messiahrobins
G.O.A.T.
The touch paper is well and truly lit. 1 and 2 in the world. No time for resting on laurels. Have a few days off then back to work on the grass.
AS great as they are, there are weaknesses. Both FH's are error prone at crucial moments and they need to clean that up as their BH's are better shots and more secure under the most intense pressure. Their biggest weaknesses are the serve. Sinner doesnt have a great slice serve often enough that curls away from the opponent that Sampras perfected on his serve. Alcaraz exactly the same problem and the frustrating thing is both can hit that serve but it takes courage to do it as to get it curling away it means taking the pace significantly off the serve to allow the spin to take effect. Too often both get caught in no mans land and go out wide put too hard which means they dont get the angle and spin.
Their flat bomb serves are hard but not precise enough. Often they are in the hit zone of the returner. It would be worth sacrificing pace to get the precision which is what Sampras (who could hit bombs as big as Becker and other big servers) and Federer, and in later years Djokovic have perfected. Also sacrificing a bit of pace for accuracy would increase 1st serve percentage. Both were in the 50% range yesterday which isnt where you want to be at that level.
Alcaraz needs to, on clay at least, cut out trying to be a Sinner type power hitter and use his topspin shots more. 2 years in a row now at RG he has lost the opening set in the semis and final because he was hitting too flat and hard and making too many errors. In all four matches the moment he went to a spin dominated game with more margin he turned the matches around. I get the impression he finds it a boring way to play but long term on clay it should mean less wars.
Sinner needs to develop a squash shot when out very wide on his FH to give him time to get back into court rather than trying to always hit his way out of trouble, and also needs a slice backhand, especially on grass.
Finally, on their volleys they need to punch through the ball more ala Edberg instead of always hitting under the ball for stop volleys, which is actually an issue for all the top players at the moment.
These guys are that good i am certain the above improvements will be added, and once they do we will basically have as close to flesh and blood AI players as you can get.
To have two icons this young so close in age to each other is a blessing for the sporting world. The look on Agassi and Edberg's faces yesterday of disbelief at what they were watching, given all the iconic moments they produced themselves and their legendary statuses will live with me for the rest of my life. They were awestruck as i think we all were.
AS great as they are, there are weaknesses. Both FH's are error prone at crucial moments and they need to clean that up as their BH's are better shots and more secure under the most intense pressure. Their biggest weaknesses are the serve. Sinner doesnt have a great slice serve often enough that curls away from the opponent that Sampras perfected on his serve. Alcaraz exactly the same problem and the frustrating thing is both can hit that serve but it takes courage to do it as to get it curling away it means taking the pace significantly off the serve to allow the spin to take effect. Too often both get caught in no mans land and go out wide put too hard which means they dont get the angle and spin.
Their flat bomb serves are hard but not precise enough. Often they are in the hit zone of the returner. It would be worth sacrificing pace to get the precision which is what Sampras (who could hit bombs as big as Becker and other big servers) and Federer, and in later years Djokovic have perfected. Also sacrificing a bit of pace for accuracy would increase 1st serve percentage. Both were in the 50% range yesterday which isnt where you want to be at that level.
Alcaraz needs to, on clay at least, cut out trying to be a Sinner type power hitter and use his topspin shots more. 2 years in a row now at RG he has lost the opening set in the semis and final because he was hitting too flat and hard and making too many errors. In all four matches the moment he went to a spin dominated game with more margin he turned the matches around. I get the impression he finds it a boring way to play but long term on clay it should mean less wars.
Sinner needs to develop a squash shot when out very wide on his FH to give him time to get back into court rather than trying to always hit his way out of trouble, and also needs a slice backhand, especially on grass.
Finally, on their volleys they need to punch through the ball more ala Edberg instead of always hitting under the ball for stop volleys, which is actually an issue for all the top players at the moment.
These guys are that good i am certain the above improvements will be added, and once they do we will basically have as close to flesh and blood AI players as you can get.
To have two icons this young so close in age to each other is a blessing for the sporting world. The look on Agassi and Edberg's faces yesterday of disbelief at what they were watching, given all the iconic moments they produced themselves and their legendary statuses will live with me for the rest of my life. They were awestruck as i think we all were.
