Tsitsipas vs FAA: Dubai Final Recap

racquets — backhands — break points — forehand flips

Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime 6/3 6/3 in the final of the Dubai ATP 500 on Saturday to clinch his first 500-level title. The Greek was 0-12 in ATP 500 finals heading into the match. He also improves his tour H2H to 6-3 against FAA.

Personally I found this match fascinating. This was a match between two players who were both teenage phenoms and who experienced early tour success, only for their backhands to prove as serious achilles heels for tier one opponents.

Felix Auger-Aliassime leads the tour in match wins in 2025, and the serve, forehand, and movement look to be back to their best. However, the talk of the tournament all week had been the mysterious blacked out frame that Tsitsipas wielded with much panache. Anyone who pays attention to gear could tell with a close up that there was no Wilson frame under the paint, but rather, some version of a Babolat Aero 98.

That throat design, coupled with a 16x20 string pattern, is a dead giveaway for a Babolat Aero 98. Some version of this frame is also used by Rune and Alcaraz. FAA also endorses this frame, but uses an older box-beamed model. Tsitsipas’ old Wilson was reportedly some version of the 2013 BLX Blade 18x20 from his junior days.

Eagle-eyed sleuthing from Matt Willis to catch the Babolat head guard from the stringing room.

Contractually signed to Wilson, and the poster boy (literally) of the Wilson Blade racquet series he uses (used), Tsitsipas still stenciled his strings with the usual ‘W’ Wilson logo during the Dubai event this week. But the strings were also different, reportedly a variation of Babolat RPM blast (as opposed to his usual Luxilon 4G). All in all, it appears to be a more powerful and forgiving setup similar to his younger bully, Carlos Alcaraz (who owns a 6-0 H2H against Stef). Apparently Stef tried Carlos’ racquet last year and loved it.¹

After his semifinal win Tsitsipas mentioned what he was looking for in the frame, given the recent environment of dead balls:

“Comfort is one thing that it brings to my game, and that’s one thing I’ve been trying to add to my game, and I’ve been receiving some of that extra help… I've spoken about how balls and courts have changed in the last couple of years, and that's just me trying to adapt to that.”

“Comfort” in this sense, is likely not referring to a more arm-soothing flexible frame, but rather, a stiffer frame and more open string pattern, making off-centre shots more forgiving and powerful when attempting to handle pace on that wing. Ditto for “extra help” (emphasis added):

“Modern racquets are deliberately designed to be stiff to reduce frame vibrations. As well as improving comfort, reduced vibration losses act to increase the outgoing ball speed off the tip of the racquet. The ball speed off the middle of the strings doesn’t depend on racquet stiffness because frame vibrations are not generated for such an impact. Thus, when you hit in the middle of the strings, there is no difference in power between a stiff of a flexible racquet. But if you hit at a point on the strings away from the middle of the strings, vibration will occur. Stiff racquets vibrate less than flexible racquets because they bend less and, hence, feel better and will have more power if the ball is not hit cleanly in the middle of the strings.”

— Technical Tennis: Racquets, Strings, Balls, Courts, Spin, and Bounce, by Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey

“A stiffer racquet will not bend as much as a more flexible one. Bending loses energy because the frame does not snap back by the time the ball leaves the strings.”

— Tennis Warehouse University

“…stiffer frames also lead to an increase of power especially on hits outside of the sweet spot, because less energy is lost during the impact due to the frame flexing and vibrating…It’s also worth mentioning that lighter racquets need to be stiff, because there is not much mass moving through the contact and the frame would bend too much, leading to a significant loss of directional control.”

— impactingtennis.com

The change had the intended effect.

Not only was the Tsitsipas backhand faster (and with less topspin) than his 52-week average in Dubai this week, he was also hitting it closer to the lines more often, again courtesy of Matt Willis and Tennis Insights:

The whole racquet episode this week reminded me of a thought from the 2023 Wimbledon Final:

Sport is often compared to the brutal and competitive elements of nature and evolution, the “survival of the fittest” and all that. Turns out that is a misquote. It is actually better summarised as “the one that is most adaptable to change”, and it this quality that I think defines the great players.

