A Star is Born? Marozsan slays Alcaraz

Gonzo forehands—drop shots—Alcaraz return strategies

World number 135 and qualifier Fabian Marozsan defeated Carlos Alcaraz 6/3 7/6 in the third round of the Rome Masters 1000 on Monday with a flurry of forehands and drop shots.

I mean, no one saw this coming. Yes, he beat Lehecka in the prior round—a guy who is also having a breakout year—but by the odds this is one of the biggest upsets in the game in recent memory, as Nishikori, Tennis Pro bettor outlines below.

And if you want a concise analysis of this match regarding the use of the drop shot, Matt Willis’ Twitter thread is superb and touches on similar tropes that I made in the Barcelona final analysis between Alcaraz and Tsitsipas.

A Forehand is Born Reborn

The Maroszan drop shot was superb today. He won his first six attempts and went 10/13 on points when he used that shot. In contrast, Alcaraz only managed 4/7, which is still respectable, but respectable hasn’t really been the word used to describe the Alcaraz drop-shot form in recent months. It’s usually been ridiculous/genius/etc. However, just like Alcaraz, behind every great drop shot is a great forehand, and I love the Marozsan forehand.

From a technical standpoint, Marozsan is another data point to add to the general forehand thesis of this newsletter: extended wrist, gravity-assisted mechanics.

This setup is not unlike another bloke who had a decent Babolat-infused hammer¹:

Photo credit: Carine06 in footnote 1. Who else has these mechanics? Djokovic, Ruud, Alcaraz, Medvedev, Carreno Busta, Cerundolo off the top of my head.

And today the young Hungarian just hammered away fearlessly from the first point to the last. He then weaved ridiculous drop shots into this style. That’s one way to beat Alcaraz. In the last post after the Madrid final, I said of Struff:

“Struff played a tactically smart match today. He knew he didn’t have the movement or rally edge, and he committed to a strategy that gave him the best chance of winning. It also meant he forced Alcaraz into a mode of play he isn’t used to; Alcaraz didn’t venture forward too much or get an opportunity to play many drop shots.”

But, I also said:

“Ultimately, while this was a high-risk brand of tennis that neutralized the best defender in the game, there are few players (and to an extent, conditions) that are capable of pulling this brand of tennis off this well. Struff has a big serve, is an accomplished net player with a strong doubles resume, and was absolutely lasering his groundstrokes and returns for the better part of 90 minutes. I can’t think of too many other players who could get in this mindset, let alone execute this type of tennis (Rune, Tiafoe, Kyrgios, and Bublik come to mind).”

I eat my words. And add Marozsan to the top of that list.

What stood out to me from Marozsan was how good his inside-in forehand was; an unreal combo of power and control.

He just crushed it into the Alcaraz forehand and rushed the Spaniard.

Here Alcaraz just doesn’t have the time he likes to have and as a result he was often rushed into forehand errors. What I would often call “under pressure” errors.

Note the subtle step inside the baseline on the second forehand to take that extra split-second away from Alcaraz.

It’s Gonzo tennis below:

Official title of the below shot: “Fall away inside-in reverse-finish forehand winner”.

Paired with a very solid backhand, the 6’4’’ Marozsan was able to take the ball on the rise and play a flat and hard brand of tennis. It completely wrecked Alcaraz’s usual playstyle where he has time and forecourt space to find off forehands and dictate rally details with his usual variation, hence the paltry 7 drop shot attempts—only 4 from his forehand.

Alcaraz wasn't able to find aggressive court positions against the pace and depth of Marozsan's game.

He made uncharacteristically poor decisions at times as well compared to his usual excellence.

Note how Alcaraz plays this behind the baseline and while Marozsan is recovering forward. This isn’t the usual standard from the Spaniard.

Similar to Struff, Marozsan took on a very aggressive return position in a bid to rush Alcaraz, even on first serves:

Marozsan (left) and Alcaraz first-serve return positions.

I wonder if Alcaraz needs to employ a higher, loopier return of serve in the vein of Musetti and Nadal when facing a player who is using a mixed strategy of huge power combined with drop shots. The higher return would buy him more time to recover, as well as make the drop shot a harder choice for Marozsan, Struff, and Co., who are trying to unsettle him with such a tactic. I think mixing that in and going into a lockdown mode that has been so successful by Nadal and Djokovic, where they use their legs and end-range athleticism to absorb the storm of an aggressive opponent, would warrant attention. It’s not quite Alcaraz’s nature, after all, he loves to attack and self-describes his game like Federer, but I think he has the ability to add that to his game.

And as for Marozsan, is a star born? I have no idea and the data set is still too small. I like the forehand, I like the composure. In saying that, Alcaraz didn’t play very well and I can’t see Marozsan playing the drop shot that well consistently; some of them were just outrageous. I do think he’s a top-20 prospect in the next few years, but who knows? A look at the rap sheet:

Flawless groundstrokes from Marozsan.

By my metrics:

A positive winner:error ratio from Marozsan on the forehand under pressure category is indicative of just how well he hit that shot today. In contrast, the Alcaraz forehand was rushed and bled a lot of errors for no reward.

The bottom half is really open now in Rome. I’ll be back after the final with more thoughts.

1. Fernando Gonzalez by Carine06