Player Spotlight: Maxime Cressy
"Instill doubt"
In an era of polyester strings and slower courts, success for the past 20 years has been all about the baseline; making balls, extending rallies, becoming the metaphorical ‘brick wall’. This has meant the best players have trended toward two-hand backhands, deeper court positions, and excellent lateral movement. Daniil Medvedev is the prototype, along with Alexander Zverev. In 2021, the top 100 players consisted of 100 players who predominantly played from the baseline.1
In 2022, Maxime Cressy is an anomaly.
At 6’6’’ with a two-handed backhand he fits the description of the prototypical player that tennis is churning out, but that is where the similarities end. Maxime Cressy is an all-out serve-and-volleyer. He is a brick wall operating on the net. In the fourth round of the Australian Open this year, Cressy’s style was validated as he pushed Medvedev in four close sets (he had a set point in the second set as well).
Cressy’s goal when he plays is to '“instill doubt”—something he tells himself constantly2:
“It’s a way for me to meditate, during changeovers, especially when I’m not feeling well,” Cressy told USA TODAY Sports. “I just repeat those words over and over. It’s a way for me to avoid all the distractions and stay focused. It’s a way for me to calm myself down…Those words help remind me that the opponent in front of me is just any opponent, and if I focus on myself, then everything is going to work out, if I really focus on my game plan.”
Cressy has had a brilliant start to 2022, making his way through qualifying at the Melbourne 250 and losing to Nadal in the final (he had set points in that match also). He has a huge first serve and is not afraid to go after the second with plenty of heat. The trend in recent years has seen players hitting bigger on the second, and with so many tall guys on tour now, it’s becoming a pretty popular strategy. But what has been impressive so far in 2022 is not his ability to hold serve (it’s on par with the other big servers, as shown in the second table), but rather his ability to break. Here are the 52-week return stats for similar performing servers:
While Berrettini’s class from the baseline is shown with a significantly higher overall percentage of first and second return points won, Cressy is doing plenty of damage on return with his chip-and-charge tactic, especially on the break-points—there is no better time to “instill doubt”. Throughout 2022 so far, Cressy is breaking in 14% of return games, the exact same as Berrettini. If you have seen all four of these guys play, you would probably agree with me in saying that Cressy’s groundstrokes are by far the weakest of the group (I would rank them Berrettini, daylight, Opelka, Isner, Cressy). Cressy’s perseverance with the net-rushing tactic signals that he’s got plenty of conviction and belief in the strategy (he didn’t even make the six-man line-up of his college team for his sophomore and junior seasons at UCLA), and that he is aware of his own game’s limitations; he’s prepared to make return points as much of a coin toss as possible.
Heading into the sunshine double, it will be interesting to see how Cressy performs in serve-friendly conditions. As another rising American with a huge serve, Opelka should take notes and look to instill doubt in his own return games in a similar fashion.
Dan Evans and Feliciano Lopez, while not all-out net rushers, do come in frequently.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/tennis/2021/08/31/u-s-open-maxime-cressy-green-book-five-set-upset/5674813001/