Hi Hugh, interesting analysis as usual. I'm curious to know where you got the strokes speed and rotation from, cause while watching the match on prime they showed the same statistic a couple of times. The rpm was very similar to yours, but the speed was wildly different. I can't remember exactly (I could look it up if you want) but I believe on the forehead side Sinner's was over 10 kpm faster than De Mineaur. And that was also the feeling I had while watching (They never showed the backhand).
Interesting. This is certainly a part of tennis that is not always clear and lacking. I usually use the Infosys numbers (as they are associated/official with the ATP) that you can find here:
Ah right. There was no full replay of the match when I started my analysis last night (TennisTV is hopeless; this was 4+ hours after the match had finished), so while I would usually watch a full replay and catch a screen grab of something like that, the extended highlights was only 20 min worth, so you don't get everything. I might amend it once a full replay becomes available. Thanks for that.
Great stuff as always, Hugh. What's the takeaway heading into US Open for you? Would you see Sinner as the clear 4th favorite (albeit a bit distant from the top 3?)
Aug 15, 2023·edited Aug 15, 2023Liked by Hugh Clarke
"All that additional racquet head speed Sinner generates isn’t for nothing: he’s got the heaviest two-hander on tour, and if you give him time and space he will hurt you with it, as he did to secure the initial break."
You mentioned how Sinner's backhand is the heaviest on tour and you aren't the only one, I have heard that statement many times. Yet I struggle to believe it is (or any of the new-gen). He might be quite tall with long levers, great balance and has technique optimizing for the racquet flip/high racquet head speed but is it really as heavy as Wawrinka, Safin, Nalbandian and Agassi's backhands?.
- He isn't physically as heavy as the players mentioned and his racquet is nowhere near as heavy as theirs (this is probably conducive to the racquet flip he employs on his groundstrokes)?.
- Why would you consider his BH as heavy if he uses far lighter racquet specs and RHS that does not seem far apart from the mentioned players (I think), wouldn't that make a less heavier ball or not a heavy ball at all compared to them since the ball being hit by Sinner has less mass and less swing weight but high RHS colliding into it as opposed to e.g. Safin which had very high mass and high swing weight and high RHS?.
- I am pretty sure he isn't creating racquet head speed or spin that is leagues apart from the example's I mentioned and they might have actually made more RHS & RPMs on their BHs (could be wrong on that one) but still the fact he's in the conversation for a "heavy" ball has me intrigued, why do you think he is up there?.
Remember that a heavier racquet provides more power and control *all things being equal*...A hevaier racquet is harder to swing as fast. Sinner probably IS swinging faster with a slightly lighter stick to achieve these numbers. Could be other factors, but that's my hunch.
Great read as always. It makes me sad to see someone like de Minaur with clear limitations on his game due to lack of power not making any visible technical changes to try and improve his weaknesses. I can't see him challenging any of the big names without these changes. Does it come with risk? Of course. It seems weird to say this after he just reached his best ranking, but it would be great to see him work towards a more powerful game especially as he ages and he loses some of his explosive speed.
Had a question regarding Sinner’s serve. Recently, as you mentioned back in Wimbledon preview (and I believe that dates back to Hertogenbosch), Sinner has changed his serve *again*. Have you seen Gill Gross’s tweet comparing Sinner’s position at ball toss release between USO 22 (which was the same serve as Wimbledon 22 where you had noticed and liked the change) and Toronto 23? It seems (additionally to getting back to pinpoint stance) he has shortened it again, abandoning the delayed racket head. What do you think of that change? Is it finally the working formula? It seems since Hertogenbosch he gets more damage and power behind his first serve but his 1st serve percentage has dropped. This week it was 65/49/46/50 which makes me think his timing might have gotten worse.
