Alcaraz v Tsitsipas—Miami Match Analysis
A/D tennis—slicing—dynamic forehands
The fourth-round clash between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Carlos Alcaraz was the match of the season for me. It felt like the beginning of a very important rivalry between two young players who will undoubtedly be challenging for the biggest silverware in future years (and perhaps this year).
Tsitsipas got the better start by virtue of bigger serving and incredible returning, especially for a one-hander; the way he rifled back Alcaraz’s first-serves early on was a testament to how good he is. However, another feature of the early exchanges was Tsitsipas’ clear intent to use his low slice to get Alcaraz in uncomfortable positions. The following two clips show Tsitsipas using low and short slices into the Alcaraz backhand:
Serving at 5-3 15-15 Tsitsipas was firmly in charge of this match. He had served and returned brilliantly, used the chip well, and overall kept Alcaraz off balance in a lot of exchanges. However, from this point forward he would move away from the slice and opt to continually try and hit over his singled-handed backhand; he would only win 3 more games. Alcaraz had this to say in his post-match interview (emphasis added):
"I knew that Stefanos is a player who always is looking for his forehand," Alcaraz said, describing his game plan. "I tried to hit two or three backhands cross-court and then switch to down the line, to his running forehand. It was a key. I think he lives in the backhand side all the time, looking for his forehand, as I said. It was pretty important, the backhand down the line."
Here’s how some of the points played out at 5-3 that lead to Tsitsipas getting broken. This first one shows Tsitsipas giving Alcaraz a high forehand that he unloads on:
The very next point, Tsitsipas fell into the exact same pattern, sending a high spinny backhand that Alcaraz crushes back to draw another backhand error:
This happened over and over again for the rest of the match. Tsitsipas provided Alcaraz with high balls to his backhand that Alcaraz could attack, both cross-court and down-the-line. In the end, the only change Tsitsipas made was that he tried to execute his topspin backhand with more power, something that only led to more errors. The match stats tell the story:
I have previously touched on the benefits of the slice backhand when covering Dan Evans. A recap from that piece (emphasis added):
By keeping the slice low to the opponent’s backhand, the ball is hard—or risky—for his opponent to attack. You need a lot of topspin to get the ball up and down off his slice, plus, you must generate your own pace from a slow ball.
Evans covers his backhand in these exchanges, giving up the line ball. He positions himself on a mound a meter or so on his backhand side. It helps that his running forehand is excellent, so he is happy to give up the space and force opponents into risky line shots off his low slice.
By getting the ball low and short, Evans forces players to come forward on weaker approach shots, often when Evans is in the middle of the court.
Last year Evans faced Alcaraz in Vienna in a hotly contested match that featured 8 breaks of serve in two sets. The match provided the blueprint for how one-handers should play Alcaraz—a player with the tools and tactics of an aggressive Novak Djokovic.1 Evans repeatedly troubled Alcaraz and nullified his power by taking pace off the ball and keeping it low:
This next play featured a 2-1 pattern Evans uses in a lot of matches:
You’ll often hear commentators, players, and pundits say that “tennis is about matchups". Sometimes a player’s natural strengths are going to benefit from playing another player based on a number of factors: are they left or right-handed? Do they hit flat or with spin? Do they attack or counterpunch? One or two-handed backhand?
When a player has more tools in their game, they are able to adapt and tip the match-up in their favor. For a small player, Evans does an amazing job punching above his weight because he has so many tools in his game.
In that last play, Evans slices deep cross-court and Alcaraz tries to run around it for a forehand but doesn’t find a great position. Evans gets a weak reply that allows him to hit an off-forehand back behind Alcaraz, which generates the weak slice for the final forehand into the open court. Evans does this over and over again to right-handed players and it works very well—especially against players with a two-handed backhand. Why?
Because you’re not generating as much racquet-head speed with a two-hander compared to a forehand or single-hander (you’re generating controllable plow through—unless you’re Jannik Sinner—so you can’t attack a low slice as much as a forehand or one-handed backhand). The two-hander is better suited to re-direct a rally ball, rather than generate power and spin. This allows Evans to camp out on his backhand side and control the pace of play a lot of times, or wait for his opponent to take on risky line shots.2
Tsitsipas and Evans are more alike than they may look when playing. Both look to execute the same 2-1 pattern that I will explain in the chart below:
Tsitsipas and Evans both try to hit their backhands cross-court (A to A play) and camp out in position ‘B’ during rallies, the only difference is that Evans mainly slices while Tsitsipas mainly hits topspin. Both tactics are effective, depending on the opponent. By going strong into the opponent’s ‘A’ and camping out in ‘B’ from their own end, the next ball can be hit with a forehand (often back behind the player to ‘A’ again) and then you get a shorter ball, the final ‘1’ in the 2-1 pattern, to position D (or perhaps A again).
Tsitsipas had the correct pattern in terms of direction, but he didn’t commit to using the slice and forcing Alcaraz to press off low and slow balls with his two-hand backhand. He gave Alcaraz high spinning balls and Alcaraz loves taking the ball at shoulder height on his backhand; it’s the strength of the two-hander and allowed Alcaraz to hit hard into both A and D. If Tsitsipas used the slice more often, Alcaraz would have had a harder time hitting the backhand line, Tsitsipas would have had more time to recover and could have camped out in position B with more comfort, and Alcaraz would have struggled to use his drop shot as effectively (It’s harder to drop shot off a slice). Watch the highlights from Evans v Alcaraz below:
Note that on every occasion that Evans sliced, it bought him time on his shot and the one coming back; Alcaraz struggled to really hit a high-speed shot off Evans’ slice. He had to dedicate more racquet-head speed to counter-act the backspin, so Evans often got a neutral ball in response. Most of Alcaraz’s blistering shots came off the back of Evans hitting a topspin rally ball that allowed Alcaraz to flatten out the shot and inject pace. Although Evans lost this match, he created more opportunities and headaches for Alcaraz than Tsitsi did once he went away from the slice.3
Heading into the clay swing, Tsitsipas may feel that his topspin tactic will have more sway on the kicking dirt4, but if I was coaching him, I would be continually working on and committing to the slice for this match-up. It is one of the best tactics to handcuff many of today’s two-handed players.
Evans beat Djokovic in Monte Carlo last year using low and slow slices into the Djokovic backhand. Brain Game Tennis did a great piece breaking down the tactic here.
I think players with flatter two-handed backhands will struggle with the Evans slice compared to those that use a more extreme and spin-oriented stroke. See here for more.
I watched the full replay of the Evans/Alcaraz match and counted only 2 winners, 3 sneaks, and 3 forehand errors for Alcaraz off the Evans slice in the first set.
It certainly does if Tsitsipas plays Evans. Both times they met on the dirt Tsitsipas destroyed Evans and his slice backhand by using his heavy spin. Matchups.
Great breakdown!