46 centimetres from the lines.

Ok that’s a lot of Sinner serve chat recently. Let’s talk about his groundies.

In this age of liquified internet you get endless takes of so-so’s performance, and my socials have definitely had more of a “Sinner is hitting his forehand shit” vibe than usual in recent weeks. Numerous theories abound:

He’s adding more spin for clay season. (negligible)

His forehand grip is more extreme now. (it isn’t).

He’s adding more height for clay season…

Thanks to Courtside Advantage, what I can tell you is true is that compared to 2025 hardcourt data, Sinner’s forehand in 2026 has been slower (down 3 mph), and is indeed being hit higher over the net (up 6 cm), but for fewer winners and more errors. Erm, so maybe the vibes are right? Or maybe this is all part of Sinner’s Roland Garros plan.

Yet one of the worrying trends for Sinner fans — especially in light of Roland Garros aspirations — has been his return points won trend in 2026. Compared to 2025, Sinner is winning less points on return at every rally length, but making up for it on serve (except in 9+):

If we combine serve and return numbers and just look at overall win-% by rally length on hardcourts, here’s Sinner since 2023. He was a 9+ god in 24/25:

Something to keep in mind for the upcoming clay season, when the aces can dry up, and the rallies skew a little longer (but not much, really).

Ok we had a match last night, and Sinner had an opponent: Jiri Lehecka. The Czech has all the sheen and musculature of a racehorse, his tear-dropped quads unrivalled on tour. He plays how he looks: he hits the shit out of the ball. He used it to great effect in the semifinals against Arthur Fils, rushing the Frenchman with impeccable early and aggressive returning.

He started with similar designs against Sinner:

In addition to his power baseline game the Czech was the first player to reach a Masters 1000 final without dropping serve since Novak Djokovic in Shanghai 2018.

But Sinner didn’t take long to end the streak, keeping the ball deep middle as the Czech’s forehand unravelled with errors in just his second service game.

But Lehecka was committed to playing attack, and was rewarded in the very next game with triple break point, courtesy of more aggressive returning:

Given the aforementioned serving form of Sinner, the commentators were confident enough not to curse the Italian from 0-40:

“And you wouldn’t put it past him, would you, to just clock down three first serves”

Three?

Pfft. Try five. All unreturned. A generational baseliner not having to do any baseliner stuff from 0-40.

It’s been a trademark during the Sunshine Double, where Sinner saved 83% of break points across the two events, up from his 70% average.

“It’s why sometimes, we talk about numbers, but we have to be careful sometimes to put it into context. He’d only made 3/9 first-serves, and then in the biggest moments… five wonderful first-serves to get himself out of trouble. That’s a champion mentality.”

— Tennis TV

What was great about the Miami final was the frequent court-level perspective on offer, which helped to highlight just how flighted Sinner’s forehand was at times, making it difficult for Lehecka to ply his linear power game:

Of course, one of the special things about Sinner is that his backhand is about as forehand-y as a two-hander can get: massive spin and power. It means he’s tactically flexible, and can play the same strategy from deep ad-side returns:

As a result of Sinner’s deep return positions, Lehecka tried to serve-and-volley, but Sinner is one of the hardest players to S&V against, as Gill Gross mentioned: he’s got great reach, and he rarely chips returns, meaning he’s getting balls back faster and lower than your average tour player, plus he’s able to dip balls with wicked spin from both wings.

On top of all that, Lehecka is still raw in his net skills. The touch is lacking:

Lehecka managed to stave off break points in his 1-1 and 2-2 service games, and would get his best look of the match returning at 4-3 0-30 in the second set, but from here what stood out at various points in the game was the lack of movement ability from the Czech.