I'm usually an advocate for the delayed racquet head that Sinner had at W22. We see that feature in a lot of great servers (Karlovic, Kyrgios, Fed, Djokovic, Lopez, etc.). I would have to compare his stats across both years for a few months to see if there were more consistent changes. It looks to me—at Wimbledon at least—that he was hitting more aces for the same or less doulbe faults, but I have not checked first serve % and overall first serve points won etc. As you point out, his first serve % was rather low this week.
Something I will definitely keep an eye on; it's a huge part of the game for him once you're in the top-5.
Re: Gross' YouTube pod show, he did describe Sinner's delayed racquet head as starting down by his calf. Obviously this creates aggressive lag, but that's also pretty far to go to hit the ball. Would seem that a delayed racquet head on the serve could be at the waist and still be effective.
Also...Pretty sure Humbert and Popyrin altered their serves in the last year or so to abbreviate their take-backs. My guess is it helps them simplify the stroke and focus on consistency, while not sacrificing a whole lot of power. Certainly not in Popyrin's case.
Hi Hugh another great post, I have been diving into the serve mechanics myself. What I have been looking into the most is how to increase external rotation of the shoulder and then how to also apply this in the serve. The best resources on how to do this have been baseball related however. And what seems to be the general message in this is that you can improve external rotation to a certain extend but that most people won’t be able to get it optimally like Andy Roddick and Sam Groth. I don’t know how much I agree with this because I tried to improve my own external rotation by holding a fifteen pound dumbbell behind my shoulder while standing and with my forearm at an 180 degree angle, this pushed my shoulder into a far degree of external rotation good enough to where I should be able to create crazy pace with it, the only problem is that this can’t easily be replicated when actually serving. The biggest purpose of the leg drive in my opinion is to push the shoulder into this high degree of external rotation, but you do need to have some loose shoulder here to cooperate.
Side note here: Sinner doesn’t seem to have a great amount of external rotation but he makes up for it by flexing his elbow, but the downside to this is that is harder to time the ball correctly and thus causes a lower first serve percentage.
Also I believe in the start of your writing on the serve you should have used external rotation instead of internal, the part that you have underlined als is a link.
Just to clarify, while external rotation is where the racquet technically "accelerates from" (i.e., from the back scratch position) and is also what the article largely talks about, what I was pointing out is that great servers actually start driving their legs when still in a lot of INTERNAL rotation. This is how you can maximize what is called the "stretch-shortening" cycle. You want to stretch/be in an external position for a very brief period of time, and you do that by going from internal to external quickly.
So great serves go from internal --> to external quickly, which means they can then go from external --> to internal quickly as the racquet goes to hit the ball.
Hope that makes sense!
For example.
Watch this kyrgios video below and pause as soon as you notice that his legs are starting to drive upwards:
What you will see is that the racquet is nowhere near the "externally rotated" position behind his back. The racquet is still on the hitting side of his body!
He is going to move the racquet head through a lot of space and snap through internal-->external-->internal in a very short space of time.
Hi hugh! I was wondering: De Minaur have kind of the same style of Medvedev, although, Sinner have 6-0 againts demon and 0-6 against Daniil. What is the big diference beyond the serve?
Hi Hugh, interesting analysis as usual. I'm curious to know where you got the strokes speed and rotation from, cause while watching the match on prime they showed the same statistic a couple of times. The rpm was very similar to yours, but the speed was wildly different. I can't remember exactly (I could look it up if you want) but I believe on the forehead side Sinner's was over 10 kpm faster than De Mineaur. And that was also the feeling I had while watching (They never showed the backhand).
Interesting. This is certainly a part of tennis that is not always clear and lacking. I usually use the Infosys numbers (as they are associated/official with the ATP) that you can find here:
https://www.atptour.com/en/stats/second-screen/archive/2023/421/MS001?isLive=false&set=0&tab=ShotPlacement
This used the average for both speed and spins.
This also underscores how criminally awful tennis analytics are. Everything is proprietary and behind a walled garden.
Same goes for highlights. And it's never worse than during a grand slam. Wimbledon highlights were like 90 seconds long and 48 hours late.
