United Cup

[stroke]

Seyboth Wild, from Brazil, just took the 1st set from Hurkacz in a tiebreaker. He is number ranked in the 60's now after starting last year in the 400's. He is clearly big fan of Roger as his forehand and serve technique looked very much like Roger, as commentator Jim Courier pointed out. He does play a 2 handed backhand though.

[jimlosaltos]

Group standings are here:

https://www.unitedcup.com/en/score-centre/group-standings

Live scores:

https://www.unitedcup.com/en/score-centre/live-scores

[jimlosaltos]

Alex De Minaur STUNS Novak Djokovic | United Cup 2024 Match Highlights

4 and 4. The Demon was, I believe, 0-10 vs Novak coming in. Had multiple break opportunities, and Djoko did his best stall routine. Could not hit through the speedy Aussie.
Teamed with Aija, Aussies beat Serbs 3-0

Highlights:

https://youtu.be/nbxvy7H72H4?si=XuC1xDoDAzg8v9O0

[stroke]

Alex De Minaur STUNS Novak Djokovic | United Cup 2024 Match Highlights

4 and 4. The Demon was, I believe, 0-10 vs Novak coming in. Had multiple break opportunities, and Djoko did his best stall routine. Could not hit through the speedy Aussie.
Teamed with Aija, Aussies beat Serbs 3-0

Highlights:
https://youtu.be/nbxvy7H72H4?si=XuC1xDoDAzg8v9O0

I am certainly glad the demon was able to overcome the Novak stall stuff. Novak is not only the GOAT, he is also the GOAT of stalling ha.

[jimlosaltos]

Djokovic said at presser that he has a "wrist issue" that has bothered him before and he can work through it before the Australian.

Others said (speculated?) it was at the base of his palm and is the same injury that cropped up when Djoko lost to FAA at Laver Cup.

Might be real. On the other hand, when one yells wolf often enough ...

[stroke]

Djokovic said at presser that he has a "wrist issue" that has bothered him before and he can work through it before the Australian.

Others said (speculated?) it was at the base of his palm and is the same injury that cropped up when Djoko lost to FAA at Laver Cup.

Might be real. On the other hand, when one yells wolf often enough ...

No words

[jimlosaltos]

Got to watch the whole match last night and what De Minaur did was amazing. I'd recommend finding the replay.

First he won all but 1 f his points behind a first serve in the entire match and the sole point lost was in the final game. I found myself indvertently wishing he'd miss a first serve as he attempted to close it out, so he'd end with 100% won <g>. His serve has all about accuracy beating Djokovic's return skills. It was a dominant win, with De Minaur winning 68 total points to only 49 for Djokovic, a margin of -- 19 points / 58% vs 42%.

Second, the diminutive Aussie, perhaps the lightest groundstroke hitter this side of Adrian Mandarino, somehow exposed everything that is the relative weakest in Djokovic's tremendous game.

In the first three games of the match, De Minaur forced Djokovic to:

1) Miss an overhead. Or three.
2) Approach the net more than once from a difficult position only to get passed while standing at the net like a net post.
3) Overhit trying to be aggressive on a slow, low ball.
4) Engage in a long cross-court exchange with slice backhands, eventually mishitting.

As others have said here, Djokovic has weaknesses, there're just in areas that are hard to expose. i.e. What do you do to expose a weak overhead, hit lots of lobs?

What De Minaur did was different than, yet reminded me of what Giles Simon achieved in forcing Djokovic to hit an astonishing ~100 UFEs in a 5 set Australian Open match years ago. Force Djokovic to be the initiator, while hitting his weakness shots.

While Simon did that with nerf-and-turf-, De Minaur had a great deal more variety and was looking to attack when he earned a chance but some things were shared. Hit low slice to award positions such as short in no man's land, or down the slide short with sidespin.

filedata/fetch?id=103032&d=1704390928&type=thumb

[stotty]

Got to watch the whole match last night and what De Minaur did was amazing. I'd recommend finding the replay.

First he won all but 1 f his points behind a first serve in the entire match and the sole point lost was in the final game. I found myself indvertently wishing he'd miss a first serve as he attempted to close it out, so he'd end with 100% won <g>. His serve has all about accuracy beating Djokovic's return skills. It was a dominant win, with De Minaur winning 68 total points to only 49 for Djokovic, a margin of -- 19 points / 58% vs 42%.

Second, the diminutive Aussie, perhaps the lightest groundstroke hitter this side of Adrian Mandarino, somehow exposed everything that is the relative weakest in Djokovic's tremendous game.