Stef adapted.

Both FAA and Tsitsipas own big serves and forehands, but both also have a clear weakness on their backhand sides for different reasons. They scored poorly compared to the rest of the tour on both in-percentage and winners in 2024.

Red = Tsitsipas. Green = FAA. Bottom left is not where you want to be on this chart. Chart from Tennis Insights.

Tsitsipas lacks an elite slice — crucial to a single-hander’s defensive efforts — and has lacked stability and an offensive threat from his topspin backhand, in my opinion, due to too many moving parts coupled with an aggressive court position (a trend this new Babolat frame may prove more forgiving towards).

Much like other vulnerable swings, the root cause is often due to not swinging in-to-out enough and/or generating enough racquet speed. Here you can see Tsitsipas setup with a neutral wrist and an upright racquet head, with his right elbow lower and closer to his chest. The Wilson stencil is above his left ear, rather than sitting behind his right ear (or left shoulder). This creates two problems. Firstly, there’s now not enough space to generate racquet head speed — crucial if you are on the run and having to play slice defense — so the best way to hit a slice from this abbreviated setup is to hit it flatter like a Wawrinka (this is perhaps why Stef doesn’t extend the wrist, as he is pushing it more). The lifting of the right elbow helps you extend the shoulder in the down swing, and then extend the elbow, helping to create that in-to-out racquet speed. But the swing length is only half of Stefanos’ problem. The fact he sets up with a neutral wrist means he must make contact farther in front of his body compared to a more extended wrist. The beauty of the defensive slice, if played correctly, is that you can play it late — behind you, even — and still carve the outside of the ball crosscourt, as Alcaraz so often does. See here for more.

On the other side of the net, the FAA backhand problems are also technical in nature. We can see that the Canadian has a high power position (good for building speed), but also an extreme drop — a feature found in Nadal, Sinner, and Rune also. However — and this is critical for a steep drop backhand — unlike Rune, Sinner, and Nadal, FAA’s racquet always stays on the hitting side; he never gets the racquet head far enough back, or the hands close enough to his pockets (more inside), to enable an in-to-out swing path or create a decent stretch-reflex in the right upper back and shoulder. This makes the racquet change paths more abruptly close to contact, reducing his ability to time the ball as well. The lack of forward speed from a steep position is what forces the hips to overturn, to “help” the racquet arrive on time, and that’s why he is very front on at contact, again forcing him to roll his hands over the ball, further impacting timing. They are compensatory movements based on a “local” technical maxima.²

Look how far back Rune’s left elbow gets. The racquet tip on the backswing has a “left to right” motion to it right as he steps forward (in the opposite direction, to create a stretch) and gets way behind his body like Sinner, Nadal, Davydenko. You can also see how the racquet drop naturally makes the right wrist flex, which naturally closes the racquet face in both men.

Like Rune, Sinner also has this manufactured flip, where the hands and racquet are thrown backwards as he steps forward into the ball:

Again note how far back the racquet tip gets, and how close the hands pass to the right pocket. Nadal? Same

You can see that an outside setup and swing/hand path can work when there is little drop, like with Norrie, Kyrgios, Alcaraz, Carreno Busta, Mannarino, de Minaur, etc. See below the similar setups between FAA and Pablo Carreno Busta, but the Spaniard has almost no drop, so he can easily drive the ball and time it well.

Right screenshots are both taken at the maximum drop in the swing.

Of course, top pros know their weaknesses, but correcting them are exceedingly difficult, especially given the short off-season and constant pressure to perform in professional tennis. As I wrote in the Zverev vs Humbert Paris recap:

On first appearances improving weaknesses seems the low-hanging fruit, but the problem is that motor patterns and old habits make that fruit tree feel more like a Californian Redwood. There’s a lot of work that goes into moving arms, wrists, and racquets even a few inches, akin to steering a cruise ship with an oar. But if you can do it, the payoffs are large.

