Thought I’d stick this here as it’s as good a place as any….
I popped down to watch the above today and thought I would share some random observations on the play in no particular order. Some of the observations may seem simplistic but they might prove useful when applying to your own games – particularly with regard to hitting winners and hitting the ball hard.
Location: Nottingham Tennis Centre, UK
Event: $15000 futures
Draw: Second round (round of 16) Main Draw
Top Seed: Ranked 253 in the world.
Surface: Hard acrylic – outdoor (medium pace)
Weather: Windy / overcast
Link:
http://www.atptennis.com/en/common/...www.atptennis.com/1/posting/2008/3378/mds.pdf
General:
1. Players: All heights and sizes – ranging from think to skinny and from 5’6” to about 6’3”. Out of the 16 players there were a disproportionate number of left handers.
2. Movement: The overriding impression of the day was that nearly all the players moved exceptionally well – and covered the court very well. Some players had excellent foot speed, those that didn’t always seemed to be in the correct position.
3. Unforced Errors: It was noticeable that whenever there were unforced error it was either due to going for too big a shot or from a breakdown in footwork due to laziness. More of the former than the latter.
4. Winners: Because of the players movement winners from the back were extremely rare. The players that hit winners from the baseline often seemed to lose the matches – probably because this is a high risk strategy at this level and produces too many errors. Half court balls were punished but again the speed of the players usually produced some sort of reply.
5. Point Construction: Most of the point construction seemed to be mindless. Each player seemed to hit the ball the way and direction that was comfortable to them. None of the players utilised the front half of the court with their ball placement, i.e. bringing people into the net. It was a groundstroke slugfest.
6. Playing styles: Nearly everyone was an all-courter. Most players only came to the net when they could hit an approach off a short ball. Everyone hit with heavy topspin on the forehand side and most players ran round their backhand. The players with one-handed backhands (not many of them) were apt to hit slice most of the time. Nobody seemed to hit with heavy topspin on the backhand side. Those few players who attacked on the backhand side did it with a double handed backhand and did it by taking it early and hitting very flat. I didn’t see anyone creating angles on the backhand side.
7. North to South: From the back the play was all surprisingly north to south with little use of angles. The focus was on depth so much that players didn’t seem to hit towards the sidelines at all meaning most of the balls were being taken after the bounce within the boundaries of the singles court.
8. Pace of Ball: The vast majority of rally balls were reasonably heavy with a fair bit of spin and fairly deep. No one was consistently clubbing the ball. I have seen 4.5 / 5.0’s trying to club the crap out of the ball more than these guys. Their focus was on spin and depth. Lesson there for all of us perhaps.
9. Whiny *****es: A lot of the players were whiny little *****es and they were usually the ones that lost (cause v effect?). The higher ranked players seemed to be more focused on the game. It was disappointing to hear at least 3 of the players shout things like “this is boring”, “kids tennis” as you’d expect from a club player playing against a pusher. The players with a more professional attitude were noticeable by their on court demeanour and by the fact they progressed to the next round.
Strokes:
10. First Serves: Saw very few flat first serves – the vast majority of serves were topspin serves. I’m not an expert on serve speeds but I’d guess the average first serve speed was no more than 100mph and I don’t think I saw any in excess of 110 mph – that’s one in the balls for all the TT people serving at 130. Most of the serves came back – a surprisingly high number. It seemed to be the serves out wide on both sides that got the most lame duck replies. The left-handed players hit a lot of slice serves on the ad side and these were by far the most effective serves I saw.
11. Second Serves: As you’d expect these were nearly all topspin or kick serves. They were hit with a lot of pace and when a player hit a topspin first and second serve they were indistinguishable from each other. A free point on second serve was pretty rare. Very few double faults.
12. Overheads: I didn’t see one player miss an overhead. Every overhead I saw ended the point there and then. This is partly because of good footwork but mostly because the lob was typically a last resort shot when people were completely out of position. If a player was close to the ball they’d go for the passing shot.
13. Approach shots: Off a mid court ball these were hit with topspin – slice approaches were rare and usually only hit off short slice shots from the baseline opponent. Slices were effective when used. It was noticeable that if the approach shot did not stretch the opponent the player at net nearly always lost the point. If you weren’t hitting a good approach you were dead in the water.
14. Volleys: Very few players could execute difficult volleys – most of them resulted in the loss of a point. It seems that the players rely heavily on their approach shots being good and use their volleys as a means to cut off passing shots and blocking the ball into space. They didn’t miss these but when the baseline guy had time and drilled a ball it usually produced a missed volley. The volleying was disappointing.
15. Returns: On first and second serves the return was typically used to just get the serve back. There were quite a few attackable second serves but players opted to block them back 90% of the time. When they attacked the second serves they usually bunted them long. Typically the returners were just stepping in off a short takeback.
One more thing. I now realise why you get so many people on here laughing at players’ videos. I found myself watching these guys thinking I could probably step on court and not totally embarrass myself. From experience though I know I would get absolutely crushed. Perhaps that explains the scorn placed on peoples vids - the game looks so easy when you’re not playing it……
Any questions let me know. Sorry for the stream of consciousness.
P.s. One umpire and one line judge per court. Balls changed every 11 games (I think).
