My thought was that Rublev was returning serve too close to the baseline. If FAA’s first serve percentage and speed had maintained, he would have ended the match in two sets.
It also appears that FAA has some work to do controlling his mental game. The match was dead even up to the last game, where he double faulted twice to lose the match. This has to be jitters around getting so close to winning an ATP 1000 event and turning around a bad couple of years.
Since you appear to have a good handle on the backhand stoke, I’m curious what you think of Cameron Norrie’s backhand. It looks so awkward and is such a flat stroke that I am amazed he can compete at this level against players who have better net clearance. His stroke reminds me a bit of the old Jimmy Connors two-handed T2000 backhand drive.
The thing with backhands like Norrie/Kyrgios/Paul etc... They are incredibly flat, but just like Ferrer, the mechanics are so simple and the hand action is almost non existant. So the racquet head is very quiet around contact, which makes it a pretty repeatable motion. So they won't set the world on fire with speed or spin, but they can handle pace really well.
Connors is kind of the prototype. Hewitt was then another example.
It wasn't that close, Felix forced those two second serves because he wasn't winning rallies against Rublev in the second half of the third set, he needed the help from the service
I think it's partly just a trend as well; a lot of players are starting to up their second serve speeds and serve more to the forehand in search of unreturnables, but I agree you need to be able to do both/it would give you more options in conditions like Madrid/IW
Loved the analysis of FAA's backhand, made me think of routes to fixing some of my students' BH's.
Thanks Erik. You might like this piece as well:
https://hughclarke.substack.com/p/the-two-handed-backhandagain
Always looking for more intel on how to hit those backhands right for once!
Edit suggestion: The URLs in this post have a "chrome-extension" suffix. I had to remove that text to successfully get to the linked page.
Keep on the good content. Thanks
Oh good catch Colin - I had a look. Was it just the 'P.A.S' racquet technical page? I changed it to a different site that covers the same info.
That one and the "full draw" link at the end were the ones I noted. I can confirm the PAS update went thru.
My thought was that Rublev was returning serve too close to the baseline. If FAA’s first serve percentage and speed had maintained, he would have ended the match in two sets.
It also appears that FAA has some work to do controlling his mental game. The match was dead even up to the last game, where he double faulted twice to lose the match. This has to be jitters around getting so close to winning an ATP 1000 event and turning around a bad couple of years.
Since you appear to have a good handle on the backhand stoke, I’m curious what you think of Cameron Norrie’s backhand. It looks so awkward and is such a flat stroke that I am amazed he can compete at this level against players who have better net clearance. His stroke reminds me a bit of the old Jimmy Connors two-handed T2000 backhand drive.
The thing with backhands like Norrie/Kyrgios/Paul etc... They are incredibly flat, but just like Ferrer, the mechanics are so simple and the hand action is almost non existant. So the racquet head is very quiet around contact, which makes it a pretty repeatable motion. So they won't set the world on fire with speed or spin, but they can handle pace really well.
Connors is kind of the prototype. Hewitt was then another example.
It wasn't that close, Felix forced those two second serves because he wasn't winning rallies against Rublev in the second half of the third set, he needed the help from the service
Yeah, combined with the cramps, you could argue he needed to be taking more risk on serves
Curious how that second serve % changes if FAA could develop a real kick serve. Too good of an athlete to not have it.
Yeah. I guess considering clay isn't his favourite surface, that 3/4 pace sliding second serve is still pretty handy in quick indoors/hardcourts etc.
Which is why he can still win Basel even when he's had a terrible season. Not developing a kick serve is junior development malpractice.
I think it's partly just a trend as well; a lot of players are starting to up their second serve speeds and serve more to the forehand in search of unreturnables, but I agree you need to be able to do both/it would give you more options in conditions like Madrid/IW
At the very least, it gives you a serve to approach the net with on the AD side.