…Well it’s about time we get into the match I reckon.

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First Set

Weaknesses aside, FAA has been on fire this year, winning titles in Adelaide and Montpellier, and reaching the semifinals in Doha before losing to eventual champion Rublev in a third set tiebreaker. He owns a tour leading 16 wins so far in 2025. His success has been built on the strengths of his game firing — the serve and forehand are both very good — as well as the movement looking sharp again after some injury issues in the past 18 months. Both men showcased their improvements in an early exchange:

Let’s call that a Babolat return. I actually think FAA’s backhand is much better on the stretch because it’s impossible for him to get too steep with the racquet. The path is much more linear by necessity.

Felix was the first to sniff a chance, earning two break point chances at 2-1 15-40, but Tsitsipas found an ace on the first one and never lost control with his forehand on the second.

Through the first five games the Canadian looked the sharper of the two. Tsitsipas’ backhand looked very Tsitsipas-ish in the old sense: missing, weak slices. We didn’t see something promising until he held for 3-3:

A lot of people on Twitter were skeptical of how much a minor racquet change can really matter. They are both correct and incorrect. The racquet change is only minor and makes only a minor difference in terms of performance (slightly more power, a slightly bigger sweetspot), but minor differences are everything at this level when winning 55% of points makes you world number 1.

FAA was motoring through his 3-3 service game with typical serve-plus-one excellence:

This was a second serve, and you can see Felix surprised Stef by going wide here. Stef split to his left anticipating to run around a Tee serve and make a backhand into a forehand.

But from 40-0 up it would be the last point FAA would win in this game, each point lost through a pattern of loose play from the Canadian (two missed forehands and a double fault) interspersed with Greek brilliance:

That’s a minced backhand return right on the baseline off a 211km/h serve.

However, as soon as the Greek had earned a break he was in danger of giving it back, saving two more break points at 30-40 and Ad-out. Both times Tsitsipas found a first serve into the FAA backhand. The first went unreturned, prompting this piece of commentary:

“Contrast there on that return to the previous game to Tsitsipas, where a couple of times he knew the serve was coming to the backhand and he really middled the return. Chance missed there for Aliassime.”

The second was dealt with an impressive serve-plus-one forehand:

Returning at 5-3 is where Stef’s backhand really shone. He handled a first serve and kept his rally ball quality high on the next backhand to open his game account:

210km/h taken just behind the baseline.

Then he got a look at a second serve and found perfect depth on the next backhand return:

Then he again found another perfect backhand return to setup his forehand, finishing with a delicate drop shot.

Maybe it’s just all about the racquet and that’s why Carlos and Stef are ripping forehands and drop shots.

The greek would break at 15-40, making his forehand return off a first serve, as FAA made another forehand error to close out the set. The scoreline didn’t really reflect how close the set had been, especially in the opening games, but down the stretch the Greek just found better stuff on key points.

“It wasn’t free-flowing from Tsitsipas. He was just able to turn up the dial in important moments.”

— Tennis TV

Second Set

Tsitsipas found himself down a break point on two more occasions early in the second at 1-1. Again he found two first serves, and again the plus-one forehand was rock solid:

Breaks the sideline with that plus-one from the middle. Tsitsipas is incredible at that.

That’s six break points saved with six first serves. FAA did his job on these two, making respectable returns, but the Greek hit his forehand fearlessly.

The very next game the Tsitsipas backhand again came through strong, handling first serves from his aggressive return position:

This was a great point that FAA eventually own, but Stef made him work very hard for it at 0-30.

Tsitsipas would earn two break point chances at 15-40. FAA found a first serve into Stef’s backhand, earned a weak reply, and approached into the backhand to force an error. At 30-40 he served to the forehand and they played an incredible point, probably the best point of the match, with Stef retrieving from the deep with sliding defensive lobs, and FAA on the attack, before FAA finally put away an overhead. FAA would go on to hold, but even from here it was made laborious by virtue of Tsitsipas again jagging back backhand returns and extending rallies in ways that haven’t been part of Stef’s DNA in recent times. It’s building pressure brick by bri — I mean, backhand by backhand, and that pays off at some point.

