nolefam_2024
Bionic Poster
Tennis abstract gives very good charting of matches for current players. Based on last 52 weeks and comparing it to career, we can see if the player's game is declining now or getting better. For older guys, obviously it will not improve but certain areas of game can improve.
Djokovic match rally length average changed from 4.7 for career to 4.6. This means he is trying to end the point quicker. 0.1 difference may not feel much but its a lot over many matches. Its around 2.5% more. We can see that he is playing 2.5% quicker than in the past. His rally aggression, that is the ability to finish points has gone up from -50 to -48 which is not that high a jump. For aggressive players it is near 0 or positive in modern game. Alcaraz is -2, Medvedev is -103 which shows he wants to extend the points. While Shelton is +11.
So Djokovic is not bailing out of the points as much more than before.
Now there can be reasons for this. He is using dropshot more now, from 1.6% to 2%. And dropshot is very dangerous shot. Djokovic outright wins only 29% of points from it, but he may be able to win more than 50% of pts from dropshot. Still this is not a big difference maker.
What has changed a lot is S&V frequency and net frequency.
Djokovic who used to go to S&V 2.2 % of the times has now increased it to 6.5%. This is as good as Alcaraz's S&V frequency. He has also ended more pts at the net from 11% to 14%. While increasing the net presence, he has slightly improved % pts won at the net as well so overall its net benefit.
Coming to the serve, Djokovic has not served better than he does today. We can forget about the ace count and DF count. Serve impact is to measure how much the serve influences points won even when the return comes back. The formula used here reflects the average men’s player in the 2010s: unreturned serves, plus 50% of first-serve points won on the server’s second shot, plus 40% of first-serve points won on the server’s third shot, plus 20% of first-serve points won on the server’s fourth shot, all divided by the number of serve points.
Djokovic has improved serve impact from 33.9% to 38%. He is winning 38% of pts from the serve alone in service game. Even when serve comes back, he is winning 62% of pts compared to 59% for his career.
Now the return is one area where we will possibly see any chink in his armour.
Djokovic is returning 70.7% of pts today compared to 72.2% through entire career. Now this is a big drop. Even if though he is winning 52.7% of pts on return today compared to 52.5% in the past, its still worse by around 2%. This has resulted in him creating less number of breaks than in the past. He is hitting more aggressive winners hitting only 3.1% of returns as slices compared to 8.7% in the past. So he is going for more winners, possibly trying to get early advantage like Federer in his old age.
Finally groundstrokes. This is just an area where Djokovic has gone up a level. He possibly understood that he is like a wall even if he is playing power baseline tennis, and has amped up aggression.
Djokovic forehand potency and backhand potency both have improved.
Djokovic forehand potency has gone from 12.1 to 13.1 while backhand potency has gone from 4.2 to 6.3. This means he is winning more pts on both sides topspin than before. Although backhand slice % has gone from 14.1 to 16.3. This 2% pts are mostly going to have -1 potency so his backhand potency has been slightly increased and not by 2 pts.
So all in all.
On serve:
Winning more free pts on first as well as second serve and winning more pts overall even if serve comes back.
On return:
Only area where there is drop. Returning less points back but this is combined with modest return aggression increase.
On groundstroke :
Forehand has shown improvement (Over career so including bad times like 2005-10 as well)
Backhand show modest improvement
On net play :
Showed drastic improvement to end the points more at the net. Especially on his own serve. Djokovic is winning more than 70% of pts on S&V approaches and he is going to continue increasing this. This is only area after server where he has shown huge increase.
Slices:
Increased frequency modestly. He is not going to slice after every second backhand stroke even.
Dropshot:
Increased a lot. This is risky shot and Djokovic is planning to finish points either way (win or lose) without allowing opponent to extend the points.
Djokovic match rally length average changed from 4.7 for career to 4.6. This means he is trying to end the point quicker. 0.1 difference may not feel much but its a lot over many matches. Its around 2.5% more. We can see that he is playing 2.5% quicker than in the past. His rally aggression, that is the ability to finish points has gone up from -50 to -48 which is not that high a jump. For aggressive players it is near 0 or positive in modern game. Alcaraz is -2, Medvedev is -103 which shows he wants to extend the points. While Shelton is +11.
So Djokovic is not bailing out of the points as much more than before.
Now there can be reasons for this. He is using dropshot more now, from 1.6% to 2%. And dropshot is very dangerous shot. Djokovic outright wins only 29% of points from it, but he may be able to win more than 50% of pts from dropshot. Still this is not a big difference maker.
What has changed a lot is S&V frequency and net frequency.
Djokovic who used to go to S&V 2.2 % of the times has now increased it to 6.5%. This is as good as Alcaraz's S&V frequency. He has also ended more pts at the net from 11% to 14%. While increasing the net presence, he has slightly improved % pts won at the net as well so overall its net benefit.
Coming to the serve, Djokovic has not served better than he does today. We can forget about the ace count and DF count. Serve impact is to measure how much the serve influences points won even when the return comes back. The formula used here reflects the average men’s player in the 2010s: unreturned serves, plus 50% of first-serve points won on the server’s second shot, plus 40% of first-serve points won on the server’s third shot, plus 20% of first-serve points won on the server’s fourth shot, all divided by the number of serve points.
Djokovic has improved serve impact from 33.9% to 38%. He is winning 38% of pts from the serve alone in service game. Even when serve comes back, he is winning 62% of pts compared to 59% for his career.
Now the return is one area where we will possibly see any chink in his armour.
Djokovic is returning 70.7% of pts today compared to 72.2% through entire career. Now this is a big drop. Even if though he is winning 52.7% of pts on return today compared to 52.5% in the past, its still worse by around 2%. This has resulted in him creating less number of breaks than in the past. He is hitting more aggressive winners hitting only 3.1% of returns as slices compared to 8.7% in the past. So he is going for more winners, possibly trying to get early advantage like Federer in his old age.
Finally groundstrokes. This is just an area where Djokovic has gone up a level. He possibly understood that he is like a wall even if he is playing power baseline tennis, and has amped up aggression.
Djokovic forehand potency and backhand potency both have improved.
Djokovic forehand potency has gone from 12.1 to 13.1 while backhand potency has gone from 4.2 to 6.3. This means he is winning more pts on both sides topspin than before. Although backhand slice % has gone from 14.1 to 16.3. This 2% pts are mostly going to have -1 potency so his backhand potency has been slightly increased and not by 2 pts.
So all in all.
On serve:
Winning more free pts on first as well as second serve and winning more pts overall even if serve comes back.
On return:
Only area where there is drop. Returning less points back but this is combined with modest return aggression increase.
On groundstroke :
Forehand has shown improvement (Over career so including bad times like 2005-10 as well)
Backhand show modest improvement
On net play :
Showed drastic improvement to end the points more at the net. Especially on his own serve. Djokovic is winning more than 70% of pts on S&V approaches and he is going to continue increasing this. This is only area after server where he has shown huge increase.
Slices:
Increased frequency modestly. He is not going to slice after every second backhand stroke even.
Dropshot:
Increased a lot. This is risky shot and Djokovic is planning to finish points either way (win or lose) without allowing opponent to extend the points.
