Wimbledon

[stroke]

Upcoming fourth round match between Lorenzo Musetti and Giovani Mpetshi Piccard promises to be interesting. The pair met in Stuttgart only a couple of weeks ago with the Italian winning in two tiebreakers.

Gio hit 21 aces in only 12 games plus tiebreaks and saved all 8 breakpoints he faced. But Musetti never faced a single break point and hit some great passing shots as Gio rushed the net (25/47 net points). Gio was serving bigger there than he is at Wimbledon so far - Max 148 MPH, ave first 137 MPH, and average second 129 MPH. But to no avail. Gio then went to London where he beat Ben Shelton.

I am picking GMP, not that it matters. Oddsmakers have it at a pretty much pic 'em.

[jimlosaltos]

Upcoming fourth round match between Lorenzo Musetti and Giovani Mpetshi Piccard promises to be interesting. The pair met in Stuttgart only a couple of weeks ago with the Italian winning in two tiebreakers.

Gio hit 21 aces in only 12 games plus tiebreaks and saved all 8 breakpoints he faced. But Musetti never faced a single break point and hit some great passing shots as Gio rushed the net (25/47 net points). Gio was serving bigger there than he is at Wimbledon so far - Max 148 MPH, ave first 137 MPH, and average second 129 MPH. But to no avail. Gio then went to London where he beat Ben Shelton.

[stroke]

Good numbers from Craig at Braingame on Iga losing yet again in early rounds at Wimbledon, on his blog at this link.

Short version, Iga's severe Western grip and truncated, severe upswing might be fine on clay but on grass, she doesn't play defensive forehands well enough.

Winner Putinseva had 11 forehand winners / 16 errors = -5
Loser Iga 19 forehand winners / 46 errors = - 27

Main points in his analysis:

Iga doesn't seem to have a defensive forehand.

Swings hard and extremely fast regardless of how rushed she is.
Often starts to recover before she's finished the shot. Panicking?
When Iga is on defense, she tends to squat to hit her forehand and is off balance.
She only has one speed, and doesn't alter her technique to defend.
Does poorly hitting the first forehand after her serve.

Iga to me has the biggest weapon in WTA tennis with her closed fist western forehand, the first woman to use it. ATP, we have Fritz of course, Sock, Igor Andreev, and Kohlchrieber used it. All have/had massive forehands. Fritz for whatever reason seems to be really the only one to maintain the effectiveness of it on grass, but Kohl actually had a decent grass court game also. Kohl another casualty of the big 3.

[jimlosaltos]

Good numbers from Craig at Braingame on Iga losing yet again in early rounds at Wimbledon, on his blog at this link.

Short version, Iga's severe Western grip and truncated, severe upswing might be fine on clay but on grass, she doesn't play defensive forehands well enough.

Winner Putinseva had 11 forehand winners / 16 errors = -5
Loser Iga 19 forehand winners / 46 errors = - 27

Main points in his analysis:

Iga doesn't seem to have a defensive forehand.

Swings hard and extremely fast regardless of how rushed she is.
Often starts to recover before she's finished the shot. Panicking?
When Iga is on defense, she tends to squat to hit her forehand and is off balance.
She only has one speed, and doesn't alter her technique to defend.
Does poorly hitting the first forehand after her serve.

[jimlosaltos]

Ace leaders all with 3 matches

Perricard - 105 aces
Halys - 70
Bublik -66

With 4 matches

Humbert - 56
Shelton - 55
Stuff - 53
Fritz 53

[jimlosaltos]

Sinner takes out Shelton in 3 sets that were perhaps a bit better contested than the scoreline shows.

But Jannik won 70% of his second serve points 19/27

Third set was 11-9 in the tiebreak. Shelton got 15 aces in, I think 16 games.

Sinner came to the net more often than Ben and was more effective there: 22 of 32 vs only 13 of 27. Who would have thought three years ago that Sinner would be this eager to get to the net and this good when he got there? More of Darren Cahill's work?

[jimlosaltos]

Madison Keys was up double-break in the final set, then retired to Paolini at 5-5.

Hamstring pull.

[jimlosaltos]

I heard that accessment on Alcaraz forehand. Hard to say. The shot quality rankings on the ATP forehands, Alcaraz is certainly up there with Novak, Sinner, Tsitsipas, Ruud from what I can remember.

Alcaraz seems to be flattening out his forehand more often at Wimbledon. This from his prior match

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[stotty]

Umbert is a really good player. Alcaraz and Sinner both have the Fed like "injection of pace" forehand.

Yes he turned out to be a difficult customer. It was that "injection of pace" from Carlos that made all the difference here and there.

[stroke]

Humbert playing a really good tactical second set and is engrossed in the task. He just needs a break through to show for it.

Umbert is a really good player. Alcaraz and Sinner both have the Fed like "injection of pace" forehand.

[stotty]

Humbert playing a really good tactical second set and is engrossed in the task. He just needs a break through to show for it.

[stroke]

Alcaraz wins the first set against Humbert and it looks it will a one horse race thus far. Tim Henman and Andrew Castle think Alcaraz's forehand is the biggest shot in tennis. Hard to argue with that assessment when Alcaraz just hit a dead ball from behind the baseline at 107mph for a clean winner. Humbert didn't even move.

I heard that accessment on Alcaraz forehand. Hard to say. The shot quality rankings on the ATP forehands, Alcaraz is certainly up there with Novak, Sinner, Tsitsipas, Ruud from what I can remember.

[stotty]

Alcaraz wins the first set against Humbert and it looks it will a one horse race thus far. Tim Henman and Andrew Castle think Alcaraz's forehand is the biggest shot in tennis. Hard to argue with that assessment when Alcaraz just hit a dead ball from behind the baseline at 107mph for a clean winner. Humbert didn't even move.

[stroke]

Match of the day, Grigor vs Med. Oddsmakers have it a pretty much a pick 'em.

[stotty]

Novak sneaks through in the end. I didn't see all the match but he looked pretty good to me. He served beautifully and was solid off the ground. The longer he stays in the tournament the better he is likely to get. He'll be hard to stop were he to reach the final. Rune could be a handful, however, and Novak has struggled with him in the past. I will look forward to that one.