Tennis Acumen

French Open 2022 quarterfinal expert picks: Djokovic vs. Nadal

This article originally appeared on The Grandstand.

Photo credit: New York Times

Expert picks are back on Tuesday for the French Open quarterfinal clash between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. A three-team panel previews the highly-anticipated action and makes its predictions.

Ricky Dimon: Nadal is coming off a five-set slugfest against Felix Auger-Aliassime. I don’t think that’s the worst thing in the world because it means the Spaniard is battle tested and he also looked good physically throughout that match while also playing at a consistently high level. I actually think it could help him in the early stages against Djokovic. In the long run, though, Djokovic’s full tank should come in handy for what will surely be a physical fight. The Serb wore down Nadal in last year’s quarterfinals and I think he can do the same again. Nighttime conditions won’t help the 13-time champion, either. Nadal is too good in Paris and playing too well right now to get blown out, but pretty much all signs are pointing toward Djokovic. Djokovic in 4: 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-3.

Cheryl Murray: Djokovic and Nadal will meet for the 59th time on Tuesday. It’s absurd, really–absurd that the two GOATs are contemporaries, ridiculous that they have smashed into each other almost 60 times. But perhaps the most unbelievable aspect in the most prolific rivalry of all time is each man’s consistent ability to find their way to the business end of tournaments they enter. It’s not like they bump into each other in the third round. Nope. They have never met prior to the quarterfinals in a “regular” (not Davis Cup or year-end championship) tournament…. Not once…in 59 meetings. It’s just…yeah. I get a bit misty-eyed each time they run into each other. It goes beyond special. It is completely unique to them, a narrative told in intimate detail for 16 years, offering the world a first hand look at wild joy and bitter disappointment, elation and agony, brilliance and baffled frustration. They are warriors locked in a battle of attrition that goes one way, then the other, then back again. And each time they add a chapter to their story I wonder if I’m watching them for the last time. Djokovic probably has the edge this time–even though it’s on clay and even though it’s at Roland Garros. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t doubt Nadal’s abilities or his will. I know well enough that he understands how to win in Paris better than any human ever has. But the injuries have been so disruptive, I just don’t think he’s match tough enough to get past Djokovic. He’ll give it everything he has, though; that you can be sure of. Djokovic in 5: 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(4), 3-6, 7-5.

Pete Ziebron (Tennis Acumen): Djokovic will be slightly fresher after making quick work of all four opponents so far, while Nadal had to go the distance in the previous round against Auger-Aliassime. In fact, the Serb has won 22 consecutive sets on clay–having corrected course after falling to Carlos Alcaraz in the Madrid semis and then rolling through the field at the Rome Masters. Nadal arrived in Paris without a clay title this year and in serious pain less than two weeks prior to the start of the French Open. Nonetheless, he has once again found a way to recover and excel on the terre battue to set up this clash. The Mallorcan will need to clean up his break-point conversion significantly from the 6-for-22 performance in the last round. Meanwhile, Djokovic is serving immaculately–hitting just two double-faults in four matches. Both sets of stats are in the past, however, and are rendered meaningless once the court is taken in this highly anticipated quarterfinal. Look for Nadal to win a few more of the bigger points in the match. Nadal in 5: 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3.

Evan King: College to Pro Tennis

In 2021, Tennis Acumen interviewed American Evan King at the Champaign Challenger tournament. Here is a part of that conversation:

Photo credit: University of Michigan

Tennis Acumen: Making the change from college to professional. I've heard guys say that first off, the level of play and competition goes up and the crowd size and support goes down. Is that your experience?

Evan King: I wouldn't so much say about the level of play. If you play near the top of your lineup in college, that's more or less the same levels as Futures. Unless you have a bunch of wild cards going in, you're going to start at Futures. Crowds are different, certainly. At the University of Michigan matches, you will have more than just tennis fans. You'll have fans of the university that want to support Michigan athletics. The same person will go watch tennis, softball, hockey, volleyball just because they love University of Michigan. For people to go out to these tournaments (Challenger level), they have to love tennis or a specific player to come out. So, it's two interesting dynamics. When you're playing in college, you're playing for university, your teammates and coaches, the people that you're practicing with every day. You have the bigger crowds behind you. When you turn pro, you're playing for yourself. As you go up to the Challenger circuit, the level of play is better than the college level, for the most part. Beyond that, you have the ATP circuit. When you're out as a professional, you have to muster up your own energy. You have to back yourself because unless you have the money to hire a coach or physio or a team behind you, you're out there alone. I would say that's the most difficult part. You have to hold yourself more accountable because there's not a coach on you. You're not representing the other six people on your team. If I lay an egg during a college match, I affect everybody else. The university, the coaches, the athletic department, everybody. I'm letting a whole bunch of people down. If I lay an egg on the pro circuit, I'm only letting myself down. So, it's a different kind of energy, different pressure and a high enough standard where, letting yourself down is the same as letting other people down.

 

More of this exclusive interview is available at Tennis Acumen. Go to the interviews category, shown on the upper right hand side of the screen.

