Rotterdam, ATP 500

[stroke]

Demon is red hot.

[stotty]

Sinner plays a tiebreak straight out of Novak's playbook; locked down well and served well. On the whole not a great first set by Sinner and Raonic should have capitalised.

Sinner leads 1 set to love.

[stroke]

Sinner wins 1st set in a tiebreaker vs Raonic, who still has the best non giant serve in tennis. Karlovic and Isner are retired I think, Opelka has been out a while.

[stotty]

Raonic quits....shame. He was doing pretty well.

[stroke]

Raonic quits....shame. He was doing pretty well.

So true, hip injury it appeared.

[stroke]

Nick Lester on TennisTV just pointed out that unless Grigor wins this tournament, there will not be any single handed backhand players in the top 10 for the first time ever.

[jimlosaltos]

Nick Lester on TennisTV just pointed out that unless Grigor wins this tournament, there will not be any single handed backhand players in the top 10 for the first time ever.

Amazing. Go, Grigor, Go !

[jimlosaltos]

Jeff Sackman writes that Rotterdam isn't merely slow, it is extremely slow.

JS: linked to blog "Rotterdam is unusually slow for a hard court, especially indoors. The venue takes away 4% of the points a player typically earns from his serve.

Here are the Serve Impact adjustments for the tournaments best represented in the dataset.
Higher numbers mean faster conditions with more points decided based on the serve:

Tournament Serve Impact
Stuttgart 1.29
NextGen Finals 1.20
Tour Finals 1.16
Wimbledon 1.11
Shanghai Masters 1.11
Halle 1.10
Queen's Club 1.08
Basel 1.08
Washington 1.08
Dubai 1.07

Antwerp 1.05
Gstaad 1.05
Australian Open 1.04
Davis Cup Finals 1.04
Cincinnati Masters 1.04
Paris Masters 1.03
Vienna 1.03
Miami Masters 1.02
Madrid Masters 1.01
US Open 1.01

Canada Masters 1.00
Rotterdam 0.96
Indian Wells Masters 0.95
Rome Masters 0.92
Acapulco 0.87
Barcelona 0.87
Roland Garros 0.83
Monte Carlo Masters 0.83

[jimlosaltos]

Since Sinner is on court as I type, I'll repeat a stat from Alex Gruskin of Cracked Rackets pre-Rotterdam: "Sinner’s held serve 91.1% of the time since Wimbledon"
That's Isner level.

TPN has discussed his (Darren Cahill's) audacious move of changing Sinner's service motion a second time, mid-season, just before Wimbledon.
Well, it certainly worked.

As of this AM sinner has won 95% of his service games -- this year, per ATP site. (OK, so it's early in 2024, but 95% for the year would be great one day into the year).

[jimlosaltos]

And Sinner keeps rolling.

No breaks today vs an in form big hitting Griekspoor, 1 vs Raonic, 1 vs Monfils, 0 in R23.

filedata/fetch?id=103413&d=1708212677&type=thumb

[stroke]

Since Sinner is on court as I type, I'll repeat a stat from Alex Gruskin of Cracked Rackets pre-Rotterdam: "Sinner’s held serve 91.1% of the time since Wimbledon"
That's Isner level.

TPN has discussed his (Darren Cahill's) audacious move of changing Sinner's service motion a second time, mid-season, just before Wimbledon.
Well, it certainly worked.

As of this AM sinner has won 95% of his service games -- this year, per ATP site. (OK, so it's early in 2024, but 95% for the year would be great one day into the year).

Sinner is certainly looking like the guy to beat. His serve is now top notch certainly, he takes the ball early off both sides and hits such a big ball. His drop shot has improved. He has a great temperant out there.

[stroke]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nUwm3k7qKjtcFPSn6

Sinner wins a very well played by both players 1st set of video game like tennis.

[stroke]

That's 15 wins on the trot now for Sinner, and now the highest ranked Italian ever at Blogs

[jimlosaltos]

Sinner is certainly looking like the guy to beat. His serve is now top notch certainly, he takes the ball early off both sides and hits such a big ball. His drop shot has improved. He has a great temperant out there.

And in the last year he's gone from looking awkward at the net to being a real presence. I wouldn't say he's nimble there but he's hard to pass.
Hard to believe someone already in the top 10 could be the most improved player, but he probably is.

[jimlosaltos]

That's 15 wins on the trot now for Sinner, and now the highest ranked Italian ever at Blogs

I'm sure you remember Adriano Panatta. Only man to beat Bjorn Borg twice in French clay, I believe.