Monte Carlo, ATP 1000

[stroke]

Zverev looked good, particularly his top tier backhand, in taking out always tough RBA. Struff routines the demon, surprisingly, but up next is a rounding into form Ruud.

[stroke]

https://www.tennis.com/baseline/articles/stefanos-tsitsipas-sunscreen-guy-expose-chris-eubanks-oversight-monte-carlo

[don_budge]

Alexei Popyrin does this really amazing thing in his preserve routine that I actually teach in my perfect service motion...but he immediately defers to imperfection in his backswing. He bobs the racquet head.

I use this bobbing of the racquet head in the setup position to preset the tempo of the swing. Popyrin does the beautiful slow bob of the racquet with his entire upper body synched to the racquet head but then he makes a rather quick step backwards while he is in his backswing. So what is the resulting "compensation move"? The compensation move is a quick abbreveiated backswing to counteract his quick motion going backwards. The result? A tempo that is lacking in...tempo.

[don_budge]

Jarry on the other hand makes a beautiful move with his backswing...he takes the racquet back at the same speed he shifts his weight from front foot to back foot. A nice slow deliberate backswing. He complicates things a bit with the pinpoint move of bringing his back foot forwards...extra motion...but he pulls it off rather nicely because his tempo going back is excellent and he makes a pretty darn smooth transition going forwards. I give it a solid B grade. There is potential unrealized. Room for improvement. Which is a good thing in the hands of a good coach.

[don_budge]

Jarry had 68% of his first serves in and Popyrin had 58%, yet Popyrin won the set. Statistics are basically a number salad. Tennis is a qualitative endeavor...not to be confused with quantitative.

[don_budge]

Shhhh...I'm watching a bit of Nicolas Jarry. He who actually had the vision to change his service motion in radical ways (by today's standards). But yes, I have watched Maxim Cressy quite a bit and I will say this...later.

Alexei Popyrin does this really amazing thing in his preserve routine that I actually teach in my perfect service motion...but he immediately defers to imperfection in his backswing. He bobs the racquet head.

[don_budge]

Shhhh...I'm watching a bit of Nicolas Jarry. He who actually had the vision to change his service motion in radical ways (by today's standards). But yes, I have watched Maxim Cressy quite a bit and I will say this...later.

[stroke]

Yes, Fritz vs Stan and Thiem vs Rune look like the matches of the day. DB, I mentioned Cressy to another's poster about a player moving forward serve and volley tennis. Have you seen him?

[don_budge]

Surely Dominic Thiem and Holger Rune will be an interesting match...I will try that one on for size as well.

[don_budge]

I think I will try to watch a bit of Taylor Fritz and Stan Wawrinka. Let's see if Wawrinka has any surprises left in the bag.

[don_budge]

Theim looks good taking out still dangerous Gasquet. The demon absolutely routines Murray. A lot of good matches tomorrow.

image.png

Yada...yada...yada. I watched a grand total of one minute and seven seconds of this match. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood...but more than likely my interest in watching modern tennis has waned. It is a dreadful bore. You love it...that's great. It's grand even. You can have it. But I have been watching Dominic Thiem struggling to regain his "form" and the sad reality is...he has. He may improve with his wins department but his form is exactly the same as it was before. The most important is...what remains in his potential unrealized?

Herbert Hurkacz is a perfect poster boy, among the multitude, of modern tennis. He is 6' 5" tall and he is basically mired down playing backcourt tennis just like all the rest. Common sense tells you that at this height his optimum movement is going to struggle at a certain point grinding it out scrurrying side to side with other backcourt specialists. Amazing how these taller players just disappear suddenly one day never to be heard from again. The list is long and growing longer every day. I looked at Herbert's ranking history and found it to be very enlightening from what I understand about competitve tennis. He has hovered at or around the top ten for the past couple two or three years and it appears he has hit a wall. Nowhere to go but down. Why is that? He has run out of potential. He has no room for improvement. There is nothing to build upon in his game. He has been relegated to the backcourt and very possibly soon to relegated to the dustbin of history.

He is slated to play the winner of Jannik Sinner and Diego Schwartzman in the next round. His first match literally went the distance...three tie-breaks. The next match was a long three setter as well. What has he got left as the competitions stiffens in the later rounds of the tournament? This remains to be seen. But long term I don't think there is much of an upside here. The view from the top ten is a long ways down. Or a short plummit due to injury. Just a thought. We'll see how it plays out. But this is the type of player that should be moving forwards at every opportunity. Granted as "everyone" will tell you...conventional wisdom will tell you...the conditions prevent him from going forwards. This is of course true in a sense. The game is dumbed down by the engineering. But another thing is...his service motion is not one that carries him to the net. No...his is the quintessential modern motion, an all out assault on the ball and then retreat behind the baseline. Ahhh...modern tennis. You can have it. I think it is imbecilic. Hurkacz is a poster boy...he has no more potential. He has hit the wall of progress. His mobility prevents him from going upwards. Gravity awaits him. It's really tough to watch if you have any wits about you. Boring.

I miss the all court game. Thiem and Gasquet don't have it. The one backhand backhands are sort of nice in a way...but it is all so one dimensional. One dimensional. It is window dressing in a sense. There is a good analytic word. A key operative word. The Roger Federer game was multi dimensional. He kept it up at a very late age. He made a comeback because he had potential left in the tank. To be honest much of that potential was ironically produced with a bit of engineering...the racquet change. But he had options when he played any given shot. He had imagination. So the engineering really turbo charged his game on any given shot. Ahh...there's another dimension to the game. Name another player on the tour that has imagination. IQ plus imagination plus technique equals what? I'll leave it to you.

I can see why the forum has become so intolerant...come to think of it.

[jimlosaltos]

While evaluating the odds, consider what happened here last year: Alejandro Davidovich Fokina took out Djokovic, while Seb Korda took out Alcaraz.

I had to check, wondering how Tsitsipas won this title two times in a row.

Sometimes it takes a village

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Monte-Carlo_Masters_–_Singles

[stroke]

Theim looks good taking out still dangerous Gasquet. The demon absolutely routines Murray. A lot of good matches tomorrow.

[stroke]

Norrie goes out in 1st round to Cerundolo, certainly a tough 1st round draw. Cerundolo is number 33 in world. Stan in 3rd set, up a break vs Griekspoor.

[stroke]

A lot of great matches tomorrow. Only the top 8 seeds get a 1st round bye. Round 1 for all others in is on real fast.