I’ve highlighted how not all players have open-stance sliding abilities (Shelton), and Lehecka is certainly in that category of big-and-stiff-to-a-fault in terms of being able to plant the outside leg wide enough to create an effective slide and deceleration. A genuine top-tier mover would have got there and played something akin to Djoker below: two-hands, with the slide helping to facilitate a quick recovery for the potential two-shot pass:

And look at Jiri over-run this drop shot chase:

Here’s Alcaraz in Rotterdam last year combining slides in both of the two-shot pass:

These are the little one-percenters that tip 15-30s into 0-40s. Holds into breaks, breaks into holds. Lost sets into won sets.

The difficulty for the tour is that Sinner and Alcaraz have been stacking these one-percenters at a vicious pace: serve updates, groundstroke tweaks, tactical adjustments, ball flight changes… by the time you catch up you realise you’re already behind.

And perhaps the scariest notion is that maybe Sinner was hitting his groundstrokes with Roland Garros in mind during this Sunshine swing, sacrificing immediate effectiveness in pursuit of reps for clay? What happens if he finds 2024/2025 return levels again combined with this serve?

That would be your move, Carlos. Looking forward to seeing when these two finally meet in 2026.

Clay season beckons.

I’ll see you in Monte Carlo, and in the comments. HC

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1

From atptour.com

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Medvedev and Sinner are of the same rangy baseliner genus, but their games have evolved into wildly different species. Medvedev’s moniker is the octopus, but there’s a spider-like hydraulic repeatability to the Russian’s groundstrokes that emphasises timing over power, his flatter trajectories thriving in quicker conditions.

In contrast, Sinner's pale limbs have the supple qualities of an aspen tree, yielding to the counter-motions of his racquet only to snap back with a kind of whip-crack elasticity that warps the ball into a gibbous orb against the strings, allowing the Italian to impart huge spin and speed, conditions be damned.

While many predicted a Sincaraz final before the semifinals (hey, me too), Medvedev had other ideas, ending Carlos Alcaraz’s unbeaten run in 2026, and reminding us all that he was the premier hardcourt player in the world not so long ago.

Part of the Medvedev resurgence in 2026 has been the uptick in serve quality, punctuated by a huge shift toward the forehand return of opponents. Compare Medvedev’s T-biased serve locations down the home stretch of 2025 (post-US Open, all hardcourt):

With his 18 matches recorded so far in 2026 (all hardcourt):

So far the strategy has paid handsomely. Here’s some 1st serve numbers:

But what I think really gave “hey that’s peak Medvedev!” vibes this week was the return of his net-flirting, downhill, laser groundstrokes.1 A potent admixture of several factors: fresh off the plane with the Dubai trophy, having escaped a literal war zone just days before his first match, Medvedev brought a “lucky loser” mentality with a bucket of wins under the belt. Then there was the court. Traditionally on the slower side, Indian Wells had an uptick in speed this year, registering in the high 30s in CPI (Court Pace Index). It was certainly welcomed by Medvedev, who once critiqued — as a self-anointed “hardcourt specialist” — the tournament’s sandpapered surface in a now-famous changeover rant.

Coupled with baking court temperatures over finals weekend, Medvedev’s average contact height in the final was ~6cm higher than his tournament average, yet his net clearance was one of his lowest in his career, at just a tick over 60cm.

I mean, Meddy made 91% of his backhands in this final with an average net clearance of 56 centimetres. Sinner blinked first in an early contest, catching the tape in a game of net chicken:

There’s a kind of positive feedback loop that happens when Medvedev finds this confident ankle-biting trajectory. The Russian hits low and flat —> Sinner, receiving the ball around his Nike laces, is forced to spend precious racquet head speed to lift the ball more than he would like —> which feeds Medvedev with another higher contact point to hit down on once more. Rinse, repeat. As a result, Sinner’s forehand net clearance was 10 centimetres higher than his average, and his forehand speed was down 6km/h (same pattern on backhand, too).

Anyway, despite this it was Medvedev who first found himself in trouble on serve, but the forehand and net-game came to the rescue:

Crisis averted. Players keep holding.

