Sinner vs Fritz: ATP Finals Recap

breaking the sideline — heavyweight backhands — Covid balls

Jannik Sinner defeated Taylor Fritz 6/4 6/4 in the final of the Nitto ATP Finals on Sunday, capping off an undefeated tournament where he did not drop a set. The Italian’s 2024 season will go down as one of the most dominant in tour history:

• 50-3 on hard courts

• 70-6 overall

• Eight titles, including the Australian Open, US Open, and three Masters 1000s

• And just shy of $17 million in prize money (plus the $6 million in pocket change from the Six Kings Slam)

A repeat of this year’s US Open final, it was always going to be an uphill battle for Fritz. Little time had passed since I wrote the opening lines to that piece:

Fritz and Sinner play a similar brand of aggressive baseline tennis. Both are natural ball-strikers who welcome pace, but the Italian is a class above when it comes to movement. Such an edge reveals itself not only on defence, but also on offence.

In the wake of that match I felt that Fritz needed to open the court with angles, rather than hit through the Italian. The American started with such a play on the second point, breaking the sideline with a sharply struck crosscourt backhand:

Sinner stood up close on this second serve and Fritz went big straight into the body, helping to create this weak return. As Sinner drops back to defend, he exposes himself to short angles. Also, no doubt in my mind that Sinner would find a forehand on that type of return.

Given the improved movement and shot selection of Sinner in the last 18 months, I feel there is no one who can go toe-to-toe with him in baseline battles and come out on top in 50% of the scraps - Alcaraz included. In fact, the Spaniard has done well against Sinner by opting out of baseline duels, instead using more forehand angles and higher flighted balls, more backhand slices — offensively and defensively, more drop shots, and enterprising forays to the net. While Fritz is not as tactically flexible as Alcaraz, he does have the means to open up the court as mentioned, and at this stage of his career, I can’t see any other path to victory against this version of the Italian, who sent a warning shot early off the back of some typically flat and linear backhand exchanges, melting this backhand up the line with that shorn off finish for directional control:

Sinner’s balance and ability to move from Torino to the baseline with quick little steps is one difference you can see between him and Fritz. Fritz’s base is narrower, and he doesn’t appear as light on his feet.

“I definitely need to get more explosive and quicker in the first step,” said Fritz. “If I can just get a little quicker off the split step, it will help my return of serve a lot. If I can just put myself in slightly better chances to break serve, I think that's going to be a huge improvement. That's something I've done already, but I think there's still a lot of room for improvement there.”

— Fritz for atptour.com

To Fritz’s credit it did look like he was often trying to open up the court, but even his best shots were returned at his feet:

That’s a great forehand from Fritz to break the sideline and stretch Sinner, but Sinner does a phenomenal job on the running forehand to dip this back at the American’s feet. Sinner won this point.

Another theme that emerged from their US Open final was Sinner’s return adjustment against the American; late in the second set of that match Sinner started to drop back and take big cuts from the deep - something he did to Medvedev in Australia, and Tiafoe in Cincinnati. He had done the same to Fritz’s second serve in their earlier round robin match:

Sinner reserved the deep second serve position for Fritz alone in Turin.

We got a glimpse of such a play in the fifth game of the match, with Sinner able to crunch a backhand high and heavy, pushing Fritz off the baseline into a defensive buggy-whip forehand.

Sinner does such a good job finding forehands from the ad-court.

There aren’t many two-handers who can crush backhands heavy and deep from deep positions themselves. Such a shot is usually the domain of the single-handed players, who can get the racquet travelling faster with a greater “in-to-out” swing path. But Sinner, like Nadal, achieves a huge backswing, the tip of the racquet flying back in a slingshot manner, before accelerating towards the ball from a great distance. Readers may recall my “heavyweight technique” piece from the de Minaur vs Sinner match in Toronto last year.

That’s as close to a lefty forehand as a backhand can get I reckon.

In light of this backhand, Fritz made an interesting comment in the presser:

“Something that got exposed today is when the balls got pretty worn out, I was struggling to generate any power with my backhand. It allowed him to take control of a lot of points. When the balls were newer, that wasn't really an issue. I was able to stay in the points.”

