Jack Sock could easily become #1 and and an all time great in doubles. I think he has the tools to make it in singles, but it would require a lot of changes in his game, and I doubt he's gonna make them. I think he's a relatively unpolished diamond, who has plenty of room to grow by fitness and tactics alone. He's clearly too heavy, and yet he's actually a decent mover. He has very good hands, a huge forehand if he uses it correctly, and a huge serve if he goes for it. Yet he ends up doing nothing but adding spin to every ball. The only shot that really needs technical improvement is the backhand, and he needs to flatten out the serve and forehand, and for the rest it's all execution and tactics.
- Flatten out that forehand, it's monstrous, and all that spin doesn't do him that much favours in a lot of rally situations. His point construction often stagnates because spin alone doesn't hit you winners
- Flatten out the serve. He can easily hit up to 225kph but spins it in so often he ends up with a relatively mediocre serce percentage and 1st serve points won. I don't know which % he'd serve if he went bigger, but his 2nd serve is very solid, so I don't think it would be that big an issue, especially if his ground game improved.
- Learn to hit a forehand in closed stance. Now when he gets a sitter, he waits for it in open stance. If he runs into it, learn to hit it a bit flatter while taking it earlier you have a missing piece in his point construction right there. His net game is great, all he has to do is get there in a good way.
- Backhand needs work obviously. Hits too many purposeless slices and the topspin backhands don't do very much. The accuracy of the dtl backhand isn't actually that bad, and can surprise opponents at times, which is good. It doesn't need to be a weapon, but it needs to hold up better than it does and aid a little bit more in point construction should the opponent find his backhand
- Decision making. He hits WAY TOO ****ING MANY goofy shots. So often you'll see him hit a squash shot where he can still hit the easy putaway forehand and give his opponent a chance to pass him. Weird drop shots, trick shots, volley choices. He's got good hands, but he's wasting a % of points hitting touch shots where he should just do the straightforward thing
- Court positioning. His swings are pretty compact, he should stand closer to the baseline, especially when returning serve, it really hurt him in the Stockholm final. His forehand return is akward and needs work, his technique is bad to hit returns with, so he'll need to find a solution for that.
Man, I should be a tennis coach
