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Follow Heavy Topspin: Tennis Abstract: ATP and WTA Match Results, Splits, and Analysis
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2026 is not going to go down as a great year in ATP history. We began the year poised for some scintillating Sincaraz. Instead, we got a nice step forward from Ben Shelton, a breakthrough from Rafael Jodar, and soon, an utterly unconvincing new number one, in Alexander Zverev.
Sinner and Alcaraz didn’t disappoint on court. They just weren’t able to stay on court. Al...
To the backhand, obviously. Or is it down-the-line, to cut down angles? Or maybe mix things up, so the opponent won’t start leaning the right way. Should the advice be the same for men and women?
Start with the basics. For the ATP, looking at all forehand, backhand, and backhand slice approach shots (excluding serve-and-volleys and net-rushes on returns), the
A deep return is better than a shallow one. A return to a corner is better than one down the middle. There’s no doubt that return placement matters, but how long does it matter?
With every shot after...
The human brain is a trend-spotting machine. A couple of groundstroke errors in a row, and fans and commentators conclude that a player’s stroke has gone off the rails, perhaps because her opponent has exerted just the right pressure. Shots, we say, can “break down,” and even that opponents can “break them down.”
Except… an awful lot of the trends we spot are mirage...
Here’s a hypothesis for you: First serves are streaky.
It seems unquestionably true for amateurs. Our serves start clicking, or more commonly, fall apart entirely. Pros, though, are built different. After untold thousands of serves in practice, they should be steadier. The question, then, is whether they exhibit any streakiness at all, whether one missed first serve...