Big tennis fan/player here...
Murray looks very good, although i can't see him beating Djoker at all.
Djoker in a pickle right now, but he'll get the 5th easy vs Anderson.
Federer looking solid although he hasn't had much of a test so far... if his serve+forehand are firing, he's deadly.
Wawrinka is again moving through... although grass is his WORST surface as he takes huge cuts at the ball (less time)... I can't see him beating murray or federer on grass (they hit very flat and give him even less time), i can see him beating Djoker again as he hits heavy spin (give him more time for his swings).
Be interesting though... lone Canadian is through, Pospisil... though he'll get destroyed by Murray imho.
Big Federer fan here as well so hoping he can close this out... he was so close last year.
Great points. Federer's forehand is so unique now that I've learned to spot the stroke differences after hundreds of hours watching the pros: It's almost like he hits flat balls that fly with a ton of spin. He swings flat, but head speed seems to impart such spin that it takes the shot up several percentage points in success by helping the ball to cut back down to the ground quickly.
We will see how he performs this year, but he's just looked so solid in his strokes that I hope he doesn't fall apart against Murray/Djok due to what I've determined to be some mental block against the other top 5.
Nick Kyrgios was behaving like such a wanker yesterday and I'm glad he went out. He needs to grow up.
Agreed, I don't like his attitude and sloppy looking style much.
Closer 5th then anticipated... only 1st serves were Andersons weapon (just like Isner and Karlovic... I'll give Raonic a pass as he has pretty decent forehand and net game).
Yeah, that seems to be a big problem among those who are power-servers first and tennis players second. One stat that I've noticed consistently correlate with higher win-rate (obviously, to the more veteran viewers, maybe) is
return point win %.
If you get players like:
Murray, Djokovic, who compensate for massive serves via counter-punching and excellent defensive stroke technique, respectively, or
Nadal, who uses space and massive topspin to allow time to both hit the shot and return to court after a return, or
Federer, who stands close to the baseline and uses quick reflexes and slices/flat shots to throw his opponents off and use their serve against them,
you see massive return point winnings % (or breaks of serve, as they're mainly called). This might seem odd since we only see 1 or 2 breaks every set from the winning player, but what I've noticed is that the better player almost
always earns more points when receiving than the player who typically loses. Essentially, they make it harder for the server to get his win, despite a massive advantage in the form of the server choosing where and how he places his serve.
I've made this the focus of my game, and seek out the biggest servers in my area in the hopes of learning to both adapt to multiple styles of serves and also figuring out how to best punish and intimidate the ones who think that a big serve is everything to their game. I'm one of those people, so I hope that this will flesh out my game.