And now for time’s sake we must fast forward to the business-end of the tiebreaker, where Medvedev was even cooking the forehand in big moments. We’re so back.

But that same net game that saved the Russian earlier was exposed as a still raw and insecure aspect, seen here misjudging, or perhaps hoping, that the ball would sail long at 5-4. Most people, YouTubers especially, focus on the projection element of tennis — the hitting the ball part — when giving a lesson, but before that occurs there are the more important anticipation/perception (“reading the play”) and reception (“moving into position”) elements that make all technical considerations moot if not adequately up to scratch. This was the first set right here:

Or maybe Medvedev might feel that the point at 6-6 was fair game as well. All match he had played fearlessly on the forehand, but here he reverted to a flighted, ‘safer’ academy-style middle ball that is anything but against Sinner, backhand included:

And as he had done so often in the desert, Sinner found an unreturned serve to seal the opening set.

So far all the focus has been on Medvedev. I know. That’s because this tournament was something of a ‘welcome back’ moment, not only in top 10 rank, but in form, and the eye test, for the Russian.

From Sinner’s end of the court, what has been interesting to observe is the juxtaposition between his groundstroke game and serve performance. Dare I say the Italian’s baseline game in Indian Wells has been a little underwhelming when using his “I’m a computerised slingshot sent from the future to destroy you” yardstick. He didn’t do well in the longer rallies against any of his last four opposition, and he straight up got smoked by Medvedev in the baseline game on Sunday:

But that didn’t matter, because the Italian’s serve was at genuine Bot levels this week, hitting his serve seven centimetres closer to the lines than average.2 That’s only the width of an apple, but at 124 mph, those marginal gains compound to:

• 2.5 more aces/match

• 10% more serves unreturned. This week 53% of Sinner’s first-serves didn’t come back

• 86% of first-serve points won, up from 80%

• 96% of service games won

Here’s the chart I posted after the brilliant Fonseca match from Matt Willis again, this time with Sinner’s Indian Wells tournament average pointed out, which is literally off the chart:

So while faster conditions played into Medvedev’s downhill flat groundstroke style, it played equally well into Sinner’s well-timed serve-botting.

But shoutout to for raising the question in the Fonseca/Sinner comments: is Jannik Sinner a top-10 server now? It’s still too early to say of course, but I did a little digging courtesy of Courtside Advantage, and it’s interesting to note that Sinner has been this accurate for months, stretching back to the beginning of the ATP Finals. Here’s his serve accuracy for each match since post-US Open technical serve tweaks were made:3

That’s 16 ATP matches in a row below Sinner’s 52-week chart. Sure this is largely a collection of serve-friendly conditions picked lately, but the step-change in accuracy is something to keep an eye on, especially given his below-par serving has been a huge talking point in his rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz. While Alcaraz has reigned supreme for the last six-plus months, the notion of Sinner developing bot-level serving capabilities as a back-up is scary assuming he will find his forehand groove soon enough. I mean, the guy is still doing this, despite our concerns about his baseline well-being:

Yeah he’s going to be just fine.

I’ll keep an eye on the serves in Miami. See you in the comments. HC.

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“One of the questions I get asked so much is: do you teach consistency, or do you teach a youngster to develop racquet-head speed?

— Robbie Koenig on the comms for Tennis TV

To answer Robbie’s question, in 2026 you teach racquet head speed: best stretch wins.

Some lament the one-dimensionality of the modern power game, but Fonseca subverts the genre’s criticism by playing it with an almost camp excess, swinging and grunting at the limits of parody, yet with an execution that leaves your mouth agape, swivelling your head like those gaudy sideshow clowns with the arched eyebrows and rosy cheeks, blissfully astonished to see the ball vaporised at the rally’s crescendo:

Still, for all the wonders of his shots, many have suggested that the young Brazilian lacks the footspeed necessary to compete at the top. In that sense, this match was a kind of “proof-of-concept” of the Fonseca game. Yes, he lost the match, but here tonight was flesh-and-blood evidence that the prototype was of the requisite design and material to compete with the world’s best, if only short on the fine-tuning that comes from repeated trials.