At the end she’s showed both forehand and backhand and Sinner was faster on both if I remember correctly
According to TennisTV
127 kph on the forehand and 120 kph on the backhand for Sinner
110 kph on the forehand and 102 kph on the backhand for De Minaur
I think the difference is TennisTV is only topspin shots; the ATP 2nd screen is everything.
Ah right. There was no full replay of the match when I started my analysis last night (TennisTV is hopeless; this was 4+ hours after the match had finished), so while I would usually watch a full replay and catch a screen grab of something like that, the extended highlights was only 20 min worth, so you don't get everything. I might amend it once a full replay becomes available. Thanks for that.
Great stuff as always, Hugh. What's the takeaway heading into US Open for you? Would you see Sinner as the clear 4th favorite (albeit a bit distant from the top 3?)
I think I'd say Djokovic and Alcaraz are deserved favourites. Then Sinner and Medvedev are in a second tier.
After them there are the usual suspects: Tsitsipas, Zverev, Ruud, Rune pending his injury.
But the draw will be very interesting. I'll try and get a draw preview out before the US Open
"All that additional racquet head speed Sinner generates isn’t for nothing: he’s got the heaviest two-hander on tour, and if you give him time and space he will hurt you with it, as he did to secure the initial break."
You mentioned how Sinner's backhand is the heaviest on tour and you aren't the only one, I have heard that statement many times. Yet I struggle to believe it is (or any of the new-gen). He might be quite tall with long levers, great balance and has technique optimizing for the racquet flip/high racquet head speed but is it really as heavy as Wawrinka, Safin, Nalbandian and Agassi's backhands?.
- He isn't physically as heavy as the players mentioned and his racquet is nowhere near as heavy as theirs (this is probably conducive to the racquet flip he employs on his groundstrokes)?.
- Why would you consider his BH as heavy if he uses far lighter racquet specs and RHS that does not seem far apart from the mentioned players (I think), wouldn't that make a less heavier ball or not a heavy ball at all compared to them since the ball being hit by Sinner has less mass and less swing weight but high RHS colliding into it as opposed to e.g. Safin which had very high mass and high swing weight and high RHS?.
- I am pretty sure he isn't creating racquet head speed or spin that is leagues apart from the example's I mentioned and they might have actually made more RHS & RPMs on their BHs (could be wrong on that one) but still the fact he's in the conversation for a "heavy" ball has me intrigued, why do you think he is up there?.
Well heaviness is kind of a combination of spin and power. Sinner has loads of both.
Of course, he has less spin than the one-handers, but he generally has more speed than theirs. Numerous data sets put him high in both speed and spin:
https://www.atptour.com/en/news/sinner-infosys-beyond-the-numbers-april-2020
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Frh0qq3q0k7pa1.png%3Fwidth%3D1557%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D8bfde9a92b9395fd9777b28805461b8360dd2bb9
Remember that a heavier racquet provides more power and control *all things being equal*...A hevaier racquet is harder to swing as fast. Sinner probably IS swinging faster with a slightly lighter stick to achieve these numbers. Could be other factors, but that's my hunch.
Great read as always. It makes me sad to see someone like de Minaur with clear limitations on his game due to lack of power not making any visible technical changes to try and improve his weaknesses. I can't see him challenging any of the big names without these changes. Does it come with risk? Of course. It seems weird to say this after he just reached his best ranking, but it would be great to see him work towards a more powerful game especially as he ages and he loses some of his explosive speed.
Hi Hugh,
Great analysis as always,
Had a question regarding Sinner’s serve. Recently, as you mentioned back in Wimbledon preview (and I believe that dates back to Hertogenbosch), Sinner has changed his serve *again*. Have you seen Gill Gross’s tweet comparing Sinner’s position at ball toss release between USO 22 (which was the same serve as Wimbledon 22 where you had noticed and liked the change) and Toronto 23? It seems (additionally to getting back to pinpoint stance) he has shortened it again, abandoning the delayed racket head. What do you think of that change? Is it finally the working formula? It seems since Hertogenbosch he gets more damage and power behind his first serve but his 1st serve percentage has dropped. This week it was 65/49/46/50 which makes me think his timing might have gotten worse.
