Some rough comparison of the
current state of Fonsinneraz + old Djokovic. Joao is like Novak obviously handicapped by his age - maybe I will post some age-adjusted stuff - but his game already stacks up surprisingly well.
In some ways we have in "rally" a
Carlos-Joao and
Novak-Jannik pairing. The former try to end the point a lot quicker, especially
Fonseca is rocketing returns. Fits his perceived lack of stamina and his definite possession of a huger forehand. Both also
get less help from the serve which depresses their 1-3 rally length win rate.
Novak and Sinner built the points more carefully and go for
more efficiency from the baseline, aided by their
superior backhand but also profit from a better serve to dominate the key 1-3 point rallies.
All four are excellent at winning long rallies as well, with Alcaraz doing fantastic and
Sinner winning a bonkers almost 58% of the 10+ rallies!
| Updated weekly(ish). Last update: 2025-02-17 |
Player | Matches | RallyLen | RLen-Serve | RLen-Return | 1-3 W% | 4-6 W% | 7-9 W% | 10+ W% | FH/GS | BH Slice% | FHP/Match | FHP/100 | BHP/Match | BHP/100 |
|---|
| 58 | 4.0 | 3.9 | 4.1 | 52.8% | 56.0% | 54.7% | 56.9% | 52.4% | 17.3% | 12.1 | 10.4 | 2.9 | 3.0 | | 65 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 54.5% | 57.4% | 54.6% | 57.8% | 50.9% | 7.3% | 13.0 | 9.9 | 6.7 | 5.4 | | 40 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.7 | 54.5% | 55.1% | 54.2% | 54.8% | 48.7% | 14.8% | 12.0 | 8.9 | 8.4 | 6.6 | | 23 | 3.6 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 51.2% | 50.7% | 53.6% | 55.9% | 52.5% | 17.3% | 7.9 | 8.3 | 1.9 | 2.3 |
|
In 'tactics' things change and
old Novak and young Carlos employ serve and volley almost thrice as often. They go to the net also much more frequently and the difference is arguably
greater than the stats suggest, as we have a baseline of 'given', easy net points. This helps to partly explain the very high efficiency of Sinner at the net. Fonseca should improve here over the years.
Joao and Carlos have higher win percentages for their groundstroke as they are more aggressive and lack the big serve.
Here the difference between those categories are more interesting:
| Updated weekly(ish). Last update: 2025-02-17 |
Player | Matches | SnV Freq | SnV W% | Net Freq | Net W% | FH Wnr% | FH DTL Wnr% | FH IO Wnr% | BH Wnr% | BH DTL Wnr% | Drop Freq | Drop Wnr% | RallyAgg | ReturnAgg |
|---|
| 40 | 6.0% | 76.5% | 14.6% | 70.7% | 13.1% | 15.5% | 13.1% | 9.9% | 24.2% | 2.2% | 28.8% | -47 | -30 | | 58 | 6.7% | 73.7% | 12.8% | 71.2% | 19.4% | 26.7% | 15.8% | 8.5% | 24.7% | 2.7% | 38.4% | 8 | 3 | | 23 | 1.7% | 70.4% | 9.3% | 66.6% | 20.2% | 26.5% | 22.6% | 10.3% | 23.5% | 1.6% | 41.6% | 49 | 38 | | 65 | 2.2% | 71.7% | 9.2% | 74.0% | 15.8% | 20.3% | 14.9% | 8.6% | 29.1% | 1.3% | 36.1% | -34 | -17 |
|
Jaoa loves his inside-out forehand like many South American clay specialists but has
also a powerful backhand and can expose the open court. Novak goes less often DTL with his forehand relative to Sinner, maybe using the inside-out backhand more often. Alcaraz has possibly the best forehand on the natural surfaces.