So how did he do it?

In one sense, Fonseca dispels any criticism of poor movement with a fearlessly teenaged notion of “yeah tactics are cool and all, but have you tried hitting every ball at 100 mph?”

One of the tennis clichés that gets recycled too often for my liking is: “tennis is a movement sport”. There’s an edginess to it because obviously you hit the ball with a fucking racquet in a set of motions that are as complex as golf swings, but it’s often deployed to signal that the quipper possesses a deeper understanding of the game that runs counter to initial impressions.

Why don’t we just call it what it is: a moving and hitting sport. This reminds me of Roddick’s recent forehand podcast, when he was discussing another South American forehand of note:

“There are guys who are really fast, and there are guys who hit well on the run. Delpo [Juan Martin del Potro] is never gonna be accused of having good footspeed, but even when he was extended, he was able to inject something into it [forehand]. So he was great at hitting on the run, but not a great mover, which kind of should play into all that.”

— Served with Andy Roddick

Yeah, it kind of should. If tennis was a movement sport Alex de Minaur (bless him) would have 10 slams.

I’ll say it again: it’s a moving and hitting sport. Look at this pink flamingo combine both elements beautifully in his signature-in-the-making running forehand.

It kick-started a run of points that created Sinner’s first break opportunity on a second serve. Now is a good moment to reverse back to Robbie Koenig’s opening quote, where he provided the answer that Fonseca gave:

In the words of Joao Fonseca, “when I was younger, it was always my thing to hit it hard, mostly on the important points, when a little bit of pressure comes on. I wanted to go for it. I wanted to do what I do in practice: hit it hard.”

He’s been holding that mentality like a hot ember for 19 years; now seared in the DNA:

Through the first seven games Fonseca was averaging 90 mph fastballs on the forehand.

How does he create all that power?

“If the backward and downward motion of the racket is timed to coincide with the initial forward motion of the proximal segments of the body, this increases the eccentric stretch of the muscles that may be used to accelerate the arm and racket.”

— Knudson, D., & Elliott, B. (2004). Biomechanics of tennis strokes. In Biomedical Engineering Principles in Sports (pp. 153-181). Boston, MA: Springer US. (nerds can read more here)

Fonseca held for 4-3, much to the joy of the seemingly many Brazilian fans in the seats, who never fail to create an atmosphere, practiced as they are in futebol-arte.

Anyone who has tried to enter a Joao Fonseca match knows he is ground zero for a kind of global fandemic, driven largely by Brazil’s tennis-starved diaspora eager to feast its eyes on every blood-red slash of his Yonex VCORE 98. I witnessed this firsthand at last year’s Australian Open, waiting 75 minutes to squeeze into his second-round match against Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego.

Worth it.

But trouble arrived quickly once more. Fonseca faced another break point at 4-4, and he hit another big second serve, this time at 118 mph. It was a calculated risk, given the quality (8.2!) — and positioning — of Sinner’s return, which was smothering Fonseca after his serve:

But that wasn’t even the most impressive part of Sinner’s game tonight. Last week I shared a graph from Matt Willis showing the serve accuracy vs. speed of the top 20 ATP players.

You can see Sinner averages a very tidy first-serve that lands ~54cm from the line. Djokovic is the best of the top 20 at sub-52 cm. But against Fonseca, Sinner averaged 43.5 centimetres from the lines, and still hit above his average speed, logging 124 mph. Look at these groupings.

Wew.

So of course we got a buster. Fonseca got his nose in front, showing that his backhand is also pretty damn good, and that there’s a transition game that belies all that raw baseline power:

In fact his line backhand is one of the things I’ve liked most about his game from the start. He takes it line 34% of the time — a full 10% more than the tour average — as a way to funnel traffic back into his apocalyptic forehand. That’s been a key feature missing from other serve +1 hopefuls in the last ten years (Tsitsipas as poster boy).