Tags: @EvanKingChicago

Stefanos Tsitsipas - Forgotten Man in Bottom Half of 2022 Roland Garros Draw

PETE ZIEBRON

So much outrage was hurled at Roland Garros when the men's draw was announced.  How dare they place Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in the same quarter.  Next, why is Carlos Alcaraz in the same half as Djokovic and Nadal?  Like Roland Garros rigged the draw...... uh, no, that does not happen.  Nadal is the 5th seed so there was a 25% chance that he would end up in the Djokovic quarter.  Bingo.

Meanwhile, last year's French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas will have a barn-burner to begin his tournament.  Right out of the gate, the Greek faces Lorenzo Musetti.  All he happened to do last year in Paris was march into the round of 16 and take a two sets to love lead over Djokovic, the eventual Champion, before cramping took over and he won just one more game before retiring 0-4 down in the 5th set.  Just two weeks prior to the start of the French, Musetti faced Tsitsipas in the Lyon semifinals and took the opening set 6-4 before the Greek won 12 of the last 15 games to advance to the Final.

The Italian has not matched the form he showed one year ago in Paris.  He arrives with 14 clay court matches played this year.  In March, I had a front row Center Court vantage point for his match against American JJ Wolf at the Phoenix Challenger.  Despite winning just 5 games in the 2nd round match, I liked what I saw, namely his movement and fluidity on court as well as the ability to switch from defense to offense.

Tsitsipas had very good results at the clay court Masters, winning Monte-Carlo, reaching the semis in Madrid and the final in Rome.  However, the first coupe of days at the French have illustrated that solid match play and form at the events leading up to the tournament have not necessarily resulted in a replication of such play at this major from those who have lost and struggled to win their opening match.

While nearly everyone in the world is watching Djokovic, Nadal and Alcaraz, I prefer to focus on Tsitsipas and especially his opening match against Musetti.  Tsitsipas has won 11 of his last 13 matches at Roland Garros and 14 of his last 17 - his only losses:

 

2021 Final vs. Djokovic  76(6) 62 36 26 46

2020 Semi Final vs. Djokovic  36 26 74 64 16

2019 R16 vs. Wawrinka  67(6) 75 46 63 68

 

 

 

 

 

 

J. J. Wolf: How Hard Can It Be?

In 2021, Tennis Acumen interviewed American J. J. Wolf at the Champaign Challenger tournament. Here is a part of that conversation:

Tennis Acumen: You love this game, don't you?

J. J. Wolf: Yeah, it's a great game. It can be really difficult sometimes, but it's a good game.

 

 

Tennis Acumen: Well, it is hard, you know? Did anybody in your family ever tell you how hard this was going to be?

J. J. Wolf: I grew up knowing how hard it was going to be. It's definitely a good challenge to have. My family has played so many sports. A couple of them have played pro tennis before. But I always thought it was a cool experience to play. With family members playing and coaching in professional sports, I got a lot of advice on how difficult and how much commitment it would take. It has really set in more recently, out with the tour. I’ve been rolling with it. I just never really thought about it too much. Taking that step back and being out for nine months really made me realize how much I have to take care of my body and how much commitment it will take to stay healthy and play this rigorous calendar year. It’s 10 or 11 months out of the year you're playing.

 

 

Tennis Acumen: I talked to Evan King just now. He obviously was not at 100 percent yesterday, and he just gutted it through. I told him it was just agonizing to watch, given that there were times he was sharp, clear eyed and his body did not want to do what his mind told it to do. What's it like to play when you're hurting?

J. J. Wolf: What I've been told is pain is either remembered or anticipated, and suffering is optional. I just try to think of it as not a bad thing all the time, as long as I'm not going to hurt myself worse, you know. Pain is either remembered or anticipated. It's never right in the moment. So, you choose whether you want to suffer with it or not.

Tennis Acumen: I never heard anything like that.

J. J. Wolf: When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. But it really, really annoyed me at first, when I'm hurting out there and they're telling me, you can choose whether to suffer or not. And then, I wrap my mind around it and I say: “All right, let's do it.” It's really tough coming back from those three surgeries. It was not exactly easy going when I was coming back. A lot of pain going on, but you kind of embrace it a little bit.

 

 

Tennis Acumen: So no one can really tell you, if you're out on court and hurting, whether you're about to do damage or not, whether you should retire. How do you make those calls? You don't have very many retirements in your career at all, do you?

J. J. Wolf: No, I haven't. I was playing with a double hernia for four or five tournaments last year. A doctor came to me and told me that, after a match when I was in Europe. Then I came back to the U.S. and they said: “We have to do surgery on this. We don't know how you're walking normally.” At this point, I've got great people on my team, so I've got a great trainer and physio and P.T. back home that I'll just trust. I'll tell them what's going on. They'll analyze it. And if they say I need to get scans or anything like that, I'll listen to them. If they think I'm good to go, I pretty much trust them on that. And if it’s hurting, it's hurting, it's whatever.

