JJ Wolf is legit good

megamind

megamind

Legend
“J.J. had tremendous forehand racquet head speed, probably in the top-10 in the world,” Ohio State men’s tennis coach Ty Tucker said. “Being a great athlete, and being the fastest guy on the court, those are pretty good tricks toward playing tennis at the highest level.”

bold statement :unsure:
 
beltsman

beltsman

G.O.A.T.
megamind said:
“J.J. had tremendous forehand racquet head speed, probably in the top-10 in the world,” Ohio State men’s tennis coach Ty Tucker said. “Being a great athlete, and being the fastest guy on the court, those are pretty good tricks toward playing tennis at the highest level.”

bold statement :unsure:
Click to expand...

He really throws his racquet into the ball on the FH. You can tell he learned other sports.
 
Benben245

Benben245

Banned
megamind said:
“J.J. had tremendous forehand racquet head speed, probably in the top-10 in the world,” Ohio State men’s tennis coach Ty Tucker said. “Being a great athlete, and being the fastest guy on the court, those are pretty good tricks toward playing tennis at the highest level.”

bold statement :unsure:
Click to expand...
Marcus Willis meets Ryan Harrison
 
P

PistolPete23

Hall of Fame
Fridge said:
needs to slim down if he really wants to be a successful pro
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His physique is not the prototypical tennis player's, that's for sure. The stockiness doesn't hamper his ability to move on the court though, so I'm not sure losing weight would be necessary; there's a lot of muscle there, not fat. Definitely an intriguing player to watch.
 
r2473

r2473

G.O.A.T.
He’s nothing special. Might enjoy some immediate success. Get a few wins. But if he gets good enough to be “studied”, the tour will eat him alive.

My guess is he won’t last 2 years on tour
 
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M

mikej

Hall of Fame
r2473 said:
He’s nothing special. Might enjoy some immediate success. Get a few wins. But if he gets good enough to be “studied”, the tour will eat him alive.

My guess is he won’t last 2 years on tour
Click to expand...

i think he's likely to have a lot more success than you're giving him credit for

my lower bound / realistic case for his career: denis kudla (hangs around 100 in the world for a good long time)
my upper bound / optimistic case for his career: seppi or pouille (peaks around 10-20 in the world, makes 10 million on tour)

has a strong serve, great movement and aggressive court positioning, and packs a punch of both wings - he's not an easy out, or a guy with an obvious counter-strategy (in response to the 'studied' comment)
 
r2473

r2473

G.O.A.T.
mikej said:
i think he's likely to have a lot more success than you're giving him credit for

my lower bound / realistic case for his career: denis kudla (hangs around 100 in the world for a good long time)
my upper bound / optimistic case for his career: seppi or pouille (peaks around 10-20 in the world, makes 10 million on tour)

has a strong serve, great movement and aggressive court positioning, and packs a punch of both wings - he's not an easy out, or a guy with an obvious counter-strategy (in response to the 'studied' comment)
Click to expand...
I hope you’re right. The tour is is tough place. Not many people make it. In my mind, Kudla is a huge success. I don’t think Wolf is that good
 
M

mikej

Hall of Fame
r2473 said:
I hope you’re right. The tour is is tough place. Not many people make it. In my mind, Kudla is a huge success. I don’t think Wolf is that good
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Kudla is absolutely a huge success, no disrespect intended using him as my lower bar for Wolf. I grew up both in Virginia and Ohio, so have followed both these guys over the years and watched a lot of them in juniors / challengers / etc. One of my most fun tennis fan memories was tormenting Benoit Paire on an empty outer court during W&S Masters qualifying when Kudla beat him and he was melting down (mostly d/t Kudla’s consistency, but partly because I wouldn’t shut up in the stands every time Kudla won a point). Anyway, despite my respect for Kudla, Wolf simply has a bigger serve and forehand, and won’t be as much at the mercy of the top 50 players. At least that’s how I see it, we’ll see.
 