Fonseca got out to a 5-2 lead before they played a long point where Sinner ran the young Brazilian ragged. It was of an intensity that makes the blood pulsate through the neck as the legs become languid. He even led 6-3, but Sinner snipered both his serves and at 6-5 Fonseca’s blood was still rushing enough for him to giddily overcook a forehand deep. Two points later and Sinner escaped with the first set in the bag.

If at this point you were still unclear of what the X’s and O’s were, rest easy: this match was a clear example of the direction the sport is going in. That is, not only does technique dictate tactic, but technique — through the increasing speed of rallies — will erase tactics.1 Zverev said something similar in one of his Indian Wells pressers when asked about tennis IQ (emphasis mine):

“I think the players that win the most are the ones that have the best shots. I think the players that win the most now — especially now, because tennis is just a powerful sport now — have the best forehand, have the best backhand, have the best serve, have the best return. I think those are the players that win the most in the last couple of years.

I think Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are winning the most, not because they play tennis by a lot of tactics, their shots are just better than everyone else’s.

So, yeah, I think ten years ago, tactics and, you know, tennis IQ, as you said, was more important than it is now. I think it has lost a bit of value. I think just, yeah, whoever hits the ball the best wins the most matches.”

— Alexander Zverev

As I said: best stretch wins. And the better you stretch, the dumber you can play.

Ok maybe that’s too simplified, maybe it’s more like: if you’ve figured out how to create the kind of easy racquet-head speed Sinner and Alcaraz (and Fonseca) can generate all over the court, then you’ve earned the right to play on tactical autopilot to a degree others simply can’t afford to: 100 mph forehands are tactically sound if they land in anywhere. And if you find yourself playing someone of equal stretch ability (e.g., Sincaraz playstation points; this match) you’ll invariably find yourself playing tennis at a speed that is almost too fast for cerebral strategy:

Jimmy Connors’ grandfather once told him that “tennis was boxing at 90 feet”. Well, now it’s more like 70 feet. And the gloves are off. And both guys happen to now be dual-wielding Desert Eagles. Every swing is infused with a premeditated shoot-to-kill intent, save for the forced-defense they naturally create for each other. “Neutral balls” aren’t really in their lexicon.

— Alcaraz vs Sinner: 2024 Beijing Final Recap

But to don my coaching hat for a moment and give you the broad game plan: Sinner’s backhand is stronger and more reliable than Fonseca’s, and he tried to handcuff the Brazilian into backhand-to-backhand exchanges, only going down-the-line 12% of the time (well below his 21% average). It’s pretty simple, and it’s what Sinner tried to do (and did do, for a set) in the US Open Final against Alcaraz:

And in reply, Fonseca was going middle and line with his backhand to try and direct traffic back to his forehand.

Of course, variation is still squeezed into the cracks: drop shots, angles, looped deep returns, and slice are still rewarded if executed well, but most of these rallies could have operated under a parking garage. Both used the forehand drop shot sparingly, and here Fonseca showed a willingness and awareness to play the slice short down the line:

Sinner got the first break of the match at 3-2 and eventually came to serve for the match at 5-3 when Fonseca played a blinder of a game to earn triple break point — his first break points since 1-0 in the first set! The opening point of the game had that familiar pattern: Sinner avoiding the forehand, but the moment he does change Fonseca goes big crosscourt. I think Sinner missed this forehand because he knew anything less than ball-to-the-walls power was going to get the nuclear treatment from Joao:

And that instinct was probably correct. Fonseca took his first chance in typical fashion:

We move forward to the tiebreak, where tennis was damn close to writing the birth of one star, and the obit of another:

Corporate seats got their money’s worth tonight:

But Sinner is so cool. He gave the thumbs up and went straight back to work, containing this volcano of a kid who was swinging for the fences (and jugulars). On match point he stepped in and finished with his own forehand return winner: early, crosscourt, precise. Long known as the premier power baseliner, tonight he was shown a glimpse of the future, and his role in it is to be the absorber.

