I tuned in to Sinner's practice court the day of the final. He was being fed high and deep loopy baseline balls and doing his best to crush them. Would he be doing that drill ahead of any other match-up? I found it interesting.
I was waiting for that analysis thank you so much Hugh ! Always inspiring and learning a lot from your articles to make my own analysis article even sharper ! Wish this had more visibility cause it is gem for hardcore fans like most of us are ! So glad for alcaraz and the clear favorite to RG even without having to show his best tennis yet imo ! Won those tournaments with some margin and overall higher average level on clay ! Looking tough to beat in best of 5 on clay
Just wanna say thank you for the great analysis. Long time fan of your articles. Sometimes the excitement of reading your analyses motivates me to watch major finals more than the finals themselves! I especially enjoy all the pieces involving Alcarez as I can really feel your love for the colorful tennis he plays (well, don't we all) flow into the paragraphs.
Quite a long comment/observation ahead, so feel free to answer it (or not) any way you want as it doesn't lead to a formal question.
Recently, much talk has been made about Sinner having a higher floor than Alcaraz, while Carlitos's ceiling is higher. While I don't disagree with that sentiment, I don't agree with how it's used to justify two things: Sinner being World number 1 by a healthy margin because he's "more consistent", while the Spaniard dominates the H2H because he peaks against Jannik.
I don't think Alcaraz is less consistent, and I don't think he just peaks against Sinner. Most importantly, I think the discussion regarding floors and ceilings is mostly irrelevant in that case. While floors and ceiling may impact *how* you win matches, and may expose you to different streaks of results (lower floor may be more exposed to upsets while low ceiling guy could struggle later in tournaments), I think all in all what matters is not how high your floor is, or how high your ceiling is, but how high your *mean* is. You don't get to their levels (slam winners) with just a floor or just ceiling, but with an amalgamation of everything in between. In the end, whether you constantly fluctuate between a 5/10 level of play and a 10/10 for 50/50% of points leads you to the same place being at a consistent 7.5 does (obvious simplification but you get the point).
What this talk regarding floors and ceilings hides, imo, is surface sensitivity and distribution. While no one argues the fact Alcaraz prefers clay and grass (as well as slower HCs) over fast HC, and to a lesser extent the opposite for Sinner, few people take it into account when discussing H2H and how good of a player they are on those different sets of conditions.
When Alcaraz dominates the Sinner H2H, they act shocked and pretend Carlos just peaks, because after all it's the same guy who lost to Van de Zandschulp (on a totally different surface, the kind of losses he hasn't taken on clay for years), forgetting in the process most of their encounters have been played on a turf where he's just better overall (ceiling, mean level and maybe even floor) than Sinner. Alcaraz is just a tad more vulnerable on Sinner's ground than Jannik is on his (altough the Italian certainly seems to hit his ceiling there), so they don't meet often when it gets faster. To me that's why Alcaraz now dominates their H2H, as well as overall results on *his* surfaces, altough to a lesser extent than Sinner does on his.
And when discussing Sinner's number 1 ranking, surface distribution being (logically) skewed towards medium to fast HCs is rarely discussed. To me that's the reason why Sinner is ahead.
So, all in all, what do you think? Are we reading too much into this floor/ceiling thing?
I think it's a worthy point. The tour has never been equally distributed among the surfaces, and being number 1 necessitates that you do well on hard courts. Given the AO and US aren't slow hardcourts also mean that fast hard players can get a huge number of points doing well in those two events (Sinner).
However, right now I DO think Alcaraz is less consistent. Sometimes he plays a very poor match that we haven't seen from Sinner since ~late 2023. Zverev AO 2024, BVZ 2024 US, Draper IW 2025. That's three very important matches where there's been a sentiment of "WTF Carlos?" during the match.
Sure Zverev is worthy opponent on fast hard (ditto Draper at IW), but it's less the loss and more the nature of the loss. He clearly played a bad match in both instances.
Great analysis as always, Hugh. I always look forward to your write-ups. It was very encouraging to me to see Alcaraz come out right away using shape and spin to disrupt Sinner's rhythm. In previous matchups Alcaraz has seemed initially reluctant to "moon ball" Jannik, preferring instead to trade power for power in high octane rallies. Sinner is going to win those exchanges across a large enough sample size, and even though he showed improvement today in dealing with the height of Alcaraz's groundstrokes, I think the relentlessness of Alcaraz will always eventually prove too much.
It seems to me that while Sinner still holds the edge on hard courts, Alcaraz is a clear step above on clay and should be considered the clear favorite at RG. I'm curious, what do you see as the adjustments Sinner needs to make to compete with Alcaraz on clay, especially across 5 sets?
