FAA vs. A. Zverev - Monte Carlo Round of 32

The kid is 18 years old and in top 32 and no flash in the pan; he's got goat written all over him.

Yeah he is still ahead of all his contemporaries in terms of age and development so he’s got sooo much that he can get better at. I don’t even think zverev cracked the top 50 till he was 19 so he is ahead of his development too.
 
FFS FAA was a HUGE chocker against Isner. Three DFs trying to serve out the first set against Isner; its the biggest choke job I've ever seen and if we had any doubt he screwed up serving out the 2nd set as well. Other than that his serve is great for his age. He's 3rd in aces for the year on clay and that is pretty awesome for his age.

FAA has gone from 60% serve points at ATP level in 2018 to 62% in 2019. Low by my book and agree hard courts is his best, but I like all the time he's invested in clay. Its really helped his game and just exploded onto hard courts after the South American clay court swing. Compare that to Cilic, Nishikori, and Monfils who darn near ended their careers trying to vulture on SA clay over the last few years. For Felix to come off that circuit and play so well on hard courts is amazing. 52.9% points won on sunshine swing at ATP level, with 65% points won on serve (for 18 that is a very solid number and I recall Shapo at 66.5% at age 18 was better than all but the best servers at that age (Sampras) and the year is young for FAA.o_O)

The kid is 18 years old and in top 32 and no flash in the pan; he's got goat written all over him.
Here's what to watch:

235/152

That's where he is as of last week. Subtract the second figure from the first.

Now service games: 424

(235-152)/424=.196

His serve nets him a free point in one game out of 5.

Now Nadal:

(3248-1724)/12958=.118

Nadal earns fewer free points per game, but he plays a low risk strategy based on not screwing up. The upside to his game plan is that he's not going to beat himself, which of course give the biggest advantage on clay.

Federer DFs a bit more often, but his ace count means that using the same metric gives us this:

(10960-2664)/17971=.46

That's where FAA and Shapo want to be some day.

But let's be fair. Where was Fed at age 19, at the end of that one year?

(405-203)/730=.27, in 2000.

Nadal is an outlier, for this and a thousand other reasons. If you look at this one figure it will not completely line up with the guys who win the most games on serve because of the skills the best have to back up the serve. But it's a very good indication of who wins the most games when you combine this one stat with a really complete service game. Sampras is absolutely at the top for all players his height or under, with F. Lopez and Almagro next. But these two don't have anything like the complete game Sampras had, to back up the serve, and next is Fed. So the whole package puts Sampras on top, with Fed so close it really doesn't matter.
 
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