2019 Australian Open...ATP 2000...Melbourne, Australia

[don_budge]

I'm watching Tiafoe against Grigor Dimitrov. Grigor manage to win the third set tie-break. Tiafoe is very unorthodox and a very difficult player to play against. He defies convention, the definition of unorthodox, and as a player it is very difficult to comprehend how the ball can come back with what he is putting on it. When looking across the net the forehand and serve are just plain unique so the opponent is frozen for a split second wondering just what was it that they just saw and the ball has so much pace on it...they are caught looking. Even the backhand is a little strange when you put it in the same bag with the odd forehand and serve.

He is unbelievably quick and again the opponent might be a little deceived how he trudges around the court in between points then he runs everything down when the ball is in play. He's a tough opponent to play and getting more difficult. On top of it all he seems to be using some theatrics to get into the heads of his opponents which further distracts them from the business at hand. Gamesmanship.

With the courts doctored and engineered to play like velcro it is really tough to get that ball to lay down and if it sits up a bit...good night. But that is an accurate assessment tactically to try and exploit the unorthodox nature of his stroke. Speed up the courts and downsize the racquets to bring the game back in line as it was originally intended to be played...or rather how it evolved until the engineering took over. Tennis metaphoring the world.

I know, not everybody likes him. I, personally, have always liked, ticks anf all.

I know of no other player who has the style of tennis he does.. Reminds me of the short Bjorn Borg era, Bjorn’s topspin style was unique, though Vilas was simolar.

Nobody hits like Nadal, his trademark reverse forehand. His style is uniquely his. His body has suffered for it. It is a brutal style compared to Federer’s elegant strokes, but highly effective. Tsitsipas was steamrolled, since he never played against a similar player.

Nadal plays with an incredible intensity.

It will be interesting to see how Djokovic will do against him. I believe Nadal will win it, barring injury.

Stefanos Tsitsipas experienced a lot of this same sort of surreal feeling about playing a player so "unorthodox" or "unique" as Rafael Nadal. It is not just that he is unorthodox but the combination of just how well he does it. It just throws you off. Tsitsipas seemed to say this over and over...it made him play poorly. Nadal does this to you too in his gamesmanship. But Stefanos really showed a tremendous amount of class in the interview and never once gave in to Nadal bothering him at all...other than his tennis game. Fascinating interview. Excellent comments from the forum.

[stotty]

A thoughtful if not slightly depressing interview from Tsitispas. I thought he would be disappointed and that he would feel he could have done better. He got everything wrong from start to finish. He needs to watch Roger and Novak when they play Rafa. That would teach him a lot. I felt a little sorry for him in that interview. He clearly feels he has no answers to Nadal.

But Nadal has improved. For the first time he is starting to use his serve like Novak, to set himself up for the first strike after getting in a solid first serve. Novak doesn't have a big serve, but he places it very well and get a high percentage of firsts in. He then sets to work controlling rallies from the get go...gains the upper hand so to speak. It seems obvious but I feel Nadal hasn't always done this. At one point in his career, serving seemed merely a way of putting the ball in to start the rally!

I have never seen Nadal play so well behind his serve and so effectively. I mean, he didn't give Tsitispas a look in.

Hopefully Novak will dispatch Pouille. If he does we may have an interesting match on our hands. Nadal hasn't beaten Novak on a surface other than clay since 2013, and Novak has won all their hardcourt encounters since then in straight sets. Novak is just hands down better on hard courts.

But Nadal is in fine form and must be due a win. He's playing well enough to pull it off. Let's hope Novak wins and Pouille doesn't do a Millman....

[don_budge]

The Interview...shedded some much needed light on Stefanos Tsitsipas

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index...ad-idk.635723/

Thi may say it all better than any of us could possibly

Thanks for that stroke...I looked for that interview after you mentioned it in another post. I don't think that he was depressed so much as he hadn't had time to process that ass kicking that he took. The interview was very revealing and it revealed to me a couple of things.