This was definitely one of his most disciplined and tactical matches.
I think Sinner isn't that far off really. All of the losses last year and this one were close in many ways. Obviously the serve is key, and I don't know how much Alcaraz is to praise for this, but Sinner has underperformed on serve in their last four matches. Probably the most important and decisive advantage he has over Carlos on clay. and one that would be very important in BO5. Besides that, he needs to figure out a second serve position/strategy for the AD-side, as Alcaraz kept kicking it and dominating with forehands. I think Sinner is capable of being more aggressive on 2nd serve returns and finding ways to get neutral in those rallies more often.
On the "techniphile" slow motion of that Sinner running forehand, you can really see how close the incoming ball is to the Sinner contact point before Sinner initiates his stroke/racquet flip to contact.
I've liked the aerial shots on Tennis TV during the warm up that gives you a birds-eye view of the stroke mechanics. You can see how compact they are with the flip.
I am looking forward to your next forehand article. Sinner is so compact on his forehand. He has a strong semi western grip, but kind of a positional set up with the racquet, not much drop using gravity. His wrist seems slightly extended in preparation, but not nearly as much as someone like Rune. He seems to relax it to more neutral before it flips into extension with his move to contact? Certainly his set up is not like Musetti, Khachanov, Tiafoe, and all these players that use a drooping/flexion wrist on set up.
It's actually more extended than Rune when you break it down, and Sinner's forehand keeps the elbow bent, so the only moving part of the arm is the shoulder really. I thought he didn't use much gravity, but when you really study it, he nearly always does, and it's the constant wrist extension that helps him do this, because the wrist extended means the racquet head is always flipping slightly above the hand, something I didn't recognize before.
I noted (and some reporters in loco too) that Sinner was pushing his right leg in the second set... did you heard anything about he getting an injury in this leg?
I thought his backhand line control was really good all week. Kind of surprised how little of that we saw in the final (maybe 2 line winners?). I think he's looking stronger, but maybe he's not quite at playing weight; matches might trim away a little bit and get him a little more agile.
Thanks Hugh! I always get excited when your articles drop in my inbox. (My GF has started making fun of me for it.)
Can't wait for Death of a Forehand Part IV. I hope it includes a detailed analysis of the Sinner forehand, which seems to my untrained eye to be an amalgamation of styles. The preparation seems more modern (low elbow, extended wrist) than the 'gull wing' next-gen preparation (high elbow, flexed wrist). But then for the swing he goes into a whippy next-gen 'merry-go-round' rather than the modern ferris wheel.
My general assumption is that since the next-gen merry-go-round whip requires a greater angle of rotation, it should take more time, sacrificing consistency for power when rushed. But this doesn't seem to be true of Sinner. His running forehand is consistent, deep, and powerful. Maybe more so than Alcaraz's. Does this mean my assumption / premise is wrong, or are there other factors that explain this?
Yeah I think we get Sinner style setups with lighter racquets, so it's not getting more rushed, as it doesn't take more time, because the racquet is swung faster. I used to think this faster action was perhaps at the detriment of control, but I have new theories now that I flesh out in that piece.
To clarify before DOAF 4 comes out, have you changed your opinion on faster rackets (which are swung faster) making timing harder because of the speed-accuracy trade-off in general? Or specifically on Sinner's swing which I remember you classified as increasing lag/requiring a big dynamic flip from the outside instead of a Djokovician gravity assisted full take back FH? I think it's the latter, and I also think while Sinner's FH holds up better now some decline in it's fiercest competition on that side has helped. Also Alcaraz's FH variety seems to be able to mess with his timing too
Didn't think I'd see the day where Hugh Clarke stops beefing with lighter racquets. Can't wait to see your reasoning because I think the heavier rackets providing more control had some good data points backing it and made sense from a logical point of view
Since Jim Courrier in 1992, no man except Rafa Nadal has won back-to-back Rome and Roland Garros. I always see them as RG1 and RG2 and feel that to win both is such a physical slog that is very close to impossible (except for Nadal ofc).
Let see if Carlos Alcaraz can do it. Will come back to this comment 3 weeks from now :).
So I'll ask you. Did Sinner peak to soon? The Ruud match, would he have been better of to peak at the Paul match? Could it have made a difference or was Carlos just too good on the day on clay.
I think Sinner was happy to peak at all in his first week back. Shows the level is there. Rome was a success for him, and I think he'll be very prepared for RG. I think Ruud is an easy matchup for Sinner; less variation, less court speed, easy to attack as Ruud isn't a great defender.