Hyperbole aside I think if I were to give myself a cold towel to the head (it’s six in the morning now and the coffee and adrenaline are fading) I’d say that evening conditions, on this type of court, are pretty close to Fonseca’s ideal. I think that level of aggression would be tough to control on a hot day, and the bounce in this court tees the ball up nicely for his tomahawk forehand. Sinner served impeccably, but he let slip chances that a fully confident version of himself is usually ruthless on, and Fonseca came up clutch rolling the dice on some big second serves. Fonseca did show restraint in sections of his win over Khachanov, and he does have variety at his disposal that often comes to the surface against weaker opposition. The movement looked better, and he’ll hopefully build on this run in Miami. I’m still sky-high on this kid.

Now, it’s Tien’s turn to face Sinner. I’ve been impressed with the young American this week, who’s strengths are more subtle but nonetheless proving very effective: change-of-direction (that forehand down the line is a menace), a beefed up first-serve, as cold-blooded as they come. That’ll be Mensik (who won let’s not forget), Fonseca, and Tien facing Sinner all within a couple of weeks, for a kind of up-to-date account of where their games stack up against the best.

That’s all I got. See you in the comments. HC.

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Medvedev wins Dubai

Daniil Medvedev won Dubai via walkover, as Tallon Griekspoor was unable to take the court for the final. The Dutchman suffered a hamstring tear in his semifinal win over Andrey Rublev and is expected to miss several weeks of action. The win is Medvedev’s first title that he has won twice, ending an astonishing record that had him with 22 career titles in 22 different cities.

What was working for the Russian this week?

On serve Medvedev was targeting the forehands of Shang, Wawrinka, Brooksby, and FAA on both deuce and ad courts, with Deuce wide and Ad-T serves up from his 52-week averages:

Perhaps that contributed his slower first-serve numbers this week — down to 119 mph from his 123 mph average — but did these targets help provide him a very healthy first-serve percentage of 73%? (52-week avg. is 62%). Perhaps adding slice to his first-delivery was helping him control the ball, and he was still getting purchase in quicker conditions.

Off the ground it was the Medvedev backhand from the middle that had the biggest impact, winning 65% of points when he used that play (tour avg. is 49%) across his four wins. It’s kind of a weird trait to have because most top players look for forehands from the middle (and from their backhand wing). In fact, Medvedev swims well against the current trend of top players — even compared to Zverev — as Matt Willis tweeted recently:

If you look at who sits at the top of that chart, FAA is the most forehand hungry player on tour. This makes sense when you consider the delta between his forehand and backhand capabilities. So it was perhaps unsurprising in the Medvedev vs FAA semifinal in Dubai to find out that the Russian’s top three impactful plays were: forehand crosscourt, backhand down the line, and backhand from the middle. In other words, Medvedev exposed FAA’s Ad-court-biased positioning with forehand-directed hits.1

From the 2024 Australian Open final:

Medvedev’s flat penetrating strokes are the perfect foil for Sinner’s more liquid-whipped swings. The low and deep skidding ball into the lanky Sinner forehand was Medvedev’s ideal shot, as Sinner’s forehand has always looked more comfortable when hit above the knee. Perhaps this is another reason the Italian has often struggled in this matchup; the lower bounce exposes his forehand a little more.

The other statistic of note from Medvedev’s Dubai run was his conversion score (a measure of how often a player converts on a point from an attacking position). Medvedev was at 73% for the tournament, 5% better than his 52-week average. Gill Gross mentioned on his channel that across four matches Medvedev only volleyed nine times…in four matches! That he was converting so well is a reminder to how good the Russian is when assisted with truly fast conditions.