r2473

r2473

G.O.A.T.
mikej said:
Kudla is absolutely a huge success, no disrespect intended using him as my lower bar for Wolf. I grew up both in Virginia and Ohio, so have followed both these guys over the years and watched a lot of them in juniors / challengers / etc. One of my most fun tennis fan memories was tormenting Benoit Paire on an empty outer court during W&S Masters qualifying when Kudla beat him and he was melting down (mostly d/t Kudla’s consistency, but partly because I wouldn’t shut up in the stands every time Kudla won a point). Anyway, despite my respect for Kudla, Wolf simply has a bigger serve and forehand, and won’t be as much at the mercy of the top 50 players. At least that’s how I see it, we’ll see.
Click to expand...
I predicted the same fate for Stevie Johnson. He has definitely proven himself over the years. I watched Stevie crush our #1 at Utah. But even as good as he looked that day, I felt like the tour would be too much for a guy with just a big forehand and serve (but no backhand at all). But he's managed to more than survive out there. He's made $5+ million and even won titles. And while it's true he's pretty much destined to stay ranked about where he is now, he's done much better than I thought he'd do with the skills he has. Let's hope Wolf can do even close to as well as Johnson.

If Wolf is going to be successful, I think he's going to have to develop some sort of patterns of play that helps him to win points. From what I've seen, he's just a guy that hits hard and hopes it works. And it doesn't at the tour level. The tour is just a totally different beast entirely from college tennis. If he can make that huge leap and transition, that would be incredible. I'm just not that optimistic.
 
Liam Grennon

Liam Grennon

Professional
r2473 said:
I predicted the same fate for Stevie Johnson. He has definitely proven himself over the years. I watched Stevie crush our #1 at Utah. But even as good as he looked that day, I felt like the tour would be too much for a guy with just a big forehand and serve (but no backhand at all). But he's managed to more than survive out there. He's made $5+ million and even won titles. And while it's true he's pretty much destined to stay ranked about where he is now, he's done much better than I thought he'd do with the skills he has. Let's hope Wolf can do even close to as well as Johnson.

If Wolf is going to be successful, I think he's going to have to develop some sort of patterns of play that helps him to win points. From what I've seen, he's just a guy that hits hard and hopes it works. And it doesn't at the tour level. The tour is just a totally different beast entirely from college tennis. If he can make that huge leap and transition, that would be incredible. I'm just not that optimistic.
Click to expand...
I know Franco Capalbo! Current number one.
 
C

citybert

Hall of Fame
@r2473 Agree w everything u said. And @PistolPete23 I didnt realize JJ wolf was pretty much 22. Tiafoe at his age had a GS QF and Masters QF. And he is older than both shapo and FAA

if anything I like Nakashima a lot more. Hes 3 years younger and better.
 
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M

mikej

Hall of Fame
citybert said:
@r2473 Agree w everything u said. And @PistolPete23 I didnt realize JJ wolf was pretty much 22. Tiafoe at his age had a GS QF and Masters QF. And he is older than both shapo and FAA

if anything I like Nakashima a lot more. Hes 3 years younger and better.
Click to expand...

I think Nakashima is also going to be great, but I’m not sure how one argues that he’s currently “better.” ATP rankings and challenger titles (4>0) would beg to differ.

Obviously FAA is in a different class of success so far than these young Americans.
 
tennis_pro

tennis_pro

Bionic Poster
PistolPete23 said:
There are a lot of Challenger matches you can find on YT. He was the #1 ranked college player out of Ohio State and since turning pro, He's been consistently beating a lot of players in Challengers who were or are top 100. I see particularly strong serve for a guy that's 6'0", speed and great mover on the court, patience constructing points, rarely loses his cool, plays at a consistent level throughout a match. I liked this match in particular against Istomin.

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JJ Wolf > Istomin > Djokovic
JJ Wolf > Djokovic

what a badass name too
 
Subway Tennis

Subway Tennis

Legend
mikej said:
i think he's likely to have a lot more success than you're giving him credit for

my lower bound / realistic case for his career: denis kudla (hangs around 100 in the world for a good long time)
my upper bound / optimistic case for his career: seppi or pouille (peaks around 10-20 in the world, makes 10 million on tour)

has a strong serve, great movement and aggressive court positioning, and packs a punch of both wings - he's not an easy out, or a guy with an obvious counter-strategy (in response to the 'studied' comment)
Click to expand...

