Miami Open, Master's 1000

[tennis chiro]

My take is the same as Ruud's. Arthur Ashe once coined the term 'percentage winners' for players like Alcaraz? So as long as you make enough winners I guess it's a good strategy...and exciting for the spectator. Interesting Rafa went for the ultra consistent strategy when he played Alcaraz. He figured Alcaraz would miss a few too many I guess.

He does go for a lot, but he's not taking as much of a chance as someone else would to hit the same shot and he plays a lot of defensive shots to keep him in the point until he gets the opportunity to pull the trigger. I love the way he presses the attack and gets forward whenever he can. O'Shanessy said he was 11/11 on serve and volley attempts in the final. That's a pretty good percentage for "percentage winners"!

don

[jimlosaltos]

Early on in his match against Sinner, Kyrgios was complaining about the court speed of Stadium vs Grandstand (where he had played his previous 3 matches) - as a result on Prime Video they brought up the court speeds which they said are measured every day. I can't remember which was which, but the two numbers were 33.4 & 33.5, which the commentators said meant slow/medium.

Thanks for those numbers.

Here are some from 2016-2018, compiled by Vestige_du_jour. The bottom axis is the Court Pace Index, which only measures the surface. The vertical axis is "Ace Rating", which the statistician author says gives a better, more consistent measure of total conditions (Surface, ball, humidity, etc). Ace Ratings are derived from stats at Tennis Abstract (Jeff Sackman)

By his analysis Indian Wells 2018 was slower than Roland Garros & Madrid, Miami (in those years) was a tad faster. Rome 2016 was same as Indian Wells 2018, Rome 2018 slower.

Paris (Bercy) used to be one of the fastest, but the TD slowed it down to match London O2 that follows, to better attract players going to London.

"Old" Shanghai ((circa 2016) used to be called the fastest court on the tour, or as Jason Goodall called it "medium-slow by 1980s standards"

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[stotty]

He does go for a lot, but he's not taking as much of a chance as someone else would to hit the same shot and he plays a lot of defensive shots to keep him in the point until he gets the opportunity to pull the trigger. I love the way he presses the attack and gets forward whenever he can. O'Shanessy said he was 11/11 on serve and volley attempts in the final. That's a pretty good percentage for "percentage winners"!

don

Some athletes have a buzz around them. In soccer, whenever Pele got the ball there was a buzz around him...a sudden feeling something amazing might happen. Alcaraz has that same quality.