[Fogmeister]

That's kind of a mistery to me why he usually isn't able to perform well at the natural surface of the game.

I can't see his style as bad for the grass.

Effortless and compact strokes, good movement ans speed, good return, decent serve, can counter punch and hit flat, nice hands and capable of improvisation.

He should be a good grass player, but for some reason he isn't. :shrug:

 

[Spadea TT]

Looking at his results in Wimbledon, he didn't really have horrible losses and had a couple of good wins...

2008: lost to Safin
2009: beat Istomin, lost to Ferrer
2010: beat Verdasco (n.9 at the time) and Russell, lost to Benneteau
2011: not played due to injury
2012: beat Llodra, lost to Federer
2013: lost to Melzer (or to Pascal Maria)
2014: beat Alex Kuznetsov and Puetz, lost in 5 to Anderson.

He also reached quarterfinals twice in ATP Eastbourne in 2012 (beat Ramos and Tomic, lost in 3 to Roddick) and 2013 (beat Zemlja and Klizan, lost to Dodig).

No embarassing losses, a couple of good wins. He doesn't look that awful. Maybe his problem on grass is that mental lapses are more harmful there, because it's more difficult to break and he usually gifts some service games away during his matches. On clay he often has the chance to recover, on grass not so much.

 

[Claybot]

First of all, there is something about being good at a surface that everyone seems to forget, that is how many hours have you spent practicing on a grass court during your youth? Your tennis might be good for grass on the paper but if you aren't used to feel the grass on your feet you won't be good at it.

His shots are not that flat, he uses the spin a lot, same for his serve. He also wins matches with his great movement on clay and something very underrated on his game: the stamina, which maybe is less important on the grass.
I won't say he has to be horrible, it's just not natural in his game.

 

[Bumsby]

Because his shot preparation is slow? Not the racquet head speed, but the amount of time he takes to get his racquet in place.


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[MWW]

power and service differential I'd say. And you do need to adjust for the lower bounce which is tricky at first.
I could see him and Nishikori who use compact strokes do better on it for sure, but Fabio could still prep better for his shots. Btw I never saw Novak as a natural grass player at all.

 

[92738]

Must be..

Grass season is usually great to expose talentless pushers. :lol:

 

[Mr.Black]

We don't think he's not good at grass, we think he's awful at it.

 

[TigerTim]

shit player getting shit results is a shock?

 

[The Prince]

Yeah, he's got all of the additional skills needed to be good on grass, but he's missing a couple of fundamental things.

1) A weapon (even minor weapons suffice [see Hewitt and Murray])
2) A mentality along the lines of 'I'm backing myself to hold serve 6 times in this set'. I don't think Fognini has this, and every time he steps on court, he knows he will give away his serve a few times, regardless of the surface

The first is obviously most important, but I really think number two is key as well. If you look at all the players who excel on grass, most of them (even those without 'big' serves) can stay concentrated for an entire set. Obviously breaks will happen occasionally, but the principle on grass is to make sure the opponent has to play some great points in order to do so. So-called 'clowns' like Fognini and Gulbis will never be good grass-counters, because they themselves have a very realistic chance of playing themselves out of sets before they really get going.

Malisse might be the exception to this, but later in his career when he became a more consistent threat on grass, he tightened up his mental approach to the game.

It's also worth bearing in mind that this all applies less to Wimbledon courts. There's no reason why Fognini can't do well on those slow courts, but the same problem will arise as on other surfaces. He will lose to the first great player he encounters because he has nothing to hurt them with.

 

[Lopez]

Grass matches are too short for the Fog. By the time he starts to give a shit, focus and mount his epic comeback he'll be 6-0 4-0 down.

The Fog is only in it for the drama.

 

[Fogmeister]

Looking at his results in Wimbledon, he didn't really have horrible losses and had a couple of good wins...

2008: lost to Safin
2009: beat Istomin, lost to Ferrer
2010: beat Verdasco (n.9 at the time) and Russell, lost to Benneteau
2011: not played due to injury
2012: beat Llodra, lost to Federer
2013: lost to Melzer (or to Pascal Maria)
2014: beat Alex Kuznetsov and Puetz, lost in 5 to Anderson.