 

More of this exclusive interview is available at Tennis Acumen. Go to the interviews category, shown on the upper right hand side of the screen.

Tags: @jjwolf5

Evan King: How Hard Can it Be?

In 2021, Tennis Acumen interviewed American Evan King at the Champaign Challenger tournament. Here is a part of that conversation:

Tennis Acumen: Did anyone in your family tell you how hard this was going to be?

Evan King: No, I don't think anyone truly knew. I had good coaches around me ever since juniors, and all through college and afterwards. That prepared me for what I had to expect moving from college to professional play. It is all very different, because as a pro, I am my own manager. I do the flights and travel, stringing my rackets, all that kind of stuff, whereas in college, all that stuff is done for you. You just give somebody a racket and the next day, it's done. You're told to meet at the tennis center. We're going to the airport at this time. It's all done for you. So, as far as all the things outside of tennis, I did not know how difficult that would be. But the level of play was not too much of a jump. Top level college and professional are similar, it's just all the other stuff you have to deal with that you don't have a team around you help with. I think is pretty difficult.

 

 

Tennis Acumen: There seems to be this incredible network around recruiting and grading: ‘star rankings’ for players when they're juniors. Were you aware of all of that as you were being recruited and asked to play at Michigan?

Evan King: Yes, I was aware of it. I wasn't obsessive about it. I trusted my level of play, my reputation as a person and those kinds of things more so than being a five star or a blue chip. Now, they have the Universal Tennis Ranking which coaches go off of and then those things do matter. But it wasn't going into a match thinking: “I'm playing a five star. I really need to get this match, so I can get Michigan to look at me.” I was more worried about my own development and my personal goals, as a junior. I did want to go pro. So, I was I was more thinking about that kind progression, more so than worrying about the immediate results or ratings or rankings. I was thinking more long term, which helped me put less pressure on myself.

 

More of this exclusive interview is available at Tennis Acumen. Go to the interviews category, shown on the upper right hand side of the screen.

Tags: @EvanKingChicago

Aleks Vukic: Grinding it Out

In 2021, Tennis Acumen interviewed Australian Aleks Vukic at the Champaign Challenger tournament. Here is a part of that conversation:

Photo credit: The Australian

Tennis Acumen: Let's go back to the very beginning. When you woke up this morning, I talked to a guy who  played in the NFL. He was a linesman on a Super Bowl team, and I asked him one day: “Hey, Doug, what's the hardest part of playing in the NFL? Is it fourth down and 20 yards to go with the game on the line?” And he told me: “It's summer, getting up every day, doing the same drills over and over. That’s the hard part.” Aleks, how do you deal with that routine and does it become a grind somehow?

 

Aleks Vukic: I think it can, every stage in every tournament, it's different. So this is my last tournament, the very last month of the year, so I'm very well aware that it is my last tournament. It's very easy for me to push through this week. I know it's one last week and I can give it my all. This is my fourth week in a row. I played Vegas to start this swing. Yeah, it's a different mindset to set out for four weeks, and I'm looking at finishing strong the last four weeks. It's just a matter of breaking things up. Sometimes, you need a few weeks off to recharge, not think about your goals so much. Enjoy life. Otherwise, if it becomes very monotonous. Spice it up in a different way. Have a clear perspective on the next few weeks and then recharge and do it again. It never becomes stale, because I’ll have different goals for different weeks, a different mentality for different weeks.

 

 

Tennis Acumen: So you're not waking up in January saying: “Oh, my God. Thirty six weeks to go.” You break it down into smaller pieces, focusing on those.

Aleks Vukic: I'll take a break for a week and then I'll focus on the next swing and recharge, because otherwise it's too long and you're not present.

 

 

Tennis Acumen: Any advice for younger players coming up?

Aleks Vukic: Guys that want to be pro? Yeah. Go easy on yourself. There's a lot of pressure and there's a lot of work to do, but surround yourself with positive people. Know there's more to life in tennis, and it is a journey, it's not about the end result. And whether you win or not, it's just about getting better each day. Winning will come if you're in the right mindset, that's what I believe. If they can stay in the right mindset and be positive, do the right things, then good things happen, for sure.

 

More of this exclusive interview is available at Tennis Acumen. Go to the interviews category, shown on the upper right hand side of the screen.

Tags: aleks.vukic, Vuki_SMASH23

 

Photo of the Day: Fernando Gonzales

Fernando Francisco González Ciuffardi, born 29 July 1980, is a former professional tennis player from Chile. During his career he made it to the quarterfinal round of all four Grand Slam tournaments. He played his only major final at the 2007 Australian Open, losing to top-seeded Roger Federer.

 He is the fourth male tennis player in history to have won each Olympic medal (gold in doubles and bronze in singles at Athens 2004, and silver in singles at Beijing 2008).

In 2005, Gonzales had a nice run at the Cincinnati masters event, defeating Novak Djokovic and David Nalbandian on his way to a third-round loss against Nikolai Davydenko.

Photo credit: Karl Corbett, © 2021 Tennis Acumen