Tennis evolves, transforms, reinvents itself. It’s a maxim that happens in all sports activities, additionally in that of the racket, which is steadily giving solution to an period the place tennis gamers, on a bodily stage, obtain first-rate coaching. An period during which biotypes have modified radically, during which it’s potential to see actual giants transfer gracefully from the again of the court docket, during which a tennis participant might be an attacker and a defender virtually at the similar time.
Many of these patterns, inexplicable and unknown so far, are embodied in the determine of Daniil Medvedev. In the absence of a aggressive leap in the Grand slams (which interprets, relatively, right into a victory, since no Subsequent Gen participant has been so near conquering one on a number of events), the Russian tennis participant is a uncommon hen, a prototype tennis participant who has come to remain and that we had by no means seen. As they are often fashions like Erling haaland in soccer or Giannis Antetokounmpo In basketball, the physique and construction of the participant has ceased to outline his fashion. Daniil’s tennis can overwhelm from an enormous selection of profiles, stripped of any bodily limitation possible.
On this case, there’s a part of the recreation during which the profile displayed by Medvedev may be very troublesome to elucidate … but it surely works. Triumph. It’s the rest, one of his greatest areas for enchancment since his emergence on the circuit. Bodily, their 1.98 meters tall problem the notion that the Russian is a participant who can obtain an enormous return on this blow. It’s the logical factor to do, proper? That first step, that means to react, that velocity of actions they need to be hampered by constructing their very own physique.
Nothing to see. Medvedev employs a tactic few gamers of his stature have used. It does, as well as, on onerous courts: a full-blown problem to the canons of tennis. Daniil decides to subtract past the 4 or 5 meters above the baseline, an method to this shot that Rafael Nadal has perfected all through his profession … however with a preponderant success on clay (with larger response time and to hit due to the velocity of the floor) and pushing the opponent in direction of the backside of the court docket due to a ball of stratospheric revolutions (once more, motivated by the impression of the clay on the ball).
We already know, nevertheless, that Medvedev shouldn’t be a tennis participant who makes use of spin as his favourite tactic: he’s a kind of flat strokes, linear, typically with a mushy contact, in others with an uncommon posture from which he deploys actual cannon pictures. However 1.98 shouldn’t be a restrict for Medvedev. Fairly the opposite: they’re a bonus. The Russian doesn’t want monumental reflexes or response capability: his personal size of your arms, coupled with a singular means to land large pictures regardless of completely unorthodox positions, enable Medvedev to achieve unimaginable locations. Not solely that: additionally they help you hit virtually unimaginable, connecting massive, purely flat particles (!) Virtually from the again fence.
(A pattern of what Medvedev can do: that rest, in a 1.98m tennis participant, merely doesn’t exist. In a nook of the court docket, 4 or 5 meters from the baseline, he hits a real, completely flat bazooka shot aimed to a squad from the observe to win the fourth set of the 2019 Us Open remaining in opposition to Rafa Nadal).
Whereas gamers like Novak Djokovic or Andre Agassi have perfected this space of the recreation primarily based on steadiness, eye-ball-racket coordination and his response velocity to hit the candy spot of the racket in milliseconds, Medvedev takes a detour and buys time by getting thus far off the court docket. His bodily complexion, with these ‘gadgeto-arms’ (Whoever is aware of about Inspector Gadget will know what I’m speaking about) they’ll do the rest. His quest is to make the rest another hit of the trade: hit it flat, deep, deal with it as a place to begin to win the level. Defy the legal guidelines of physics.
The numbers that reaffirm it
Final week, throughout his coronation at the Canadian Masters 1000, Medvedev received the 50% of the factors to the rest in opposition to John isner following this recreation sample. In the remaining, earlier than Reilly opelka, signed comparable numbers: a 43.6% of factors earned. At Wimbledon, in opposition to different serving profiles similar to Marin Cilic or Sam Querrey, he additionally handed the 40% barrier. In all his video games of the Australian Open 2021With the exception of the remaining in opposition to Novak Djokovic (sure, the Serbian is that remaining monster of the recreation who proposes to dismantle patterns like this), Medvedev ALWAYS went from the barrier of 40% of factors received to the rest, together with a 44.6% in opposition to an excellent punch (with, as well as, many extra variants than the prototype that Opelka affectionately refers to as ‘servebot’) similar to Stefanos Tsitsipas. Towards Berrettini in the ATP Cup, additionally a 45% of factors gained to the rest.
This can be a concept supported by the information, information additionally proven by the analyst Craig O’Shanessy by means of a quantitative pattern drawn from the final ATP Cup. Medvedev averaged greater velocity in his second serve rest (117 km / h) than in the strokes to be performed in an trade (116 km / h). It’s additional proof of how the Russian needs to reinvent the board on onerous courts, a aggressive benefit that turns into much more capital looking at the future of the ATP.
As a result of, sure, associates: in a tennis more and more characterised by nice companies, the place virtually all younger profiles have a stable and contrasted serve, the rest can develop into the best differential factor. If not, ask Stefanos Tsitsipas. As a result of everybody can serve properly … however only some take benefit of what the rest can have. And Medvedev is set to be the greatest by proudly owning this maxim. Watch out with him.
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