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In-depth analysis of matchups/matchup issues between ATP players

51K views 318 replies 89 participants last post by  Wawrinkitis 
#1 · (Edited)
I came accross a very unfortunate MTF thread questioning if matchups existed in tennis :facepalm: That however gave me the idea of discussing the worst matchup issues between top 10/20 players.

I'm not referring to awkward matchups here (eg. Berdych to Federer), more to situations where a certain players finds another (almost) impossible to overcome, extreme matchup issues and the reason why they exist. Here are some - five: (I left Federer vs Nadal out on purpose as that particular matchup has been discussed to death, was more looking to talk about less discussed matchups)

Nadal vs Berdych

Nadal leads 12-3, but has won the last 11 matches, dropping only 2 sets in the process. He won 20 consecutive sets at one point. Berdych played a brillaint match earlier this year in Australia, still didn't take more than a set.

Reasons for this:

-Berdych's game is based on overpowering/hitting through his opponents from the baseline, his serve isn't a huge weapon nor is his net game. Hitting through Nadal on the current uber slow conditions is almost impossible. Nadal just keeps retrieving one more ball until Berdych inevitably makes the error.

-Berdych can't do anything on the Nadal serve. He's one of the best returners on tour, does a lot of damage even on the Federer serve. But against Nadal? Nothing. Even on second serves he can rarely get the initiative off the return.

-Nadal knows how to play against Berdych. He's usually more aggressive vs Tomas than most other matches, can take his time away better than anyone else and also expose Tomas's movement issues (as Tomas himself admitted). He also has no trouble with Berdych's hitting patterns, he actually reads them like an open book and they play into his strengths.

Federer vs Ferrer

13-0 Federer, 3 sets won by Ferrer. Most sets pretty routine for Federer.

Reasons:

-Ferrer thrives on a consistent rythm from the baseline, Federer doesn't give him that at all; he has the variety to completely mess up Ferrer's game and timing and make him leave plenty of short balls

-Federer's ability to put away short balls and volleys. Among the same lines as the first point; Ferrer can be a tricky opponent when he's allowed to rally with his opponent and turn the match into an endurance/griding contest, Federer simply never allows that to happen. Add to that the fact that Ferrer can't return the Federer serve if his life depended on it and you have the most one sided head-to-head in top level tennis, only likely to become even more one sided.

Federer vs Soderling

16-1 Federer, 5 sets won by Soderling overall. Soderling did get him at RG once with a stunning performance, but the matchup issues remain. Reasons:

-Federer can take Soderling's time away/rush him and force him to be constantly on the defensive. This is the main issue really; Soderling loves to unleash his huge strokes and against Federer that is harder than against anyone else. Federer can wrestle the initiative and make him defend more than anyone else on tour and expose his movement issues. Soderling needs to serve huge and return great to have a chance against Federer on any given day, or else he will simply not allowed to have the initiative on most points, therefore being a sitting duck.

Del Potro vs Nishikori

4-0 Del Potro, 10-0 in sets, most of them blowouts. Complete ownage.

Reasons:

-Del Potro's power/foreand. Kei likes (and manages) to dictate from the baseline even against huge hitters like Tsonga and Berdych, but he can't deal with Delpo's power and all. Especially JMDP's forehand that constantly pushes him far behind the baseline. Despite his quickness around the court, Kei lacks world class defensive skills and really struggles when he's forced to play defense, which he invariably is against Delpo. His lack of a serve allows JMDP to have the initiative even on his serve games and break him time and again (20 breaks in 10 sets). Will be tough for Kei to even win a set in this matchup in the future if he can't come up with a different strategy, rallying with Del Potro is a losing battle as the Argentine easily overpowers him.

Djokovic vs Cilic

7-0 Djokovic, one set for Cilic with 9-7 in the tiebreak. All very straightforward wins for Novak.

Reasons:

-Cilic's serve is horrible for a guy his size and a liability in general (not that strong 1st serve, poor %), Djokovic is the best returner on tour... you do the Math.

-Nole can easily frustrate Marin with his defense, making him go for too much and leak errors. Nole can even overpower him at times as well. There's basically no safe place to go for Marin in this matchup.


