Alcaraz Revisited
We took a look at Carlos Alcaraz’ performance in his win in May over Novak Djokovic. The key finding from that match was that Alcaraz’ forehand was the point-ending shot (either a winner or an error) on over 30% of points played. With this hyper-aggressive style, he effectively kept the match under his control.
With his third straight 5-set win at the 2022 US Open, Alcaraz merits another look at HOW he goes about winning. In particular, we take a close look at his 6-7, 6-3, 6-1, 6-7, 6-3 win over Frances Tiafoe in the semifinals. Overall, Alcaraz dominated in the number of points won, 171-142. To Tiafoe’s credit, he managed to take both of the tight sets in tiebreaks. The miracle of tennis scoring kept the match close. Here we take a look at how he did within the 3 different rally length categories:
|
Total: |
||||
|
Alcaz |
0-4 |
5 to 8 |
9+ |
|
|
100 |
47 |
24 |
171 |
|
|
108 |
24 |
10 |
142 |
The numbers are simply the number of points won in each category. The first row is Alcaraz; the second row is Tiafoe. The 0-4 rallies were very close to even, with a slight edge to Tiafoe. However, in the two longer rally categories, Alcaraz’ margin was an astounding 71-34. But here is a truly astounding statistic which clarifies his success even more clearly:
|
FH |
||||
|
Alc |
W |
UNF |
||
|
Total |
41 |
24 |
65 |
20.77% |
|
0-4 |
5 to 8 |
9+ |
||
|
W |
21 |
13 |
7 |
41 |
|
UNF |
21 |
3 |
0 |
24 |
|
Tfoe |
FH |
|||
|
Total |
24 |
28 |
52 |
16.61% |
|
0-4 |
5 to 8 |
9+ |
||
|
W |
12 |
7 |
5 |
24 |
|
UNF |
10 |
12 |
6 |
28 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Focusing on the forehand comparison alone, Alcaraz was far less DOMINATING with his forehand than he was against Djokovic – ending about 21% of points with his forehand). However, his DIFFERENTIAL (winners – unforced errors) was a whopping +17! In addition, we can see that in point-ending forehands greater than 4 shots, he had 20 winners and only 3 unforced errors. Contrast that with Tiafoe who was 12-18 in the same category. Conclusion: Alcaraz forehand is not only strong, but the longer the point lasts, the better he does!
It should be a great matchup against Casper Ruud’s forehand in the Final!