There was some miles on the body of FAA for sure, who was forced to a deciding set in all four of his matches enroute the final here, but his movement — especially to the defensive backhand — was pretty impressive and a good reminder as to the calibre of athlete he is.³ At 2-2 30-30 he kept asking seriously good questions of the Greek, who kept having all the answers when it mattered:

Too good. Petition to get rid of the scoreboard during points so we can watch incredible shots from the deep.

FAA held easy for 3-3 and Tsitsipas looked like he was heading for a similar easy hold at 40-15, but FAA started landing haymakers with the forehand. A mix of relaxed fatigue and confidence oozed from his strokes, and it was actually Tsitsipas who looked the one who was out of breath and struggling with the intensity and pace of play. I thought the overall baseline quality was pretty high from these two. You could tell how keenly aware each was to get on the front foot and dictate. There was no evidence of second guessing themselves on any shot, just instinct and athleticism. Tsitsipas held with a blistering stretch forehand:

The Greek owns one of the games best forehands, and I’ve always loved how well he can spread the court, finding sideline breaking forehands in both directions.

Still uses a lot of gravity on the running forehand, despite that outside setup. Similar to Sinner.

He also has one of the most unique flips in the game in my book.

Stef’s starting position is similar to Federer’s outside setup with the strings to the ground and the hand and racquet head level, but when he starts to flip he actually opens his palm and points it up to the sky. The racquet head opens again and flips using a lot of gravity despite that initial setup position. I don’t think anyone gets this far inside the ball on their forehand with such a compact swing — maybe Nadal off a much longer backswing — but his flip is monstrous. Also note the fist grip that I mentioned last week in Doha. This is why in that piece I wrote that: “my observations and experimentation has me thinking it may actually facilitate lag and flip to the inside of the ball off a compact setup.” The fist grip seems to allow the elbow to supinate more (palm up to the sky), making the racquet flip farther inside, but still keep the strings slightly closed. More to come in Death of a Forehand Part IV. Video source.

At 4-3 another Tsitsipas laser return from the baseline, this time off a 215km/h heater

Tennis TV commentary: “What a return. I mean for me the racquet, and indeed the strings..maybe the most standout thing for me has been the backhand return. The confidence that [the racquet] has given him in that shot.”

On break point FAA played the percentages, taking his second serve into the backhand and playing to the backhand. But yet again, the backhand held up:

Tsitsipas held to love to finally win a 500. Djokovic was quick to congratulate:

Final Thoughts

This was a match largely of opportunity. FAA created seven break points in four different games and converted none, courtesy of Tsitsipas playing elite on each one:

1. Ace

2. First serve to forehand, wins with a couple of forehands. Was always in control.

3. First serve to backhand. Unreturned.

4. First serve to backhand into plus-one forehand winner.

5. First serve to backhand into plus-one forehand winner.

6. First serve to forehand into plus-one forehand winner.

7. First serve into backhand. FAA’s best chance in an even and high quality rally.

Seven for seven on first serves, followed by controlled aggression with the forehand.

By contrast, Tsitsipas created six break point chances in four games and FAA went:

1. First serve, forehand error on plus-one. FIRST BREAK

2. First serve to backhand. Unreturned.

3. First serve to forehand, error on forehand rally ball. SECOND BREAK

4. First serve to backhand, plus-one forehand approach into Tsitsipas backhand forces an error from the Greek’s passing shot attempt.

5. First serve to forehand. They play a long rally, best of the match. FAA seals it with an overhead.

6. Second serve into backhand, forehand error on third groundstroke. THIRD BREAK

Three breaks courtesy of three forehand errors from FAA. The margins are thin. You could argue that FAA gifted the first break from 40-0, but the second and third breaks were earned by Stef. With their big serves, aggressive playstyles, on this type of court, it was always going to come down to a few points, and tonight FAA’s forehand was the shot that let him down in key moments.