I know there are more examples (maybe more glarring) and also maybe more reasons for these examples, these were just the first that came to mind. Do feel free to argue these five and the reasons and to indicate others :p

Other matchups discussed - some of them not complete mismatches but still interesting discussions - , with links:

Ferrer vs Almagro

Andreev vs Kohlschreiber

Davydenko vs Gonzalez

Davydenko vs Blake

Del Potro vs Soderling

Gasquet vs Simon

Simon vs Federer

Ferrer vs Gasquet - + most of the posts from #62 to #70

Murray vs Simon

Murray vs Federer

Davydenko vs Berdych

Nadal vs Dolgopolov

Del Potro vs Haas

Haas vs Nadal

Simon vs Tipsarevic - also post #139

Haas vs Davydenko - also post #146

Berdych vs Del Potro

Gasquet vs Nadal

Monfils vs Kohlschreiber

Nalbandian vs Soderling

Soderling vs Tsonga

Ferrer vs Del Potro

Nalbandian vs Gasquet

Nadal vs Wawrinka

del Potro vs big hitters

Worst matchups for Djokovic, Del Potro, Tsonga, Simon (including best matchups) and Murray - most posts from #76 to #117
 
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#289 ·
Youzhny has lost his abilities.
Now F.Mayer has better serve,slice,volleys and BH. Also Youzhny nowadays is more inconsistent.
Kei reads very well Cilic's serve and has better BH. Also Cilic is more inconsistent than Kei,so Cilic needs to play his best to win vs Kei like US OPEN 2012.
 
#288 ·
Excellent thread and a useful bible, I have my own opinions I've formed over the years and I happen to have discovered a lot of matchup issues this guy has found. I agree with most of them, not only for the head to head stat but from a technical standpoint.

The guy whoever it was that questioned whether there even were matchup issues in tennis is ridiculously silly.

You're a good poster but because you're honest lenders, people are against you. Don't let the haters hate. Keep up these good threads/
 
#290 ·
The Wawrinka Nadal matchup should be considered removing from this thread however. Most of that head to head was formed before Wawrinka blossomed into this guy he is here today.

Look at all the top guys.

Berdych, Tsonga, Gasquet, Ferrer, Nishikori, Dimitrov etc etc etc.

Berdych and Tsonga have no bachands, period. Lefty topspin forehand crosscourt, zzzzz, you've heard it all before, don't need to explain that.

Ferrer, no weapons and crap as well as, atm, very inconsistent backhand.

Nishikori, quite good backhand, exceptional shot to shotmake off, but no rally ball and lacks the movement good enough to beat Nadal from the baseline.

Dimitrov, same as Nishikori in a way, that he lacks a rally ball on his backhand but can shotmake incredibly with the shot.

Gasquet, stands far to behind the baseline and tries to hit winners from there, unrealistic and leaves him open to all sorts of shit. Dropshots and Nadal with massive time to run around and open up the court with his forehands by creating angles.

Federer is in the same mould as Dimitrov but has a less consistent backhand and arguably not as good. Even when Federer was peak, it was the rest of his game that compensated for his backhand and got him victories over Nadal.



If you now look at Wawrinka, he is player that stands ontop of the baseline and that is able to take the ball on the rise, frontfoot style and connect with the ball on his backhand above shoulder and infront of him. He has to raw power in his backhand to fight against the pace the ball has generated from the topspin that reacted off the court. Obviously if Wawrinka is on the real backfoot, it is still difficult for him to defend on the backhand side because he has a single hander but it's not as hard as the others have it. He takes the ball on the frontfoot, which Nadal doesn't like because this gives Rafa less time to prepare with his footwork to hit whipped heavy forehands. The serve is difficult for Nadal to deal with when served to his backhand and easily sets up the one two combination punch for him, if Rafa is able to get it back.

It's not a matchup which Wawrinka wins, but it's not a matchup that Nadal wins either. It's an even matchup. If you look at both their last encounters, Wawrinka got tight on one or two points here and there. In the tiebreak at the o2 he got tight when he was unlucky and got tight with one or two shots, when you have less margin for error on your shots and know you're under pressure to be aggressive mostly all the time, it can take it's tole and you do sort of get tight.
 