Medvedev reportedly got a flight today out of Dubai, having been stranded as a result of the Iran conflict.

Cobolli Wins Acapulco

Flavio Cobolli defeated Francis Tiafoe 7/6 6/4 in the final of the Acapulco 500 on Saturday night to earn a place in the top-15 of the rankings.

Frances Tiafoe’s forehand was one I highlighted as being most susceptible to weak paths and speeds in a recent in-depth technical piece. I don’t think it can ever become a weapon.

Cobolli’s is yet to rate highly on Tennis Insights’ forehand shot quality metric; a combination of average speed/spins and in-%’s has him lagging in the 70s in terms of tour rank for that shot, but I believe it has the pieces to often shine, as it did in this final, registering an 8.5 to Tiafoe’s 6.8. The wide running forehand made several highlights in the first set alone:

Darderi wins Santiago

Luciano Darderi defeated Yannik Hanfmann 7/6 7/5 in the final of the Santiago 250 to win his fifth clay title since the start of 2024.

All of Darderi’s five titles have been 250 clay events, but the Italian made good on his seeding by reaching the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open, losing to countryman Jannik Sinner. He owns a hammer of a forehand, and it came through in the biggest moment of today’s first set: 6-6 in the tie-breaker:

In the second set it was Hanfmann’s forehand that completely fell away, making 14 unforced errors off that wing after keeping it very tidy in the first set; altitude clay can make it difficult to control the ball, and picking corners is risky.

It’s a similar situation to last week’s Delray Beach final, where the wind wreaked havoc on timing. Like Korda, Darderi kept his forehand numbers very clean by committing to a very central ball location, going through the middle twice as often as his opponent:

Compare to Hanfmann’s forehand attempt to find the corners, especially to Darderi’s backhand:

It was Hanfmann’s third tour final — all at altitude clay — and it makes sense with his kick-serve and high backhand excellence that he enjoys these conditions. Even if he never finds that elusive tour level title he’s come a long way since playing number five for USC. From the archives:

Draper’s Serve

Jack Draper made his return in Davis Cup in February, followed by a second-round loss in Dubai to Arthur Rinderknech. The Brit had been sidelined by a bone bruise in his left arm for quite a period, and he’s made a couple of tweaks on his return. The first is the use of natural gut strings in the mains: this is a more powerful and comfortable string and is becoming somewhat more prevalent on tour in response to deader balls. The second change was technical: Draper is now using a platform stance. Compare 2025 to now:

I like this change. Recall when I was talking about Musetti’s change last year around US Open time (emphasis added):

The serve is essentially a throw, but in an upward plane of motion and with a more turned/side-on torso orientation to the target compared to a pure throwing action.

By going to a platform stance, I think it does two things: (a) it makes it harder to create power, because it’s more difficult to drive off your back leg (the vertical speed of the back hip is one of the strongest correlates of serve power)and you have less forward momentum; but (b), I think it makes it easier to repeat the motion/secure the toss and also forces a more coiled torso. we don’t get data on serve spins, but my hunch would be more side-on players would be able to get more spin and thus control their serves. Compare the trophy poses:

and at contact:

So many great spot-servers that come to mind were platform stance: Federer, Sampras, late-career Djokovic, Raonic (and Nakashima and Fritz for more contemporary/younger players). I always love plugging a Sampras trophy pose:

Two matches is a very small dataset, but I will be keeping track of the trend Draper started in his opening matches of 2026: a slower average first-serve speed, but with 5 centimetres more accuracy:

Matt Willis had another great graph breaking down serve-speed versus accuracy for top 20 players:

Of the top 20 players the most accurate are Djokovic (platform), Mensik (pinpoint), and Fritz (platform). The only player more accurate than this group is Brandon Nakashima, who is sub-50 centimetres for accuracy.

Indian Wells main draw action kicks off tomorrow. I’ll be back with some thoughts after the first few rounds.

See you in the comments. HC>

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