What, exactly, does Djokovich do?

[sawfish]

I started watching him closely last year, having heard a lo about him
but not having seen much.

My conclusion, which could be changed, is that he is a defensive
player, more so than Nadal, perhaps. He gets almost everything back,
with a little something on it in terms of pace/placement, so that the
opponent's next shot is no easy put away, and he can wait for an
opponent to screw up before becoming aggressive, after a fashion.

I don't see a hell of a lot of fire-power.

Opinions?

[arnab.z@gmail]

On Friday, July 27, 2012 11:05:08 PM UTC+6, sawfish wrote:

He plays with sustained firepower. Much more offensive than Nadal, for sure. Playing Djokovic is like a duel where players exchange straightforward shot after shot from the baseline. Djok also has great defense, which means he gets lots of would be winners back, but that one of the many features of his game, just not the defining one. Djok has great wheels, has a great point-ending cross-court 2h backhand shot. He can amp up his power to a very high level when he feels it is necessary and that causes a lot of trouble for most of the players. Usually, he hits through more winners against lower ranked players. Against Nadal or Fed, it requires extra effort and even there he gives them a lot of trouble once he gets going, in the zone, hitting a barrage of powerful shots.

[undecided]

If you play the sport, you will know that sustained depth of ball can rattle an opponent. You realize that your opponent (Djoker) will keep every ball deep and punish any short ball thus you need to keep all your balls just as deep. This causes a lot of stress and it forces you to overplay, either going for winners or too close to the lines.

[sawfish]

On Jul 27, 11:16 am, undecided <cost...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you play the sport, you will know that sustained depth of ball can rattle an opponent. You realize that your opponent (Djoker) will keep every ball deep and punish any short ball thus you need to keep all your balls just as deep. This causes a lot of stress and it forces you to overplay, either going for winners or too close to the lines.

This sounds exactly like what happens to Nadal's opponents.

Does this fit with your observations?

[sawfish]

On Jul 27, 10:54 am, "arnab.z@gmail" <arnab.zah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday, July 27, 2012 11:05:08 PM UTC+6, sawfish wrote:
>
> He plays with sustained firepower. Much more offensive than Nadal, for sure. Playing Djokovic is like a duel where players exchange straightforward shot after shot from the baseline. Djok also has great defense, which means he gets lots of would be winners back, but that one of the many features of his game, just not the defining one. Djok has great wheels, has a great point-ending cross-court 2h backhand shot. He can amp up his power to a very high level when he feels it is necessary and that causes a lot of trouble for most of the players. Usually, he hits through more winners against lower ranked players. Against Nadal or Fed, it requires extra effort and even there he gives them a lot of trouble once he gets going, in the zone, hitting a barrage of powerful shots.

Do you really think he's got that much power?

I've watched hard, looking for how he wins. Does he hit lines all the
time? No. Does he overpower people? Not that I can see.

Here's a very telling point (to me). Does his serve force people
around? Not if his match against Federer was any indication. As I
watched the match and observed the speed gun reading, I came to the
conclusion: you'll never beat Federer with server of 105 mph or less.
And this is indeed the range he was serving that day.

What I *did* see was that he gets a hell of a lot of balls back that
should be forced errors, making the opponent play many extra balls. He
seems to keep the ball deep, if not necessarily with forceful pace. He
doesn't get tired, and he's fast and agile. He gets distracted, but
not "down".

I could be wrong.

[Ulysses]

In fairness, you can't possibly judge Nole if you've only watched him
"closely" since last year. 2011 was an anomaly and he never played
liked that before and probably never will again. You would had to have
watched him from 2006 onwards in order to compare his early form and
to witness his constant retirements from matches, fitness issues,
etc.

I figured he would be a top 5 player when I first saw him play Fed at
MC in 2006. He took Fed to three sets and played well. But he REALLY
played well in beating Fed for the 2007 Canadian Open title. I watched
that match again recently on DVD. But I never remotely pegged Nole as
a future #1 because he was flaky, mentally inconsistent and had
"breathing issues." Constant retirements in slams which is the kiss of
death. And his family was trashy, obnoxious, intrusive seemed a drag
on his game at times.

There's not a lot to critque in his game, he's not a genius like Fed
or even particularly interesting to watch. At his absolute apex in
early 2011, he made very few UE's, retrieved *everything* and played
with unbelievable confidence. He never tired either. The last two
elements have been noticeably absent this year after the AO. He just
seems mentally unfocused since the USO last year and his results
clearly show this.