The big thing was the occasion I think. He wasn't mentally prepared for what took place and he sort of admitted as much. I said somewhat that he had that "deer in the headlights" look about him the entire match and that is what he was talking about. Sure he is disappointed but I am really glad that one of the reporters mentioned that very same match that Federer played against Pete Sampras when Roger was 19. He also mentioned that the nineteen year old Federer went out in the next round to Tim Henman. This was such a great point to make and I had thought of that very same analogy myself. It will all about putting in perspective. When he thinks it over and even in the interview he was talking about the positive experience, he will for sure realize that he grew leaps and bounds in this tournament. He just ran into a guy that has all of the experience in the world in this situation. He is going to grow and development and I sure as hell felt very proud of him in that interview as well.

He's thoughtful and deep. Nothing he said was frivolous or stupid. One of my least favourite parts of the tourneys are the interviews. I enjoy Federer's when he wins but when he loses it is almost a waste of time. When he wins he is funny and witty and when he loses he doesn't seem to want to be bothered. But this young man put on an amazing performance in a losing role...which is even tougher than in a winning role.

The thing he was talking about in the Nadal game that he has the ability to make you play bad sort of goes hand in hand with what gzpchu said in the thread he started about Rafael Nadal and what I wrote about earlier about the Frances Tiafoe game. Nadal is left handed and his strokes are very unique and the way that he plays the game is a style that you will never see unless you are playing Nadal. As Phil made mention and who can argue with this...Nadal just ramps up the intensity level to a point where it is overwhelming...unless you are Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer. Federer responds by just staying even calmer. He has a game plan now against Nadal and he goes about his business to execute it. Tsitsipas does not have the experience to have such a clear cut path to victory against Nadal yet and he doesn't intend to lose to him ten times in a row. Very, very interesting interview.

He didn't seem to be depressed to me at all. Sure he was disappointed too but he was also realistic. He didn't feel like he was really there. His body wasn't there. He felt so tall and awkward. He couldn't move. You can tell that he was giving the whole thing a lot of thought and at the same time he had the presence of mind to ask of himself questions like how can Roger beat him with a similar style of game as his. The young man is very thoughtful for so young an age. Compared to a Alexander Zverev or a Denis Shapovalov he is doing cartwheels around these guys in the mental faculties department. He's a very articulate young man and he has a sense of humour even when the world has collapsed right on top of him. He had the presence of mind to not forget how successful this tournament was for him and the level of tennis he had achieved.

It was a long tournament for him. Grand Slam tennis is way different in the environment than the lesser venues. He handled it all of the way to the semifinals against a man who has umpteen Grand Slam titles to his name. There was no shame in this loss. He just ran out of gas. The last set was evidence of the fact that he basically had nothing left to give. The matches that he played against Federer and Bautista-Agut pretty much exhausted him. Another point he made in the interview is that he didn't manage his service game very well against Nadal. This may be the biggest obvious take away for Stefanos.

As the last set was in progress I started to somehow hone in on the Tsitsipas service motion. Now he served just fine against Federer and Bautista-Agut but in my coaches eye the service is not fully developed and it dawned on me what the problem was. As he assumes his set-up position he is fine but when he goes to toss the ball in the air his left hand doesn't make any kind of downward motion at all. Just a funny push upwards and it looks awkward if you know what you are looking for. I have always used the "down together, up together" to create the rhythm on the serve. Watch John McEnroe with his extreme downward movement in his motion to initiate his backswing. But Stefanos has zero of this and as a consequence he has a rather glaring source of what I refer to as "friction" in his backswing. Because the lack of "swing" in the tossing arm his backswing is a bit retarded. It becomes abbreviated in a manner that you can see that it is but you fail to understand why it is. Now I know. I wish I could get to him to tell him this.

Going forwards if this young man gets his motion to be the frictionless, inertia/gravity based rollercoaster of a delivery he will have many, many game of holding his serve at love. It was obvious against Federer how much longer he was taking to complete his service game compared to Roger. In the match with Nadal when all of the pressure of the occasion added up...his service motion didn't hold up under that pressure. The question is always why and the answer is always a search to detect the source of unnecessary friction. It effects the timing. If the timing is inertia based throughout the whole motion than nothing can go wrong. The second serve is just as effective as the first. But as in this case...I believe that if something isn't perfect when the pressure is on something can interfere with the timing mechanism in the head and you lose that edge that you need to serve lights out.