So now that I’ve really had time to carefully read your analysis, I want to come back to some of the points you mentioned and even some you didn’t.
First off is regarding Sinner's movement on the clay. It is obvious even by the eye test that Alcaraz moves naturaly so much better on the red dirt than the italian which seem quite limitated at some point...I dont know if you agree or if you believe that is work in progress because of lack of competition !
Secondly, I recently had a debate with a couple of fans about which player has the best dropshot in the game. I wanted your opinion on that and I know there’s no definitive answer but in my opinion, Alcaraz (especially his forehand dropshots) is in a league of his own, objectively speaking.
Some people brought up Federer, Gaston, or Moutet fair enough but my main argument is the frequency with which Alcaraz uses the shot and his success rate with it, which is absolutely off the charts.
The stats clearly acknowledge how effective he is relative to how often he plays it, and beyond that, he dares to use it in much tenser situations and more important matches than many others. As you spot it, he also uses it at right time and in the right direction.
let me know your thoughts on that one maybe you have a clearer opinion on the matter
Yeah I think Alcaraz is a better clay mover. More explosive, more agile. Sinner seems to struggle getting out of the corners a little bit. No other theory other than the Spaniard is just more explosive/lower to the ground.
Best drop shot? As a package it's Carlos no doubt. And that's because the huge forehand hammer acts as such a deterrent for opponents to hold the baseline, so he always has more space to play it into the forecourt. Moutet and Gaston certainly have incredible feel, and maybe their stand-alone drop shot is superior, but their groundstrokes have no bite; opponents are playing much closer to the baseline against them. So as a package they ultimately have a less effective drop shot.
Federer developed a decent forehand drop shot mid-career, but never really leaned into it a lot. He certainly could have, but it was unexplored territory at the time.
Also I don't recall Federer ever busting out the FH drop shot on key points. And from recollection, he used it mostly to draw in the opponent to set up the put away volley.
I tuned in to Sinner's practice court the day of the final. He was being fed high and deep loopy baseline balls and doing his best to crush them. Would he be doing that drill ahead of any other match-up? I found it interesting.
P.S. A terrific read - thank you!
maybe Musetti, maybe even Draper, but that's about it!
I was waiting for that analysis thank you so much Hugh ! Always inspiring and learning a lot from your articles to make my own analysis article even sharper ! Wish this had more visibility cause it is gem for hardcore fans like most of us are ! So glad for alcaraz and the clear favorite to RG even without having to show his best tennis yet imo ! Won those tournaments with some margin and overall higher average level on clay ! Looking tough to beat in best of 5 on clay
Just wanna say thank you for the great analysis. Long time fan of your articles. Sometimes the excitement of reading your analyses motivates me to watch major finals more than the finals themselves! I especially enjoy all the pieces involving Alcarez as I can really feel your love for the colorful tennis he plays (well, don't we all) flow into the paragraphs.
Thanks Andy :)
I'm a real sucker for all-court tennis!
Hi Hugh,
A great analysis, as always.
Quite a long comment/observation ahead, so feel free to answer it (or not) any way you want as it doesn't lead to a formal question.
Recently, much talk has been made about Sinner having a higher floor than Alcaraz, while Carlitos's ceiling is higher. While I don't disagree with that sentiment, I don't agree with how it's used to justify two things: Sinner being World number 1 by a healthy margin because he's "more consistent", while the Spaniard dominates the H2H because he peaks against Jannik.
I don't think Alcaraz is less consistent, and I don't think he just peaks against Sinner. Most importantly, I think the discussion regarding floors and ceilings is mostly irrelevant in that case. While floors and ceiling may impact *how* you win matches, and may expose you to different streaks of results (lower floor may be more exposed to upsets while low ceiling guy could struggle later in tournaments), I think all in all what matters is not how high your floor is, or how high your ceiling is, but how high your *mean* is. You don't get to their levels (slam winners) with just a floor or just ceiling, but with an amalgamation of everything in between. In the end, whether you constantly fluctuate between a 5/10 level of play and a 10/10 for 50/50% of points leads you to the same place being at a consistent 7.5 does (obvious simplification but you get the point).
What this talk regarding floors and ceilings hides, imo, is surface sensitivity and distribution. While no one argues the fact Alcaraz prefers clay and grass (as well as slower HCs) over fast HC, and to a lesser extent the opposite for Sinner, few people take it into account when discussing H2H and how good of a player they are on those different sets of conditions.
