Djokovic vs Single Hander Players

nolefam_2024

Bionic Poster
Djokovic has won a lot in his life, with highest career win % on the tour of 83.4%. But when it comes to single hander players he has a lot of issues.

Career W/L
Vs 2 hander 804/143 with 84.9% win rate.
Vs 1 hander 243/64 with 79.1% win rate.

Clearly Federer and Wawrinka has caused him issues in his career when others were able to beat these two. Couple of last losses for him also came vs single handers.

 

Kralingen

Bionic Poster
Yeah he’s not as comfortable vs them for a few reasons

1. Most one handers can block returns back deep or low which stresses his good but not great serve+1
2. Djokovic hates attacking slices which they use
3. One handers hit with more spin than two handers, it’s just physics, weight of shot and different-looking ball disrupts his rhythm
4. Just in general these players have more skill and guile and are comfortable in the transition game to the net which also disrupts his rhythm
5. One handers can go DTL easier and their shots are less predictable so to speak - Djok’s game is all about incremental advantages in a point, getting a player off balance and knowing where there shot will go - one handers are simply harder to read for him, the body mechanics aren’t as repetitive and predictable.

Of course the one hander is most effective on clay vs Novak and may not have an effect on other surfaces. And the other caveat is that one must be a good player in the first place. Fed and Stan’s BHs alone are not what troubles Novak it’s their entire game, and their serve+FHs are a large part of it. But time and again, if Nole is not in form or not locked in, he can struggle with these one-handers as they differ from his normal machine-like mowing down of generic 2HBH baseline drones across the tour. Especially if it’s his first time playing them in a while.

As his head to heads with Dimitrov and Tsitsipas show though, once he comes to grips with the weaknesses in their game, the one hander doesn’t present unsolvable issues especially off of clay.

Fun stat - since 2005, Djoko has 15 RG losses. 8 to Nadal, one to Melzer (lefty)… and the other SIX are all against one handers - Kohli, Federer, Stan, Cecchinato, Thiem twice, and he also went down 0-2 to both Musetti and Tsitsipas. Tells us something.
 
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nolefam_2024

Bionic Poster
Yeah he’s not as comfortable vs them for a few reasons

1. Most one handers can block returns back deep or low which stresses his good but not great serve+1
2. Djokovic hates attacking slices which they use
3. One handers hit with more spin than two handers, it’s just physics, weight of shot and different-looking ball disrupts his rhythm
4. Just in general these players have more skill and guile and are comfortable in the transition game to the net which also disrupts his rhythm
5. One handers can go DTL easier and their shots are less predictable so to speak - Djok’s game is all about incremental advantages in a point, getting a player off balance and knowing where there shot will go - one handers are simply harder to read for him, the body mechanics aren’t as repetitive and predictable.

Of course the one hander is most effective on clay vs Novak and may not have an effect on other surfaces. And the other caveat is that one must be a good player in the first place. Fed and Stan’s BHs alone are not what troubles Novak it’s their entire game, and their serve+FHs are a large part of it. But time and again, if Nole is not in form or not locked in, he can struggle with these one-handers as they differ from his normal machine-like mowing down of generic 2HBH baseline drones across the tour. Especially if it’s his first time playing them in a while.

As his head to heads with Dimitrov and Tsitsipas show though, once he comes to grips with the weaknesses in their game, the one hander doesn’t present unsolvable issues especially off of clay.

Fun stat - since 2005, Djoko has 15 RG losses. 8 to Nadal, one to Melzer (lefty)… and the other SIX are all against one handers - Kohli, Federer, Stan, Cecchinato, Thiem twice, and he also went down 0-2 to both Musetti and Tsitsipas. Tells us something.
This is pretty complete comment. Yes. The RG losses are proof.
 

a10best

Legend
1HBH. Lajovic, I always liked this guy for some reason. He has good variety & fights. remember 2nd set tb in Miami against Alcaraz this yr.
 

nolefam_2024

Bionic Poster
He still lags.
84% vs non Fed 1hbh and 87% vs non Rafa 2hbh. This is still false stat as it's skewing vs 2hbh a lot. 1hbh is already too rare. Taking Fed out is just going to leave us with Stan who is super inconsistent. While 2hbh there are guys like Andy Murray, Zverev, Medvedev and many more who have good stats. Better would be if we take Murray and Rafa both out if we want to remove skew of Fed.

And I see no reason why to ommit Fed and Rafa.
 

Chanwan

G.O.A.T.
He still lags.
84% vs non Fed 1hbh and 87% vs non Rafa 2hbh. This is still false stat as it's skewing vs 2hbh a lot. 1hbh is already too rare. Taking Fed out is just going to leave us with Stan who is super inconsistent. While 2hbh there are guys like Andy Murray, Zverev, Medvedev and many more who have good stats. Better would be if we take Murray and Rafa both out if we want to remove skew of Fed.

And I see no reason why to ommit Fed and Rafa.
Thanks for this
 

nolefam_2024

Bionic Poster
Sinner vs 1 handers on clay is also similar story.

Till date he has played 10 matches vs single handers. But he has lost 7. Including this year in mc.

His losses on clay include.

1-4 H2H vs tsitsipas
1-0 vs kohlscriber
0-1 vs Dimitrov
0-1 vs Altmaier
1-1 vs musetti

It seems like he is following Djokovic even on this statistic. Last year he lost to Altmaier in RG in BO5 as well.
 
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