Are you saying at a minimum you expect him to have a Kudla-like career?
 
Swingmaster

Swingmaster

Hall of Fame
The age thing might not be such a big deal in Wolf’s case. Due to interest in other sports, he started taking tennis seriously relatively late. If you look at the number of years between his decision to concentrate on tennis and his becoming world class, the number is smaller than just about anyone’s. His SOTIS-to-WC score is 9.7 out of 10.
 
Subway Tennis

Subway Tennis

Legend
mikej said:
yes, good comprehension

clearly you disagree, which is fine, not everyone has to agree on which young folks are going to have strong ATP careers
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Sorry, I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was just wondering what you expected Wolf was going to do at the bare minimum. It's clear you rate him highly because Kudla has been a proven tour level player for a decade.
 
M

mikej

Hall of Fame
Swingmaster said:
The age thing might not be such a big deal in Wolf’s case. Due to interest in other sports, he started taking tennis seriously relatively late. If you look at the number of years between his decision to concentrate on tennis and his becoming world class, the number is smaller than just about anyone’s. His SOTIS-to-WC score is 9.7 out of 10.
Click to expand...

i don’t think the age thing is much of a big deal in men’s tennis, period, unless we’re predicting the next ATG candidate. I’ll give you that Wolf will not win 20 slams or be a tennis ATG. But he has all kinds of time to develop a highly successful pro career, 10+ years.
 
M

mikej

Hall of Fame
Subway Tennis said:
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was just wondering what you expected Wolf was going to do at the bare minimum. It's clear you rate him highly because Kudla has been a proven tour level player for a decade.
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no worries, yes I think very highly of wolf

he’s had a lot of immediate success at the challenger level - he’s not a guy who gets satisfied with occasional good wins, he hunts titles - and already has 4 challengers to his name - I like guys who prove early on in their careers that they can string together a week’s worth of wins and take down titles
 
Swingmaster

Swingmaster

Hall of Fame
People seem to think that a few years of failing to totally optimize your career, instead going to college, is much worse than an injury that keeps you away for awhile or a short period of meth use.
 
megamind

megamind

Legend
tbh, i wouldnt be watching the Wolf Gasquet match if it wasnt for this thread, I gotta see whats so legit about this guy :cool:

Had a good start breaking Gasquet, but now Gasquet broke back, so idk
 
megamind

megamind

Legend
Swingmaster said:
The age thing might not be such a big deal in Wolf’s case. Due to interest in other sports, he started taking tennis seriously relatively late. If you look at the number of years between his decision to concentrate on tennis and his becoming world class, the number is smaller than just about anyone’s. His SOTIS-to-WC score is 9.7 out of 10.
Click to expand...
when did he start taking the good tennis seriously?
 
M

mikej

Hall of Fame
first set got away from him, 6-4 gasquet despite an early break from wolf

(of course tennis channel primarily showing sloane stephens who is about to drop to 1-7 on the year, with her only win being a player right around 500 in the world - i'm not sure i'd want her on our 10.0 mixed team if this is the best she's got this year)
 
M

mikej

Hall of Fame
not a bad effort - got through qualifying and lost a reasonably competitive straight set match vs an experienced player who wasn't shock-and-awed by his power
 
Swingmaster

Swingmaster

Hall of Fame
What the hell. Do you guys have Tennis Channel Plus? Don’t want to be the boy who cried Wolf but I havent seen him at all on my regular Tennis Channel.
 
r2473

r2473

G.O.A.T.
mikej said:
not a bad effort - got through qualifying and lost a reasonably competitive straight set match vs an experienced player who wasn't shock-and-awed by his power
Click to expand...
It’s going to be hard for Wolf to do anything in a Masters level event. I’m more interested to see if he can do well in 250 events. That’s where he’ll make his living
 
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