When Alcaraz dominates the Sinner H2H, they act shocked and pretend Carlos just peaks, because after all it's the same guy who lost to Van de Zandschulp (on a totally different surface, the kind of losses he hasn't taken on clay for years), forgetting in the process most of their encounters have been played on a turf where he's just better overall (ceiling, mean level and maybe even floor) than Sinner. Alcaraz is just a tad more vulnerable on Sinner's ground than Jannik is on his (altough the Italian certainly seems to hit his ceiling there), so they don't meet often when it gets faster. To me that's why Alcaraz now dominates their H2H, as well as overall results on *his* surfaces, altough to a lesser extent than Sinner does on his.
And when discussing Sinner's number 1 ranking, surface distribution being (logically) skewed towards medium to fast HCs is rarely discussed. To me that's the reason why Sinner is ahead.
So, all in all, what do you think? Are we reading too much into this floor/ceiling thing?
I think it's a worthy point. The tour has never been equally distributed among the surfaces, and being number 1 necessitates that you do well on hard courts. Given the AO and US aren't slow hardcourts also mean that fast hard players can get a huge number of points doing well in those two events (Sinner).
However, right now I DO think Alcaraz is less consistent. Sometimes he plays a very poor match that we haven't seen from Sinner since ~late 2023. Zverev AO 2024, BVZ 2024 US, Draper IW 2025. That's three very important matches where there's been a sentiment of "WTF Carlos?" during the match.
Sure Zverev is worthy opponent on fast hard (ditto Draper at IW), but it's less the loss and more the nature of the loss. He clearly played a bad match in both instances.
Great analysis as always, Hugh. I always look forward to your write-ups. It was very encouraging to me to see Alcaraz come out right away using shape and spin to disrupt Sinner's rhythm. In previous matchups Alcaraz has seemed initially reluctant to "moon ball" Jannik, preferring instead to trade power for power in high octane rallies. Sinner is going to win those exchanges across a large enough sample size, and even though he showed improvement today in dealing with the height of Alcaraz's groundstrokes, I think the relentlessness of Alcaraz will always eventually prove too much.
It seems to me that while Sinner still holds the edge on hard courts, Alcaraz is a clear step above on clay and should be considered the clear favorite at RG. I'm curious, what do you see as the adjustments Sinner needs to make to compete with Alcaraz on clay, especially across 5 sets?
This was definitely one of his most disciplined and tactical matches.
I think Sinner isn't that far off really. All of the losses last year and this one were close in many ways. Obviously the serve is key, and I don't know how much Alcaraz is to praise for this, but Sinner has underperformed on serve in their last four matches. Probably the most important and decisive advantage he has over Carlos on clay. and one that would be very important in BO5. Besides that, he needs to figure out a second serve position/strategy for the AD-side, as Alcaraz kept kicking it and dominating with forehands. I think Sinner is capable of being more aggressive on 2nd serve returns and finding ways to get neutral in those rallies more often.
On the "techniphile" slow motion of that Sinner running forehand, you can really see how close the incoming ball is to the Sinner contact point before Sinner initiates his stroke/racquet flip to contact.
I've liked the aerial shots on Tennis TV during the warm up that gives you a birds-eye view of the stroke mechanics. You can see how compact they are with the flip.
I am looking forward to your next forehand article. Sinner is so compact on his forehand. He has a strong semi western grip, but kind of a positional set up with the racquet, not much drop using gravity. His wrist seems slightly extended in preparation, but not nearly as much as someone like Rune. He seems to relax it to more neutral before it flips into extension with his move to contact? Certainly his set up is not like Musetti, Khachanov, Tiafoe, and all these players that use a drooping/flexion wrist on set up.
It's actually more extended than Rune when you break it down, and Sinner's forehand keeps the elbow bent, so the only moving part of the arm is the shoulder really. I thought he didn't use much gravity, but when you really study it, he nearly always does, and it's the constant wrist extension that helps him do this, because the wrist extended means the racquet head is always flipping slightly above the hand, something I didn't recognize before.
I noted (and some reporters in loco too) that Sinner was pushing his right leg in the second set... did you heard anything about he getting an injury in this leg?
I didn't/haven't heard or seen anything, but probably more tightness than anything.
H, did you notice any meaningful changes in Sinner's game or stats this week as a result of the added muscle he’s put on?
I thought his backhand line control was really good all week. Kind of surprised how little of that we saw in the final (maybe 2 line winners?). I think he's looking stronger, but maybe he's not quite at playing weight; matches might trim away a little bit and get him a little more agile.
Thanks Hugh! I always get excited when your articles drop in my inbox. (My GF has started making fun of me for it.)