In the first three games of the match, De Minaur forced Djokovic to:

1) Miss an overhead. Or three.
2) Approach the net more than once from a difficult position only to get passed while standing at the net like a net post.
3) Overhit trying to be aggressive on a slow, low ball.
4) Engage in a long cross-court exchange with slice backhands, eventually mishitting.

As others have said here, Djokovic has weaknesses, there're just in areas that are hard to expose. i.e. What do you do to expose a weak overhead, hit lots of lobs?

What De Minaur did was different than, yet reminded me of what Giles Simon achieved in forcing Djokovic to hit an astonishing ~100 UFEs in a 5 set Australian Open match years ago. Force Djokovic to be the initiator, while hitting his weakness shots.

While Simon did that with nerf-and-turf-, De Minaur had a great deal more variety and was looking to attack when he earned a chance but some things were shared. Hit low slice to award positions such as short in no man's land, or down the slide short with sidespin.

This is all very well but wonder if he could do the same thing in a match at Melbourne...doubtful.

[jimlosaltos]

This is all very well but wonder if he could do the same thing in a match at Melbourne...doubtful.

Agreed. In fact, Demon may never do it again. But it will be fun if they do run into each other there.

If so, look for more of this !

filedata/fetch?id=103042&d=1704413213&type=thumb

[stroke]

Yes it looks like we are definitely headed toward a lot more injury drama from Novak at the AO. He probably will not want to talk about it though.

[jimlosaltos]

Greece out despite a win by Tsitsipas. However, Stef looks like his back injury, which has bothered him for months last year and forced him to withdraw from Tour Finals, is still acting up.

Zverev, meanwhile is hot, driving Germany into semis.

[stroke]

The demon continues his purple patch of stellar play taking out an in form Zverev in 3. The demon is quite the fighter out there, and the Aussies love him. He is pretty much the antithesis of Kyrgios. Demon enters the top 10 for first time with his win over Zverev. Speaking of opposites, how cool is it of Lleyton Hewiitt and Team Australia to just leave Demon completely alone at his thoughts during changeovers in crunch time in his huge win over Novak. No chirping in his ear, they know Demon knows what he needs to do. Massive contrast to Team Greece and Stef's dad chirping incessantly in Stef's ear during EVERY changeover.

[jimlosaltos]

The demon continues his purple patch of stellar play taking out an in form Zverev in 3. The demon is quite the fighter out there, and the Aussies love him. He is pretty much the antithesis of Kyrgios. Demon enters the top 10 for first time with his win over Zverev. Speaking of opposites, how cool is it of Lleyton Hewiitt and Team Australia to just leave Demon completely alone at his thoughts during changeovers in crunch time in his huge win over Novak. No chirping in his ear, they know Demon knows what he needs to do. Massive contrast to Team Greece and Stef's dad chirping incessantly in Stef's ear during EVERY changeover.

I noticed that. Complete silence as if Demon was in the zone and they didn't want to be the one to pop the bubble <g>

ATP has Rosewall on Demon with a highlight vid: “Alex has all the necessary parts of the game that's going to improve and he's shown that certainly in the past 12 months,” Rosewall told ATPTour.com. “His game has kind of come up to another level, with some good wins that he's had more recently, and just how well he's playing. The little bit of extra confidence that he's put in his game to give him some more variation is certainly making him one of the new players and one of the strong players of the men's circuit.”

https://www.unitedcup.com/en/media/news/rosewall-de-minaur-united-cup-2024-feature

[jimlosaltos]

Also, Demon's surge makes this lookback by Bastien Fachan, tennis author interesting.

Revisiting the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals cast

Hubert Hurkacz - Made it to the top 10
Frances Tiafoe - Made it to the top 10
Stefanos Tsitsipas - Made it to the top 10
Alex de Minaur - Made it to the top 10
Taylor Fritz - Made it to the top 10
Andrey Rublev - Made it to the top 10

Jaume Munar - Career-high 52
Liam Caruana [WC] - Career-high 375

filedata/fetch?id=103061&d=1704563817&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

While we're focusing on the men's side, some interesting goings-on on the WTA side.

Former Aussie champ and world number one Angie Kerber is waging her own maternity comeback. The United Cup provides a great format for a player to play-themselves into tournament shape, since one can lose a match then play again the next day and win, like Angie, here in a crucial match for Germany to help her team make the finals. Aija had been playing well for Australia.

Don't see her contending at the AO but if her protected ranking gives her a good seed she could do some damage there

Video highlights:

https://www.unitedcup.com/en/?videoId=6344387650112