As the serve goes in these types of matches so goes the rest of the game. Stefanos didn't have a great feeling for his serve and the rest of his game reflected it. Stotty is absolutely right about at least one thing too...because of the deficiency of the motion he doesn't have the serve to take Nadal out of the court in the deuce court. He needs to have that serve. The rest of his aiming was suspect as well. One thing that I liked about Daniil Medvedev tactics against Djokovic was that Daniil was positioning himself near the sideline to serve to Djokovic's backhand in the deuce court. With Stefanos' height he should be capable of putting that ball nearly in the seats if he swings it as wide as he can.

There was so much to take away from that match. Clearly Stefanos will have a lot to think about. But just as clearly he has made tremendous progress in just about every facet of the game and he must do what every student of this wonderful game must do when you suffer a humiliating loss. You process it and then you promise yourself that you will hunt that guy to the end of the earth and have at it again. You must develop a game plan based on what you can do and what your opponent does. Rafael Nadal is playing some good tennis but he really hasn't played a very tough draw. If Novak wins tomorrow then Nadal will get a good stiff challenge. Djokovic has been looking pretty damned good himself.

Thanks for posting that interview...and your comments. It really got me thinking.

[stroke]

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index...ad-idk.635723/

Thi may say it all better than any of us could possibly

[stroke]

I agree wholeheartedly with Stotty, Stef was not going win that match. It was a shame that it was such a brutal beat down. I really like Stef. I watched his post match interview. It was hard to watch. He was so depressed. He just admitted he does not know where to go from here. He pined that he really does not understand how Roger has had success vs Nadal as they(himself and Roger) have similar games. To me, it is twofold: Roger has a more effective hold serve game and Roger, with the switch to the bigger racquet, was able to take his bh on the rise and hurt Nadal. The only other player besides Roger to me(one hander or two hander) who has been able to hurt Nadal off the bh side is Novak. But no doubt it is more difficult to take on a Nadal fh on the rise with a one hander. Roger is stand alone in that regard and I think it is going to stay that way. I think the two handers at least have a chance to take it on.

[arturohernandez]

Nadal is playing much better than last year. He looks awfully strong off both wings and his work inside the baseline was phenomenal today. His serving was excellent and he was aggressive off the first ball and took command of the rallies behind his serve virtually all the time. He volleyed really well too. I loved the focused aggression.

That said, Stephanos didn't really settle. He got his tactics wrong as far as I could see. He's tall and could easily get that wide swinging serve to the deuce court working in his favour. With Nadal standing so far back to return, it's a given he could well take control of some of the rallies by serving like that. What was he doing trying to go straight into Nadal's backhand off the first ball? It's the off forehand to Nadal's forehand to then open up the backhand...that's the way to do it. I just thought he lost his way out there. He was always going to lose but he could have done better. He will be disappointed.

I agree. He kept going for the T on the deuce side when serving. Tsitsipas should have just kept serving wide and switch to the T on occasion.

There is one other thing that bugged me about this match.

I wonder if Tsitsipas is just a bit too tall.

GS champions are still in a restricted height range about 6-6'4".

Tsitispas is on the very high edge of that range.

Nadal is, of course, one of the best of all times.

But I could see Tsitispas off balance and unable to change directions as quickly as shorter players.

It's just one match but it may be that slight edge in movement that makes the big 4 (all right at 6'1" 6'2") that good.

A little bit taller and they cannot change directions as well.

A similar note for Osaka. She is listed at 5'11", Pliskova at 6'1".

Osaka has a clear edge in movement. The handshake gave me more like a three to four inch difference in height.

The last great serve and volleyer said it best:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug...olley-20130825

"You have to be a good athlete, have great hands and great feet. The shot itself is pretty easy, but you need good touch and an intuition as to where the ball is going to go. You need to know when to run slow, run fast. All that stuff has to be learned."

So now Tennis is different, except it is not.

The same things apply except not always at the net. However, adjustment, movement, net play still exists.

