Tag: Stan Wawrinka

Peeling the Skin Away

Experts say that skin renews itself approximately every 28 days. In terms of tennis chronology, assuming that the period of dominance by a few elite players counts as a cycle, and looking at the pattern since the turn of the century, 28-day cycle of skin renewal in men’s tennis terms translates to… well, we do not know yet! The fact that there is nobody called Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, or Roger Federer in the finals of a Slam tournament for the first time since the 2005 Australian Open does not necessarily point to the end of an era. In fact, one could argue that even in a tournament in which Nadal did not show up due to an injury, Djokovic looked like he has yet to recover from a dismal hard court summer, Federer played his worst tennis of the 2014 campaign, and Andy Murray ran into one of the other three in the quarterfinals, two of the big 4 names were still in the semi-finals.

That being said, the trend has arrived. In my last entry prior to the US Open, I predicted that this US Open was a great opportunity for an outsider to have a career tournament due to the lack of quality performance that the top-10 players have displayed through the tournaments prior to the Major in New York. At first glance, it looks like my prediction was spot on. We did have two outsiders battle in the men’s finals on Monday night, and in fact, I even counted Cilic’s name amongst the possible outsiders in the comments below. However, my premise was flawed. I assumed that it would happen because it was a ‘low’ period for the stars and that represented a window of opportunity for the newcomers. What I did not realize was to what point the transformation of the ATP’s composition of top players has begun. When I looked at 2014 as a season so far, it all became evident.

Yes, the skin is changing! When Stan Wawrinka won the Australian Open, most believed it was an anomaly. By the time Novak Djokovic won the two Masters Series tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami, people believed so much in the flash-in-the-pan nature of Wawrinka’s accomplishment that they have all but overlooked Kei Nishikori outplaying an in-form Federer in Miami. But the players did apparently take notice. Milos Raonic at Wimbledon, and Marin Cilic few days ago, have both pointed to Wawrinka’s victory as the day where they came to the realization that the “others” had a chance. They explicitly credited the Swiss for opening the door for them, at least mentally. When the clay-court season arrived, the so-called anomaly Wawrinka showed that he is not an anomaly, as he took the clay-court specialist and long-time top-6 player David Ferrer out in Monte Carlo, and then won the title against his good friend Federer in the finals. One week later, tennis fans were stunned for an hour and a half when they watched Nishikori ‘school’ (yes, that is the only term that comes to mind if you watched that segment) Nadal on clay in Madrid until a 6-2 4-2 lead, only to see his hopes of winning the title slip away due to an injury that forced him to withdraw from the match 0-3 down in the third after losing a painful seven games in a row.

Marin CilicMarin Cilic practicing during the Cincinnati ATP tournament

After Roland Garros showed that the big 4 were still able to dominate, Wimbledon confirmed the coming-of-age of few new faces. Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov who have been knocking on the door of the top 10 reached the semi-finals, only to be reminded by Federer and Djokovic that they are not quite there, but very close. Wawrinka was anything but missing in action as some predicted, reaching the quarterfinals, only to lose to Federer in a tough four-setter. As to Nadal, he was knocked out early in the second week by another flashy newcomer, the Australian Nick Kyrgios. Now, the change of skin was becoming a reality. Wawrinka, Raonic, Dimitrov, Nishikori (the latter’s injury slowed his year down, but only temporarily) were here to stay. The change of skin was no longer an anomaly. Ernests Gulbis was one of those. An anomaly, an exception, highly unlikely to appear again in a semi-final or a final, even if the Big 4 put down their rackets today and never picked them up again. He has been around, operating below his potential for many years. Gulbis was one single anomaly; the rest represented the renewal of the faces of the ATP.

This U.S. Open confirmed the trend, stamped it, officialized it. Federer and Djokovic looked under-matched against two of the new faces, Nishikori and the big-serving Cilic. On the one hand, the next couple of years will make us appreciate how important Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic are to men’s tennis and to its explosion as a popular sport around the world over the last decade. ATP should forever be thankful to these great champions who will deservedly take their places in the historiography of the sport as the main representatives of second golden age of tennis, following the first during the late 70s and the early 80s. I doubt we will ever see such a dominant group of individuals whose equivalent of “28-day skin-renewal” in men’s tennis has yet to be determined, even after a decade. Yet, the end-of-the-year ATP Championships, as well as the Majors next year, will become bigger sources of anticipation as the fascinated tennis fan will now look forward to discussing who will get to the semis, which player will enter top 5, or who will win their first Major title, rather than guessing who out of the big 4 will win the next Major title. This is not to say that one option is less entertaining than the other. It’s just that the latter question has thrilled us for so long that I now predict tennis fans will embrace with open arms the emergence of the former types of questions.

US Open Men’s Draw: Open to Outsiders

The two Masters 1000 tournaments that take place Canada and Cincinnati often give a solid indication of what is likely to take place in the U.S. Open, which starts one week after the end of the Cincinnati tournament. For example, last year, Rafael Nadal went on to win both tournaments, in Montréal and Cincinnati, and kept rolling through the U.S. Open all the way to his 13th Slam title.

If that trend holds true, in other words, if these two tournaments signal what is to come in New York, one message is clear: the top 15 players in the ATP are either out of form or injured and it may just be the perfect opportunity for an outsider to reach for the elite status. Stanislas Wawrinka did in the Australian Open, but he had to go through two of the world’s best — Novak Djokovic and Nadal — in order to hold the Slam trophy.

Djokovic has had the most miserable two-week period of his career in a long time. He played well below his usual level of tennis, often looking like a novice on the court, missing silly balls and appearing afraid to hit the ball. He played four matches during which he never played better than mediocre tennis by his standards. He admitted that the two weeks did nothing for his confidence and that he is heading into the U.S. Open without enough match play in the hard courts.

