k

 

I thought you were talking about Cam Norrie.

 

Who is also an amazing player

 

The thing is, he's not exactly improving against the best. He has raised his floor, no doubt, but he's kind of stagnated against his equals and better players. In fact, he lost 17 of his last 20 matches against Top 10.
To put it in context, here's W-L record in their last 20 matches against Top 10 for every current Top 20 player:

Sinner 16-4
Alcaraz 15-5
Fritz 11-9
Djokovic, Ruud 10-10
Auger-Aliassime, Medvedev 9-11
Musetti, Davidovich Fokina 8-12
Zverev, Draper, Rune, Bublik, Lehecka 7-13
Shelton, Paul 6-14
Rublev, Khachanov 5-15
De Minaur 3-17
(Mensik is yet to play 20 matches vs Top 10 in his young career)

 

The thing is, he's not exactly improving against the best. He has raised his floor, no doubt, but he's kind of stagnated against his equals and better players. In fact, he lost 17 of his last 20 matches against Top 10.
To put it in context, here's W-L record in their last 20 matches against Top 10 for every current Top 20 player:

Sinner 16-4
Alcaraz 15-5
Fritz 11-9
Djokovic, Ruud 10-10
Auger-Aliassime 9-11
Musetti, Medvedev, Davidovich Fokina 8-12
Zverev, Draper, Rune, Bublik, Lehecka 7-13
Shelton, Paul 6-14
Rublev, Khachanov 5-15
De Minaur 3-17
(Mensik is yet to play 20 matches vs Top 10 in his young career)

De Minaur is improving quickly though and I am sure good results against top ten players will come soon. Meanwhile Ruud is unfortunately going downhill with many physical setbacks and I would be very surprised if he had many good results against top ten players in the upcoming months. I hope that Ruud can do well and he was once on the same positive career trajectory as current De Minaur but his stomach parasite has seemingly derailed him.

 

@Moozza do you know this guy mate?

 

I agree with the OP that ADM has worked very hard to maximise his abilities and he is incredibly stable and consistent... at least, against all but the very best.

He is 50-18 (0.735) on the season, which puts him joint 2nd on the ATP leaderboard for wins (tied with Fritz behind Alcaraz) and joint 5th for win-loss index (tied with Fritz behind Alcaraz, Sinner, Draper and Djokovic). He has barely any losses to players outside the top 30 (only Bublik, Cilic, Opelka and Collignon).

The fly in the ointment is his poor record against top 10 opponents recently, as @Lucas_4ever has pointed out. It's puzzling because his record against top 10 was better in 2023 (6 wins, including 3 against the top 5) and 2024 (5 wins, including 3 against the top 5) than this year (just the 1 somewhat questionable win against Zverev in LC). I think his overall game is better now than it was then - he still has elite movement, defence and point construction, but he has worked hard to improve his physicality and is hitting the ball harder and coming to the net more. This makes me think that it might be at least partly a mental barrier.

 

He is all meat and potatoes but no sauce

 

*stable

 

 

TY for the nice counterpoint