If some very rich person sponsored a serve and volley event. Let's say you have to come to the net X number of times or you can only hit X number of groundstrokes outside the service box. Or you get extra points for finishing at the net.

Then imagine all of today's players played this tournament for a prize.

I think we agree that Fed would be the biggest favorite.

But Nadal is not far behind. I think he would be a great serve and volleyer.

Even Djokovic would be pretty good.

All of the other players, including the next Gen would be bad.

Just not able to play that way at all.

Tennis hasn't changed. It's transformed into a different game.

The same rules apply and now I am worried that Tsitsipas will get stuck in Zverev land.

Being top 10 in the world is great. All of us would be happy to be that good.

It seem foolish to even mention Shapovalov but he has the aggression and height to play like the big 3

Of course, winning GS's isn't just about height.

Again, the great Sampras.

"You have to be a good athlete, have great hands and great feet. The shot itself is pretty easy, but you need good touch and an intuition as to where the ball is going to go. You need to know when to run slow, run fast. All that stuff has to be learned."

No one is learning this today.

People see a different game, but reality is still very much the same, just tweaked a little bit.

It's like the Matrix...

Do I sound like @don_budge?

[stotty]

Nadal is playing much better than last year. He looks awfully strong off both wings and his work inside the baseline was phenomenal today. His serving was excellent and he was aggressive off the first ball and took command of the rallies behind his serve virtually all the time. He volleyed really well too. I loved the focused aggression.

That said, Stephanos didn't really settle. He got his tactics wrong as far as I could see. He's tall and could easily get that wide swinging serve to the deuce court working in his favour. With Nadal standing so far back to return, it's a given he could well take control of some of the rallies by serving like that. What was he doing trying to go straight into Nadal's backhand off the first ball? It's the off forehand to Nadal's forehand to then open up the backhand...that's the way to do it. I just thought he lost his way out there. He was always going to lose but he could have done better. He will be disappointed.

[stroke]

I feel none of the up and coming players will ever be at this level Nadal is at. The only player that can deal with this is Novak. Fed did it last year but it took a 5th set of tennis that was his very best tennis. It was the single best set of tennis that I think I have seen.

[don_budge]

tennis_chiro...I see you peeking in. Take a look at that toss motion. What do you think?

[don_budge]

Notice how he tosses and catches a seemingly inordinate amount of times.

[don_budge]

Well, Stef is down 2 sets. Nadal appears to be playing better than he ever has on a hard court. He just looks so strong out there. That fh looks like the best in tennis and as db said once, the bh is no picnic. His serve has always seemed to have an unusual amount of action/swing but even it looks a bit better(even though I see no technical change in his form).

No...it's no picnic.

I just noticed something very, very interesting about the Tsitsipas service motion. It has always looked to have a hitch in the backswing. But take a look at the toss motion...there is no down motion with the toss hand and the right hand is mirroring this same motion. Aha...this is where the hitch in the backswing is. It has manifested itself from the toss motion.

Give me one hour with him...please Lord.

[stroke]

Well, Stef is down 2 sets. Nadal appears to be playing better than he ever has on a hard court. He just looks so strong out there. That fh looks like the best in tennis and as db said once, the bh is no picnic. His serve has always seemed to have an unusual amount of action/swing but even it looks a bit better(even though I see no technical change in his form).

[don_budge]

They have only showed the RPM's on one Nadal routine fh but the number was 3992. Just brutal.

So far...young Stefanos has no answer for this. He doesn't take it early enough on the backhand (a point you made earlier in this thread I believe) and the weaker forehand grip is also a liability here. His serve seems to be a bit tentative...so all in all he has a uphill struggle.

[stroke]

Stef up 4-3 on serve in 2nd set but it still feels like he is just hanging on. This set is obviously huge for him. If he goes down 2 sets to Nadal and comes back from there, it would probably be the greatest tennis comback ever.

[stotty]

Stephonos holds from 0-40 down. That should inspire him. Where has that wide serve been until now? That's the key...that wide serve to the Rafa backhand...he can go to work from there.

Shame I have to go to work....