Yes I did see Gill's tweet.
I'm usually an advocate for the delayed racquet head that Sinner had at W22. We see that feature in a lot of great servers (Karlovic, Kyrgios, Fed, Djokovic, Lopez, etc.). I would have to compare his stats across both years for a few months to see if there were more consistent changes. It looks to me—at Wimbledon at least—that he was hitting more aces for the same or less doulbe faults, but I have not checked first serve % and overall first serve points won etc. As you point out, his first serve % was rather low this week.
Something I will definitely keep an eye on; it's a huge part of the game for him once you're in the top-5.
Re: Gross' YouTube pod show, he did describe Sinner's delayed racquet head as starting down by his calf. Obviously this creates aggressive lag, but that's also pretty far to go to hit the ball. Would seem that a delayed racquet head on the serve could be at the waist and still be effective.
Also...Pretty sure Humbert and Popyrin altered their serves in the last year or so to abbreviate their take-backs. My guess is it helps them simplify the stroke and focus on consistency, while not sacrificing a whole lot of power. Certainly not in Popyrin's case.
Bublik, too, from 2 years ago I think...big, live arms that can sacrifice a little lag/speed and still crush the ball.
Yeah at the end of the day you have to do what works for you and that you feel comfortable with!
Hi Hugh another great post, I have been diving into the serve mechanics myself. What I have been looking into the most is how to increase external rotation of the shoulder and then how to also apply this in the serve. The best resources on how to do this have been baseball related however. And what seems to be the general message in this is that you can improve external rotation to a certain extend but that most people won’t be able to get it optimally like Andy Roddick and Sam Groth. I don’t know how much I agree with this because I tried to improve my own external rotation by holding a fifteen pound dumbbell behind my shoulder while standing and with my forearm at an 180 degree angle, this pushed my shoulder into a far degree of external rotation good enough to where I should be able to create crazy pace with it, the only problem is that this can’t easily be replicated when actually serving. The biggest purpose of the leg drive in my opinion is to push the shoulder into this high degree of external rotation, but you do need to have some loose shoulder here to cooperate.
Side note here: Sinner doesn’t seem to have a great amount of external rotation but he makes up for it by flexing his elbow, but the downside to this is that is harder to time the ball correctly and thus causes a lower first serve percentage.
Also I believe in the start of your writing on the serve you should have used external rotation instead of internal, the part that you have underlined als is a link.
Just to clarify, while external rotation is where the racquet technically "accelerates from" (i.e., from the back scratch position) and is also what the article largely talks about, what I was pointing out is that great servers actually start driving their legs when still in a lot of INTERNAL rotation. This is how you can maximize what is called the "stretch-shortening" cycle. You want to stretch/be in an external position for a very brief period of time, and you do that by going from internal to external quickly.
So great serves go from internal --> to external quickly, which means they can then go from external --> to internal quickly as the racquet goes to hit the ball.
Hope that makes sense!
For example.
Watch this kyrgios video below and pause as soon as you notice that his legs are starting to drive upwards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_LU2q1CROA&t=82s
What you will see is that the racquet is nowhere near the "externally rotated" position behind his back. The racquet is still on the hitting side of his body!
He is going to move the racquet head through a lot of space and snap through internal-->external-->internal in a very short space of time.
Yeah that clarifies a lot, thx
Hi hugh! I was wondering: De Minaur have kind of the same style of Medvedev, although, Sinner have 6-0 againts demon and 0-6 against Daniil. What is the big diference beyond the serve?
I'd say Medvedev is able to stand much deeper when he plays, based on his reach, so he is able to blunt Sinner's power far more effectively.