Overall, while this post is largely about Tsitsipas and his backhand with a new stick, has the tactic to beat Tsitsipas changed in any meaningful way? No. You still need to rely on getting cheap points by serving to the backhand. It’s still the weakness in his game. But if the racquet change is the reason for the improved backhand, that weakness has been patched in a big way. You won’t get as many unreturned serves. You won’t get as many weak replies. More return slashes will arrive at your feet and put you under pressure. You will probably have to serve to the forehand more to create more of a surprise factor; something that wasn’t really needed in recent times.

I also think the Tsitsipas serve and forehand, the core of his game, looked better as well. He’s still a serve plus-one forehand kind of guy, and he didn’t appear to have any trouble controlling the more powerful frame with his stronger side. Everything looks better.

“I think it’s fair to say Mikey, that the racquet and string combination that he’s trialing this week might be here to stay.”

“I think so. It’s looking good isn’t it? I mean he’s noticeably getting more heat on the shots.

“Yeah I honestly don’t think it’s a coincidence. He was capable with his old racquet and string setup of coming here and having a good week, but, I’ve noticed the difference. The backhand return has been probably the best I’ve seen it in recent times. He’s hit his backhand really well in the rally. Even the serve and forehand seem to have that little bit extra. But also I think sometimes, mentally, just an equipment change can give you a freshness, a fresh start, a bit of a spring in your step on the practice court, you’re trying something new. It’s certainly worked for Tsitsipas this week.”

— Tennis TV Commentary

Tennis Insights found that it was the attacking forehand that led the way:

Stef’s usually pretty cringe on the socials, but this was solid:

Indian Wells is just around the corner. See you in the comments. HC

1. It’s impossible to know specs for sure as pros customise their frames with lead tape/silicone, custom layups and moulds provided by their sponsored company, but comparing a stock blade to a stock Babolat Aero 98 reveals a general trend towards more power and more forgiveness on off-centre strikes; something welcomed in the Tsitsipas backhand corner. In stock form the Babolat is stiffer (due to a wider beam, 23mm for the Babolat, and 21mm for the Wilson) and has a more open string pattern compared to the stock Wilson (emphasis added):

“The most common string patterns are 16/19 and 18/20. There are variations in between, but in general, fewer strings give more spin and power, while more strings or denser string patterns provide more directional and depth control. The string pattern also affects the launch angle of the ball leaving the racket. More open string patterns have higher launch angles, meaning that the ball flies higher above the net. This, of course, holds true if everything else is equal in terms of strings and racket set up. For example, you can make an open string pattern play more like a dense one with thicker strings and vice versa. Denser string patterns also result in a stiffer string bed and less string movement, while more open patterns enable strings to move more and feel softer. String movement is one of the main factors that affect how much spin can a racket impart on the ball.”

— impactingtennis.com

2. As I wrote back in 2023:

In motor learning literature, learning skills—especially complex skills that are multi-segmented and numerous in their degrees of freedom, like tennis strokes—are often hard to perfect because it is not always clear where in the skill the movement was off, and how one should correct it. There is no consensus out there on the one best way to hit a particular shot, and often the subtle differences in a swing are a delicate balance of tradeoffs, but by looking for similarities in the best shots, we can identify the features that continually show up. Features that consistently appear in the best strokes can then be said to represent the “global” maxima of technique, whereas features that continually appear to be sub-optimal may only represent a "local" maxima. No matter how talented one is, wielding the local maximum will always have ceiling effects.

For more on motor learning and local vs global maximums see:

Lohse, K., Miller, M., Bacelar, M., & Krigolson, O. (2019). Errors, rewards, and reinforcement in motor skill learning. In Skill Acquisition in Sport (pp. 39-60). Routledge.

You can find it on Google Scholar here. It’s actually a great article. Another take away from it was the idea of prediction errors, that we don’t learn from our mistakes, we learn when our outcomes deviate from our expectations. So even doing something very well, and the result being surprisingly good, is a learning outcome.

3. Check out this mileage in the last ten days or so. Six three-setters.

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