Rafael Nadal has pulled out of the US Open due to his left-wrist injury. Roger Federer is no doubt the most consistent top player on the tour this summer. However, as good as his results have looked during these two weeks, his tennis has been up and down. Even as he won in Cincinnati, he only played one great match from beginning to end, his semifinal win against Milos Raonic. The rest of his matches featured patches of dry spells filled with strings of unforced errors.

Stan Wawrinka did not make the semifinals in either tournament. After his win against Cilic in the third round of the Cincinnati tournament, he responded to a media member’s question by saying, “I am glad I won, but I have to play much better to go further.” He did not, and he was eliminated by Julien Bennetteau in the quarterfinals. Tomas Berdych is in a virtual free-fall since Roland Garros and risks being left out of the top 10 by the end of the year unless he recuperates quickly. Andy Murray, meanwhile, still does not have a win against a top-10 player since Wimbledon 2012. Milos Raonic has been more consistent than other top-10 players, but still not playing at the level that got him to the semifinal round of Wimbledon. He is the number 6 player in the world, but he has yet to record a single win against the top five players ahead of him in 21 attempts.

Dimitrov - Cincy

Another newcomer to the scene and the other semifinalist in Wimbledon, Grigor Dimitrov (pictured above), made it to the semis in Toronto, but played dismal against Jerzy Janowicz in his early-round exit in Cincinnati. As for David Ferrer, although he did reach the final in Cincinnati, by his standards, he is having his most inconsistent year on the tour since, well… ages ago. If one considers that Kei Nishikori, Richard Gasquet, and Juan Martin del Potro have all pulled out of the U.S. Open, we can extend this list of out of form attribute to the players ranked in the top 15. Ernests Gulbis (13) and John Isner (14) are not exactly burning the barn, either.

Once the U.S. Open begins on Monday, it will naturally be hard to pick anyone outside the top 15 to win the tournament or even to get to the semifinals. Yet, if the players ranked in the 15-to-40 range take a close look at the field, they should be able to see that this US Open may be their best opportunity to dig far in a Slam and earn valuable points. The big names are clearly not playing well, and an outsider who wants to make a run to the last weekend of the tournament, may not have to go through bunch of them to get there. Unless any one or more of the top players happened to rediscover their form during this week in practice, the window of opportunity is there for one or more outsiders to have a career-building tournament.

Of the Importance of 2nd Serves…

Back in my college coaching days, my ex-roommate and life-long friend named Michael Kreider originally from Buffalo, NY, and a current tennis pro in Atlanta, said to me one time “you are only as good as your second serve.” At the time, I would make my team practice second serves as part of our daily serving routine. However, after Michael’s reminder, I began designing drills specifically geared towards making my players feel under pressure, and force them to serve second serves under those circumstances. Eventually, I got on the same page with Michael and began believing that second serves were just as important as any other single shot in tennis, if not more. You may have even read one of my pieces where I praise Raonic, Federer, and Isner for being, in my opinion, the best second-serve hitters in the game.

Let’s take a quick look at the Wimbledon Men’s Draw from the perspective of second serves.

2nd serve

There is a stat called “2nd serve points won” and you can find it on Wimbledon’s website. Three of the quarter-finalists are in the top 8 of that list (see picture above). At number 1, there is Tatsuma Ito whose percentage is based on one match only since he lost in the first round, thus not very indicative of the overall second-serve effectiveness. At number 2, 3, and 4, we have Roger Federer (68%), Feliciano Lopez who lost today (66%), and Milos Raonic (65%). At number 7, there is the guy who took Lopez out, Stan Wawrinka (62%). I will also add as a side note that, on the women’s list in the same category, after Kristina Pliskova, who also played only one round, you can find Petra Kvitova at #2 with 64%, and Simona Halep at #3 with 63%.

But wait! It does not end there.

It is generally accepted that the serve is an essential factor in playing successful tiebreaks. Until today, Lopez was 6 out of 7 in tiebreakers in his first three rounds. Today he lost two tiebreakers to Wawrinka who is third on the list among the players still alive in the tournament. Additionally, Federer is the leader of the career tiebreak winning percentage category on the ATP Tour.

No, it still does not end there.

Here is an incredible stat from today: against Tommy Robredo, Federer lost only one – yes, ONE – point on his second-serve points in the first two sets combined! Furthermore, since second serve is the shot that determines if you double fault or not, I should add that Federer had 0 – yes, zero! – double faults today, despite hitting them well enough to serve-and-volley on several of them. In fact, today’s four quarterfinal winners had a total of only 8 double faults between them. Half of those came from Nick Kyrgios who more than made up for that with his 37 aces against Rafael Nadal.

Is it becoming clear how important second serves are yet? If not, here is one last tidbit…

Out of all 8 men left in the singles draw, Dimitrov and Kyrgios have the highest number of double faults per match. They both average just below four double faults a match. They also average 10 aces (Dimitrov) and 26 aces (Kyrgios) per match. Next, there is Marin Cilic at less than 3 double faults per match and he is averaging 24,5 aces per match. The other five quarterfinalists are averaging less than two double faults per match.

Three of them are still in the tournament in the men’s draw. Watch Raonic, Wawrinka, and Federer, on their second serves, and you will see the variation on the spin, slice, speed, and placement. That is why these three players love the pattern of putting the next shot away with their big forehands (or even volleys in Federer’s case who serves-and-volleys on second serve occasionally), because they get a number of returns back from their second serves that are placed exactly where they want them for the winning shot.

Does all this mean that a tour player cannot win without a terrific second serve? No, but it does mean that if a player wants to succeed at the highest level, second serves will have to be incorporated into his/her practice routine, just like any other shot in tennis. Not just “serves,” but specifically “second serves”.

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