[TennisGuy]

On Jul 27, 3:25 pm, sawfish <sawfish...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This sounds exactly like what happens to Nadal's opponents.
>
> Does this fit with your observations?

It sounds like you are trolling but I'll have a go at this.

Not exactly like what happens with Nadal.
Nole's game is not ugly, Nadal's game is ugly to watch.
Nole doesn't hit high topspin shots to get his opponents
uncomfortable.

Nole hits deep penetrating shots off both sides with consistency and
power.
Nole is also perhaps the fastest player on tour today.
Nole also has probably the best return of serve today.
Nole has very few holes in his game when he is on.
Add everything together and you come up with a winner.

Next.

[arnab.z@gmail]

On Saturday, July 28, 2012 1:31:34 AM UTC+6, sawfish wrote:
>
>
> Do you really think he's got that much power?
>

I do.

>
> I've watched hard, looking for how he wins. Does he hit lines all the
>
> time? No. Does he overpower people? Not that I can see.
>

He plays a relatively safe game. Not overly aggressive. But safe hitting. It all depends on his opponent. If his opponent starts hitting harder, Djok will mirror him shot for shot until he forces a UE or may be sees an opening and produces a winner. Nice strategy.

>
> Here's a very telling point (to me).

How is this "telling"? He won tons of matches in 2011 using this mirror strategy all the while banking on his stamina for long points, games and matches and also relying on the consistency of his shotmaking.

> Does his serve force people
>
> around? Not if his match against Federer was any indication. As I
>
> watched the match and observed the speed gun reading, I came to the
>
> conclusion: you'll never beat Federer with server of 105 mph or less.
>
> And this is indeed the range he was serving that day.
>

You are cherrypicking here. Djokovic's performance against Fed in Wimbledon 2012 wasn't his peak performance. It was error-strewn. It seemed like he wasn't mentally there a 100%. But this is a huge part of his recent success, the mental makeup/approach that he has.

>
> What I *did* see was that he gets a hell of a lot of balls back that
>
> should be forced errors, making the opponent play many extra balls. He
>
> seems to keep the ball deep, if not necessarily with forceful pace. He
>
> doesn't get tired, and he's fast and agile. He gets distracted, but
>
> not "down".
>
>
>
> I could be wrong.

No, you're right. But he also hits with sufficient power and consistently so. It's not like he is returning slices and half-moonballs and taking pace off his rallying shots. He basically mirrors his opponent until he sees an opening or his opponent runs out of gas/ideas and makes an UE.

It's physically and mentally very taxing strategy, I would think. But he pulled it off in a great fashion in 2011. Hasn't been able to do it since AO 2012, though. Which means this is probably not a good long-term strategy.

[Scott]

tour-best ROS, particularly in crucial moments of the highest stages.

has strong competency with every shot; an all-court game (when he
wants to show it).

modern BH. very little initial turn; just blocks it and then upon
impact really uncoils giving him great control and direction. This
negates Nadal's topspin war against a right-hander's BH.

really fights against everyone but Fed and Rafa; with the exception of
last year.

[sawfish]

I think these are good points and I will evaluate his game with this
in mind. For sure, to have his results, and against Nadal/Federer/
Murray, he's certainly got something. Maybe what it is, is a well-
rounded game that does not rely on a couple of well-honed skills.

[sawfish]

This part is really interesting to me. My daughter is assmebling a
game and one reason I wanted to ask a bunch of stuff of RST was to get
some knowledgeable opinions on what the direction of tennis is. So
when you refer to a "modern BH" I am intrigued; there may be aspects
that she could fit into her game.

Me, I learned to play in the early 60s and none of the early stuff is
in any way applicable to what I'm seeing out there on the high school
varsity team. The volley is still about the same, if you can get in. I
adapted an old game by changing the grips on FH and BH and it worked
into the transitional era and it worked OK for a while, but stuff's
all different now, in a lot of ways, but most especially from the
baseline.

I'm not here to try to pin people to the wall. I really do want to get
a bunch of differing opinions and advice. I'd like to hear what the
elements of Djokovich's BH are. I've seen it and the best I can
explain it is that he stays lower than most and it seems very compact.
It looks teachable.

Is flatness re-entering the game, do you think?

[Terence H.]