— Fritz for atptour.com

It’s an interesting point, especially in the context of Zverev’s recent ball sleuthing when he was asked about the ball issue from Defector’s Giri Nathan (lightly edited for clarity):

“Yeah, the ball is a big subject. I kind of went into search mode a little bit. Since COVID, all the companies — it's not only one company, so Dunlop was always the best tennis ball kind of — but they've gotten a lot worse. I always loved the Penn balls. They've gotten a lot slower," Zverev said.

“The reason being, because of COVID, the companies tried to cut costs and they're using a different rubber material now. They're using a different material for the tennis balls, which makes the tennis balls between 30% and 60% slower on average compared to what it was before COVID. I just think in general the balls got a lot worse and a lot slower. They're not as consistent anymore. They don't last as long anymore.”

“Before, even a Dunlop ball, why I used to love it, why a Dunlop ball was so great, when they were new, they were very fast through the court, then they got bigger. When they got bigger, they were still flying through the air because the air inside and the pressure inside didn't leave. The ball just fluffed up."

“What happens now with the tennis balls is that the air and the pressure leaves the tennis ball because of the material. The material doesn't keep it inside. It's not only that the ball fluffs up, but actually the air and the pressure of the tennis ball drops drastically. That's why a lot of players now have elbow issues. A lot of players have wrist issues. That was not the case about 10, 15 years ago.”

“They're a little bit like a shuttlecock. They fly very fast through the air the first two, three meters, then they just slow down. There's nothing that keeps the ball alive, which was very different about five, six years ago.”

— Alexander Zverev

Medvedev is another player who has been very vocal in his displeasure of these deflated balls:

“So, during COVID, the balls got cheaper, worse. There's a conspiracy theory, that after COVID the manufactures thought: ‘Why make the balls better, more expensive, if these will do?’”

“There are some shots, let me give you an example, my backhand cross: In 2019 I could often open up the court with it, come to the net — which is a rare occasion for me — and finish the rally with a volley. But now, I feel like for me to be able to open the court with a backhand, using these balls, which are as big as a plushie toy, and then come to the net… it would be incredible.”

— Medvedev for @tennis_bolshoi

I love a good conspiracy theory. I also love Meddy. But I digress.

It’s perhaps interesting to note that of the two service games that Fritz was broken in, the first occurred in the seventh game of the first set — the last game before new balls would be introduced. In the second set Fritz got broken at 2-2 when the balls were in their eighth game.¹

In light of Fritz’s post match comments, I think you can see him complain to his box about the balls here, serving at 3-5 in the first set, after holding easily using newer balls.

I slowed this down for analysis and to the best of my judgment, I believe he said “Medvedev is right, there is a conspiracy, these balls are shit”

So yeah, Medvedev has pointed out that these balls favour power players, guys who can hit through slow conditions — the Berrettini forehand, the Alcaraz forehand, the Tsitsipas forehand, the Sinner everything. It’s a compelling footnote and perhaps one more reason why the Italian may be thriving in 2024.

Fritz has a more compact backhand than Sinner. It’s perfect for redirecting pace, and he probably would benefit from livelier balls, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that his backhand gets hurt by dead balls compared to Sinner:

Note how the racquet doesn’t get as far back as Sinner. That high elbow follow through is a feature of great control backhands. “Air the armpits” was coined by Vic Braden way back.

However, at 2-3 Fritz had no trouble vaporising six-game old balls with his forehand (at 100 mph, to be exact). But if we return to our sideline breaking theme, we see Sinner turn the tables on Fritz, pulling him wide into a forced error (admittedly the Italian looked like he got a bit of frame on that last forehand to help it wider, but you pay for the whole racquet).

“It was a monster forehand into the Sinner forehand corner, and he just sort of slides across and absorbs it. So tough to get him to defend on the baseline.”

— Tennis TV

Another common theme from their US Open bout was Fritz’s success with his flat backhand into the Sinner forehand — especially on return. Fritz earned one break point chance in this match when returning to stay in the first set at 4-5, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it coincided with a couple of great backhands into the Sinner forehand:

Great backhand from Fritz, but it was Sinner who hit the backhand down-the-line better today.