He also reached quarterfinals twice in ATP Eastbourne in 2012 (beat Ramos and Tomic, lost in 3 to Roddick) and 2013 (beat Zemlja and Klizan, lost to Dodig).

No embarassing losses, a couple of good wins. He doesn't look that awful. Maybe his problem on grass is that mental lapses are more harmful there, because it's more difficult to break and he usually gifts some service games away during his matches. On clay he often has the chance to recover, on grass not so much.

Yeah, I've noticed his record on grass is better than on hard, but bases in his style I thought he should be even better.

Probably the mental lapses are really the reason. :sad:

First of all, there is something about being good at a surface that everyone seems to forget, that is how many hours have you spent practicing on a grass court during your youth? Your tennis might be good for grass on the paper but if you aren't used to feel the grass on your feet you won't be good at it.

His shots are not that flat, he uses the spin a lot, same for his serve. He also wins matches with his great movement on clay and something very underrated on his game: the stamina, which maybe is less important on the grass.
I won't say he has to be horrible, it's just not natural in his game.

Well, I may be wrong here, but I think almost every player has zero practice on grass as a youth. Grass courts are pretty exclusive and aren't used to development I guess. :shrug:

Yeah, he's got all of the additional skills needed to be good on grass, but he's missing a couple of fundamental things.

1) A weapon (even minor weapons suffice [see Hewitt and Murray])
2) A mentality along the lines of 'I'm backing myself to hold serve 6 times in this set'. I don't think Fognini has this, and every time he steps on court, he knows he will give away his serve a few times, regardless of the surface

The first is obviously most important, but I really think number two is key as well. If you look at all the players who excel on grass, most of them (even those without 'big' serves) can stay concentrated for an entire set. Obviously breaks will happen occasionally, but the principle on grass is to make sure the opponent has to play some great points in order to do so. So-called 'clowns' like Fognini and Gulbis will never be good grass-counters, because they themselves have a very realistic chance of playing themselves out of sets before they really get going.

Malisse might be the exception to this, but later in his career when he became a more consistent threat on grass, he tightened up his mental approach to the game.

It's also worth bearing in mind that this all applies less to Wimbledon courts. There's no reason why Fognini can't do well on those slow courts, but the same problem will arise as on other surfaces. He will lose to the first great player he encounters because he has nothing to hurt them with.

Agree with almost everything, but that comment about Malisse...

Malisse was always a good grass courter. He reached semis of Wimbledon in 2002 beating Krajicek and I think he has around .620 on grass, while in the other surfaces he is below .500 percent of wins.

 

[The Prince]

Agree with almost everything, but that comment about Malisse...

Malisse was always a good grass courter. He reached semis of Wimbledon in 2002 beating Krajicek and I think he has around .620 on grass, while in the other surfaces he is below .500 percent of wins.

Where did I say Malisse wasn't always a good grass-courter? And if you think I was implying that, then your inference is wrong.

I'm just saying earlier in his career, he would play really well on grass on one week and then bomb out the next. I am well aware of what happened in 2002.

After 2009, when he came back, he started to be a threat on grass every week. I think it's because he tightened up mentally, he always had the talent.

 

[AnnaK_4ever]

As compact and smooth as his groundstrokes may look Fognini still needs time to hit them properly. Besides, clay allows him get into rallies and start using his bag of tricks—this is not the case on grass. His serve is a joke, he could be easily overpowered and he's certainly not Nadal in terms of retrieving skills on faster surfaces. His laziness, stubbornness and don't-give-a-shit attitude don't help either. As somebody's already pointed out matches on grass tend to be over quickly—before he even bothers to start competing.

 

[Mlad]

Shit serve + only knows to play topspin groundstrokes

 

[Dead Net Cord]

First of all, there is something about being good at a surface that everyone seems to forget, that is how many hours have you spent practicing on a grass court during your youth? Your tennis might be good for grass on the paper but if you aren't used to feel the grass on your feet you won't be good at it..

Seppi

Had to post it, found this thread in my bookmarks.

 

[redshift36188]

The current metagame on grass is not suited to him and besides, he's nowhere close to the level of prime Hewitt.

 

[monfed]

looks like all the alpha male badboy tennis players dont like the stuck up vibes of Wimbledon..pick anyone, safin, gulbis, fognini just don't care