Can't wait for Death of a Forehand Part IV. I hope it includes a detailed analysis of the Sinner forehand, which seems to my untrained eye to be an amalgamation of styles. The preparation seems more modern (low elbow, extended wrist) than the 'gull wing' next-gen preparation (high elbow, flexed wrist). But then for the swing he goes into a whippy next-gen 'merry-go-round' rather than the modern ferris wheel.
My general assumption is that since the next-gen merry-go-round whip requires a greater angle of rotation, it should take more time, sacrificing consistency for power when rushed. But this doesn't seem to be true of Sinner. His running forehand is consistent, deep, and powerful. Maybe more so than Alcaraz's. Does this mean my assumption / premise is wrong, or are there other factors that explain this?
Yeah I think we get Sinner style setups with lighter racquets, so it's not getting more rushed, as it doesn't take more time, because the racquet is swung faster. I used to think this faster action was perhaps at the detriment of control, but I have new theories now that I flesh out in that piece.
The suspense of getting to read DoaF4 is too much - can't wait to dive into it!
To clarify before DOAF 4 comes out, have you changed your opinion on faster rackets (which are swung faster) making timing harder because of the speed-accuracy trade-off in general? Or specifically on Sinner's swing which I remember you classified as increasing lag/requiring a big dynamic flip from the outside instead of a Djokovician gravity assisted full take back FH? I think it's the latter, and I also think while Sinner's FH holds up better now some decline in it's fiercest competition on that side has helped. Also Alcaraz's FH variety seems to be able to mess with his timing too
Changed opinion on faster racquets, and changed opinion on Sinner a bit too.
Didn't think I'd see the day where Hugh Clarke stops beefing with lighter racquets. Can't wait to see your reasoning because I think the heavier rackets providing more control had some good data points backing it and made sense from a logical point of view
It’s a minor tweak I guess. Strong beliefs loosely held
Since Jim Courrier in 1992, no man except Rafa Nadal has won back-to-back Rome and Roland Garros. I always see them as RG1 and RG2 and feel that to win both is such a physical slog that is very close to impossible (except for Nadal ofc).
Let see if Carlos Alcaraz can do it. Will come back to this comment 3 weeks from now :).
He's got a week off here and the leg didn't seem to be an issue so hopefully these two guys hold up physically.
So I'll ask you. Did Sinner peak to soon? The Ruud match, would he have been better of to peak at the Paul match? Could it have made a difference or was Carlos just too good on the day on clay.
I think Sinner was happy to peak at all in his first week back. Shows the level is there. Rome was a success for him, and I think he'll be very prepared for RG. I think Ruud is an easy matchup for Sinner; less variation, less court speed, easy to attack as Ruud isn't a great defender.
ok thank you--and interesting that you say that Sinner happy to peak and probably surprised as well--yes Ruud was perfect for him--
So now that I’ve really had time to carefully read your analysis, I want to come back to some of the points you mentioned and even some you didn’t.
First off is regarding Sinner's movement on the clay. It is obvious even by the eye test that Alcaraz moves naturaly so much better on the red dirt than the italian which seem quite limitated at some point...I dont know if you agree or if you believe that is work in progress because of lack of competition !
Secondly, I recently had a debate with a couple of fans about which player has the best dropshot in the game. I wanted your opinion on that and I know there’s no definitive answer but in my opinion, Alcaraz (especially his forehand dropshots) is in a league of his own, objectively speaking.
Some people brought up Federer, Gaston, or Moutet fair enough but my main argument is the frequency with which Alcaraz uses the shot and his success rate with it, which is absolutely off the charts.
The stats clearly acknowledge how effective he is relative to how often he plays it, and beyond that, he dares to use it in much tenser situations and more important matches than many others. As you spot it, he also uses it at right time and in the right direction.
let me know your thoughts on that one maybe you have a clearer opinion on the matter
Yeah I think Alcaraz is a better clay mover. More explosive, more agile. Sinner seems to struggle getting out of the corners a little bit. No other theory other than the Spaniard is just more explosive/lower to the ground.
Best drop shot? As a package it's Carlos no doubt. And that's because the huge forehand hammer acts as such a deterrent for opponents to hold the baseline, so he always has more space to play it into the forecourt. Moutet and Gaston certainly have incredible feel, and maybe their stand-alone drop shot is superior, but their groundstrokes have no bite; opponents are playing much closer to the baseline against them. So as a package they ultimately have a less effective drop shot.
Federer developed a decent forehand drop shot mid-career, but never really leaned into it a lot. He certainly could have, but it was unexplored territory at the time.
Also I don't recall Federer ever busting out the FH drop shot on key points. And from recollection, he used it mostly to draw in the opponent to set up the put away volley.
especially on the backhand, it was less drop shot, more short slice.