#296 ·
The Wawrinka Nadal matchup should be considered removing from this thread however. Most of that head to head was formed before Wawrinka blossomed into this guy he is here today.
[snip...]
If you now look at Wawrinka, he is player that stands ontop of the baseline and that is able to take the ball on the rise, frontfoot style and connect with the ball on his backhand above shoulder and infront of him. He has to raw power in his backhand to fight against the pace the ball has generated from the topspin that reacted off the court. Obviously if Wawrinka is on the real backfoot, it is still difficult for him to defend on the backhand side because he has a single hander but it's not as hard as the others have it. He takes the ball on the frontfoot, which Nadal doesn't like because this gives Rafa less time to prepare with his footwork to hit whipped heavy forehands. The serve is difficult for Nadal to deal with when served to his backhand and easily sets up the one two combination punch for him, if Rafa is able to get it back.

It's not a matchup which Wawrinka wins, but it's not a matchup that Nadal wins either. It's an even matchup. If you look at both their last encounters, Wawrinka got tight on one or two points here and there. In the tiebreak at the o2 he got tight when he was unlucky and got tight with one or two shots, when you have less margin for error on your shots and know you're under pressure to be aggressive mostly all the time, it can take it's tole and you do sort of get tight.
I think Wawa has two major problems, which are related to each other.

1. His return is not great, he will come second in rallies, and his serve, while good, is not lights-out, so on average Rafa will be in more return games than Stan.

2. His margin for error is much lower than Rafa's, and his movement is not very good, so over time he will find himself coming under too much pressure to execute his shots.

These problems will tend to just mount up, mentally, during a match, especially in best of 5 in his first slam final, against a guy he has never even won a set against.

I agree in a way that you can't really call these match-up issues per se, but whatever you call them, it's a problem for him.

I think to hang with Rafa, you must be really solid off both wings (double-handed backhand helps here), and have impeccable movement and depth of shot. It helps if you can get the ball out wide also, e.g. Novak is so good at that on both wings.
 
#300 ·
This thread is brilliant, full credit to everyone that has contributed to it. Sometimes visit the site just to have a read of this. This is how good the forum can be. Such a shame that we don't have more of this and less of the extremely dull troll posts that plague nearly every thread.
 
#301 ·
Well, I'm not continuing this thread anymore, but if others do I'll update the relevant links in the OP.
 
#303 ·
Honestly I would just put this one down to consistency. Paire has limitless talent, but is a incredible head case and is known for his inconsistency.

RBA is fairly consistent and is mentally pretty strong. Paire doesn't last very long in rallies... past 5 strokes :p. Thus he gets more frustrated and we all know what happens when Paire gets frustrated :rolleyes:
 
#307 ·
#311 ·
And with all this incredible analysis regarding match-ups
What incredible analysis? lol

OP for example starts with Nadal-Berdych - apparently the idea being that Nadal is bad match-up for Berdych. In fact in their rivalry early on the general consensus was that Berdych is a bad match-up for Nadal!
In reality their h2h is EXACTLY what one would expect from players of their status.

...Then OP lists h2hs like Delpo vs Nishikori with only four matches which include tie-breaks and deciding sets. Right...
 
#309 ·
It really isn't worth reading into their matchups since Murray's surgery. Murray was miserable last year and had some atrocious losses - beating Fed was out of the question. The implosions were frequent (and we saw a classic against Federer in Cincinnati).

As for Wimbledon, that was just a mighty performance from Federer. Even at his current age, not much can be done about a performance like that. Murray has never been able to cope with Fed at his best - it wasn't a new development or anything.

My feeling for subsequent meetings is that Federer will struggle to live with Murray from the baseline. It was actually the case in the Wimbledon SF for a while, but Federer could serve his way out of anything that day, and Andy's level dropped under the constant pressure. Always the possibility that Federer can turn up in God mode and Andy will be overwhelmed, but I don't think Federer's current win streak is all that meaningful, to be honest.
 
#310 ·
I think Murray must risk a bit more for him at the critical points to beat Djokovic and/or Federer at the moment. His backhand is there. His serve has improved (second serve as well, but could still be better). His forehand needs to be stronger in the toughest moments.

It stands to reason that he'll have better chances against Federer as he ages even more, but Andy isn't getting younger either, so we'll see how that goes.

Respectfully,
masterclass
 
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