Of course, Sinner hit an unreturned serve on that lone break point, and his serving overall was just very good. Ten aces in the first set, 78% first-serves in, 90% first-serve points won:

“What I was really impressed with today was how he served. He served absolutely lights out. So many lines. He placed the serve great. He took a lot of risk on the second serve as well. I think that was probably one of his main game plans, to not let me attack his second serve. He did a great job of not only mixing up the second but being very aggressive with it, not throwing in double-faults for serving bigger and being a little riskier with it.

— Fritz for atptour.com

Here’s an example of the second-serve aggression:

And that forehand technique:

Sinner had a 9.5 forehand rating.

There’s sometimes a point in a match where the entirety of both players — their strengths and weaknesses, and their diverging fates — can be encapsulated. If I had to pick one tonight, it would be this:

Sinner is always looking to attack, but he defends so well, using the forehand squash shot on the slide to stay in the point, and then the running forehand. Fritz’s volleys have a lot of work to do, but that’s the next step for the American — it’s low hanging fruit compared to getting faster.

You just can’t miss that at this level.

Sinner broke at 2-2 in the second set off the back of more inside-out backhand rockets — a shot he used to great effect against Medvedev last year in Vienna:

Such a devastating shot if you got that one in the bag. Also, this is the best camera angle.

I think it’s important to note that Fritz played a pretty damn good match tonight. Better than his US Open final performance. He pushed hard in the 2-3 and 3-4 return games in the second set, but each time, Sinner just elevated his game in any area necessary — serves, forehands, backhands, movement, drop shots.

Here’s another threaded backhand on a pretty big point serving at 3-2:

I mean, that’s a great backhand from Fritz. It’s low, hard, cross, the kind of shot to make the opponent feel some pressure at 30-30, and Sinner just threads the needle at 134 kmh.

Sinner just kept this insane level all the way to the finish line. “Robotic” was a word one commentator used, but he did concede it didn’t capture what he meant. I remember a very young Sinner circa 2019 or so being asked what his best quality was, and he didn’t mention a shot or anything, he said something along the lines of “I can stay very calm in a match” and I’ve always remembered that about him and believe that.

Casper Ruud gave some insight on playing Sinner after his semifinal loss that I thought worked well as a finishing nod to the Italian. Some excerpts from a Tennis Majors piece:

“Every kind of groundstroke feels like rockets are thrown at you. That’s tough.”

“I found that he was playing great offensive and also great defensively. Felt like he was moving better than sometimes you might expect from him because he’s a quite tall guy. He’s strong because he plays long matches and has no problem. When you look at him, he doesn’t necessarily look like a body builder, you know? But I think he also knows himself.”²

“He’s really fast on the court. He can get to many balls… I felt like even some points I was throwing him from side to side, he was defending and sliding around really well.”

“You feel like unless you hit a ball with really good depth or close to the sidelines, and even if you hit close to the sidelines but not fast enough, he’s going to rip it back at you. You know that keeping depth and a heavy ball is really important. As soon as you don’t necessarily hit your spots, he’s going to be there and try to punish you. And most of the times it works well.”

“On TV it looks probably similar but Jannik hits a faster ball than Novak. He doesn’t let you breathe. With Novak, you can play rallies. Not going to say it’s easier to play Novak because he’s the best in the history. But at least with Novak you can play rallies and not be terrified of Novak ripping, like, a bomb down the line or cross-court or these things.”

We sign off, once again, with Forza. The kid is re-writing how tennis is played.

I’ll see you after Malaga. HC

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A final note: Several subscribers had emailed me recently to bring to my attention that the Tennis Channel’s Jim Courier is a “fanboy” of A Thread of Order. Thanks to those subscribers, and thanks to Jim for his glowing endorsement(s) on the air (I did manage to catch a replay, much to my delight). As a result, there are several hundred new subscribers joining us this week. Welcome to the thread. Drop a comment, hit the heart, and feel free to share with others, as we gracefully climb toward 4000 informed tennis nerds.

1. Balls are changed after seven games of the match starting (as these balls are also used for the 5-minute warm-up) and are then changed every nine games thereafter.

2. Is it just me or has the other players’ language towards Sinner changed subtly since the Clostebol case aired? Alcaraz called Sinner “a beast” recently, and Ruud here made connections to body builders. I might dig for other instances.