Tennis 3.0 - Growing the game of tennis

The upcoming American Emma Navarro has already eliminated the defending US Open Champion Coco Gauff. Who had a better forehand was not even much of the question in that match.

In a few minutes, the 2023 runner-up Aryna Sabalenka is Emma's next opponent. The forehand could be of a high importance again. For years, forehand was the weakness of Aryna Sabalenka. "Destroying" Aryna's forehand was one of the essential tactical elements to use against her. When Sloane Stephens started to partly used this tactic in their match during the 2023 French Open, she came back from 0-5 in the 1st set to find herself with a mini-break in the tiebreaker. Unfortunately, she left the successful tactic at that moment...

But the times have changed a bit. Aryna had made significant improvements in her forehand. During the current 2024 US Open, her forehand was clocked as the fastest one in the entire field, including men!! In my personal opinion, Aryna improved mainly one element leading to a significantly bigger body energy engagement in her forehand stroke. Mainly one important element still gets forgotten from time to time... So, the way I see it, disturbing Aryna's forehand might still be one of the deciding tactical elements in the upcoming match.
Photos from Flushing Meadows - New York - USA - August 2024

In my personal opinion, the Olympic Gold Medal win by Novak Djokovic (SRB) was a fantastic achievement crowned by a very high level finals match against a very strong Carlos Alcaraz (ESP)! Personally, I have seen this final at the level of the finals of 2023 Cincinnati (Djokovic b. Alcaraz) and 2023 US Open (Djokovic b. Medvedev), and I consider these 3 finals among the best I have seen in my over 35 years in tennis.

After hearing a few rather negative comments about the finals match, I would like to share a few points:

- The fact that both sets have been decided in a tie-breaker, while Djokovic saved 8 and Alcaraz 6 breakpoints in a match with took almost 3 hours, speaks about the enormous quality of both contenders!

- Some voices criticise the amount of mistakes Alcaraz made (33). In general, the category "unforced error" can be often misleading, especially while playing against Djokovic who does not possess the physical power potential of his biggest (mainly Spanish and Russian) opponents nor does he possess the genius of players like Federer or Dimitrov. His game is based mainly on a fantastic active defense, which he is constantly improving, both technically and tactically. While returning most of the attacks of his opponents, he is putting their physical and mental (focus, patience) capacities to their limits. In addition to that, his opponents know that he is going to use any weak stroke from their side for a dangerous counterattack. This takes them to the mental state that they want to decide the points with an excessive power from suboptimal positions, and this leads to a high amount of "unforced errors".

- Djokovic has been and is steadily improving the efficiency of his overall game, also with ongoing technical adjustments - mainly on the backhand side lately. His serve and volleys belong in between to the best in business, and in general, he has achieved the highest level of the Tennis 3.0 (=body energy dominance) strokes among all the current players (with Alcaraz being close 2nd in this category). He seems to well understand the deciding distinct technical elements, which most of the other players and coaches have difficulties to recognize.

- When we look at the statistic details, Djokovic was slightly better in all the important categories:
Total points won: 101 / 90
% of all service points won: 71 / 64
% of 1st serves in: 74 / 66
% of 1st serve points won: 78 / 72
% of 2nd serve points won: 50 / 48
% of all return points won: 36 / 29

As a summary, in my opinion, the Paris Olympic Men's Tennis Final was a great match between two tennis giants, which was decided by the enormous overall game mastery of Novak Djokovic!

Yesterday's Olympic Gold Medal win by Novak Djokovic from Serbia was, in my personal opinion, the most deserved tennis victory, which I was able to witness in my lifetime!! Bravo Novak Djokovic🥇👍👏👏😍!!

SUPER DEAL - TENNIS OPPORTUNITY - 50% OFF!!
Based on the last moment cancelation - 2 places are available for the MBTA Spring Tennis Camp starting in Naturns - South Tirol - Italy tomorrow, April 27, 2024!!
50% OFF the list prices shown below!!
Please PM, if seriously interested!

For all tennis fans, the first tennis museum of Switzerland is about to open next weekend!!
Big thanks and congratulations to Hans Markutt for his amazing efforts🎾🎾👍👍👏👏!!

Tennis museum klosters Eröffnung 27. April 2024

My talk is scheduled for tomorrow at 8:40pm CET / 3:40pm EST. I will be live joining the talk. If you are interested, and you have not registered yet, you can do so here: https://wtc4.coachtube.com/?sc=lyyhuWVA&ac=FIFVS1zj
The Ball Receiving & Follow-through" are for me the cornerstones of the game, which decide about the further player development and success, as well as about player longevity in the game!

Watching Novak Djokovic (SRB) in practice is a highly valuable experience for anyone seriously interested in the game. With a deep keen look, the observer can spot some of the important aspects, helping make Novak the world best player:
On pic 1/, can be well seen a long, calm follow through, despite having a slight off-center hit.
On pic 2/, despite a very low-energy warm-up shot, the elbow still goes far away from the body.
On pic 3/, the wide, high-energy stance, even in the practice
Finally, the video (next post) shows a top forehand shot series where all the strokes are based simply on the loading and unloading, and in all but one (slightly jammed) stroke, this leads to a long striking radius with the arm and racket being thrown against the target - this is what Forehand 3.0 - body energy dominated forehand with a long-axis pronation or also the 3-D Helix Forehand is all about.
From the pre-2023 US Open practice in the Arthur Ashe Stadium - Flushing Meadows - New York - USA - August 2023

Despina Papamichail (*1993 / GRE) - Winning return point consisting of 3 forehand strokes - forehand return ( open stance), forehand cross (direct stance) & forehand inside out winner (open stance). In this point, Despina successfully combined the open and direct stances, each time with quite good body energy engagement - 2023 US Open Qualification - Flushing Meadows - New York - USA - August 2023