Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Peter's avatar

I think Daniil's FH deserves some more love – that shot felt equally instrumental to breaking down Carlos' FH in the same way he so expertly used his BH dtl. He was hitting it so flat and striking through it so well and with so much precision tonight that he was finally able to trouble Carlos' FH wing in a way that felt overdue. Not only was he doing a good job of rushing that wing despite not having the strongest weapons (in terms of straight power), he was also stifling that wing and frustrating Carlos in a way that he had seemingly overcome after the Novak final, and to some extent the little adjustments vs Zverev in the QF.

I think there's a weak spot that low, flat & particularly short balls can access against his FH that can keep him tied down. I mentioned it in my piece on the WIM final and tweeted about it here (https://twitter.com/AnettKord/status/1700346229887017446), if you're interested, because I've seen Novak & Zverev use it when they've beaten him (dating back to his 1st meeting w/Novak).

My view of it is that it's a trade that dangles the carrot without moving the ball close enough into Carlos' body that he can successfully unload on it, which means he pulls up on/away from it as he's very square-on, leaving his right leg with nowhere to go. I'm guessing that if he had a more Rune-esque FH technique, he'd more easily let the ball come into him and move through it to redirect and use pace with relative ease, but because he tends to explode through the shot instead, he ends up redirecting with a lot of unintended air in the ball. That made for a lot of soft redirects tonight.

When it has happened in the past, it's then limited him to playing almost exclusively cross court (Zverev @ RG nailed this imo with very short depth, mixed in with aggressive rushing), and that's how he then becomes frustrated by the lack of options. It's too far in front of him to power through the cross court angle, so then he either loses patience (= netted balls trying to power it dtl without a good base/overcooked cross court shots) or he uses the short angle, which players like Daniil, Novak, Zverev, etc. can easily retrieve. And, when they do get it back, it's usually with interest (Novak countered from out of position that way this year @ RG, of course, and there's a good example of Daniil doing so in the thread of mine I linked) to ensure that his redirect into the vacant space is retrievable. It's also a hugely beneficial strategy because it allows Carlos' opponent to stay close to the baseline, which takes away the dropshot.

Hopefully what I've said makes actual sense and maybe you can correct me on it or the finer details of why that's the result of it, but it's definitely a stand-out pattern I've noticed. Obviously, the aspect of rushing the FH, getting it on the run, etc. are all greater points of focus, but I think it compounds it well. As to why he unravelled without solution tonight, I think the H2H factors in (as well as Daniil's insane level), because he'd been made to learn by defeats to Novak, Zverev, etc, so this was a whole new challenge.

(just realised how excruciatingly long this message is, sorry about that, hope it's ok.)

Expand full comment
Franklin Wang's avatar

Stellar analysis as usual. Despite having a technically sound forehand, what do you think hinders Medvedev from getting more pop on it, as opposed to players with “livelier” arms or “easy” power (Alcaraz, Sinner, Shapovalov)? Do you think it’s simply his overall game plan that encourages him to take off pace? Or are there some technical flaws that are harder to notice?

Expand full comment
15 more comments...

No posts