What many seem to be waiting to see if Federer has his mojo back.
personally i don't think the olympics will tell us much since Roger
didn't do so well there even when he was at his supreme best. he always
played nervous in the olympics. it was just too much for him in the
singles to win there. it seems highly unlikely now past his prime he
wouldn't get those nervous jitters even more so. but we will see...

[drew]

On Jul 27, 10:04 pm, sawfish <sawfish...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Is flatness re-entering the game, do you think?

Only when going for winners. Not much future in hitting flat on
routine
balls because it lowers percentage too much...so spinny tennis with
margin
for error over the net is here to stay IMO...I don't see a winning
strategy otherwise.

[sawfish]

Pre-topspin days were really different. By this I mean wooden racquet,
west coast hardcourt tennis. Every who can hit a decent forehand will
"roll" the ball a bit, there's no getting around it. These types of
shots are called "flat".

But in that era of flat strokes, you did not alter the spin on the
forehand side on-the-fly, with infinite granularity, as is done
routinely today. Pretty much you either drove it hard, with the little
"roll", or you sliced, if you effectively had this on the FH. I can
recall transitioning to this new type of variable TS on the FH (for 1
H BH it is much harder to do this level of instantaneous, granular
variation, at least within my experience), and once you feel OK about
TS, it is surprisingly easy to control the amount of TS, and the
trajectory, on-the-fly, as you have noted.

[drew]

On Jul 28, 10:31 am, sawfish <sawfish...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 28, 12:50 am, drew <d...@technologist.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 27, 10:04 pm, sawfish <sawfish...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Is flatness re-entering the game, do you think?
>
> > Only when going for winners.  Not much future in hitting flat on
> > routine
> > balls because it lowers percentage too much...so spinny tennis with
> > margin
> > for error over the net is here to stay IMO...I don't see a winning
> > strategy otherwise.
>
> Pre-topspin days were really different. By this I mean wooden racquet,
> west coast hardcourt tennis. Every who can hit a decent forehand will
> "roll" the ball a bit, there's no getting around it. These types of
> shots are called "flat".
>
> But in that era of flat strokes, you did not alter the spin on the
> forehand side on-the-fly, with infinite granularity, as is done
> routinely today. Pretty much you either drove it hard, with the little
> "roll", or you sliced, if you effectively had this on the FH.

It's a lot easier when you adjust to the modern strings and just
impart the necessary topspin.
I've noticed that the guys who still use one hand on the backhand are
now often VERY handicapped
on the backhand as they are only competent with slice, playing guys
who only ever used two hands.

Until I learned to use two hands on the backhand, guys who liked to
volley would use the old strategy
of hitting deep to the backhand side, fairly wide and wait for the
slice return to volley. A power backhand
with one hand is a difficult shot. Even some pros who use one hand
have difficulty with it. Now that the
new generation drives with topspin and great pace off of both sides
even at the club level....the shape
of the game is changed forever..

[sawfish]

Thta's exactly how I have seen it develop, too. A log of the weakness
of the 1H BH is the amount of time it takes to set up; it is not
possible to hit any effective shot from an open position, and it is
hard to really drive a 1H BH unless you are there in plenty of time,
get turned, get set, and take it a little in front. Other than that,
the best you can hope for is a neutral shot (basically, re-shuffling
the deck to see what your next hand will be), or worse, some form of
slice to buy some time.

The 2H BH completely and forever changed the game. It was always
easier to go after anyone's 1H BH than it was to rally forever to
their FH--besides, I'd get tired and/or make a mistake. It wasn't just
me, either; most competetn club-level players did exactly what you
described: wait for a chance to bully someone on the BH side, either a
FH to BH exchange, running aorund one's own BH to keep the pressure on
their BH, or else try the approach you suggested.

As much as I liked hitting 1H BH, when my daughter came to learning
how to play, I thought long and hard and could not think of any
compelling reasons to use anything other than a 2H BH. You really only
give up the ability to slice to get to the net, which few do well
today, or to change pace (rhythm) with a slice.

[Vlado]

On Jul 27, 1:05 pm, sawfish <sawfish...@gmail.com> wrote:

Who the hell are you and why does your opinion count?
It's obviously baseless.

[Vlado]

On Jul 27, 1:05 pm, sawfish <sawfish...@gmail.com> wrote:

Another thing, tell me if you have watched tennis matches recently
with John Mcenroe commentating or someone similar?