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NO SPOILERS 🎥

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Nishikori 🎥 Thiem

Federer 🎥 Anderson

RESULTS 🎾

💥 = Beatdown \\ 🤕 = Injury \\ ‼️ = Upset

(Matt: If you’re in a rush and want the quickest TL;DR of the match reports, just skim down to the ‘1st Set Summary 📊’ and ‘Match Summary 📊’ bullet points of each match.)

Federer d Anderson: 6-4, 6-3

Key Moment’s & 📊’s:

1st Set: Both players held their opening service games with ease. But Federer then got to deuce at 1-1 with Anderson serving, thank to some nice first serve blocked returns. Kando came up with a couple of big serves and held for 2-1*.

1st Set: After two service games, Federer had yet to lose a point on serve (8/8). Anderson wasn’t far behind (9/13).

1st Set: Federer then threw in two backhand errors in a row to dig himself into a 0-30 hole, serving at 2*-3. But an Anderson backhand error, and a big Federer serve got the Swiss to 30-30. Kando the sprayed a forehand long and Federer had a game point, which he converted with a lovely backhand pass, to level up the score 3-3.

1st Set: It was then Anderson’s turn to go down 0-30, after Kando threw in a double fault. Another forehand error from Anderson made it 0-40, and Federer had his first break points of the match. Kando looked tight, and the South African dumped another double fault in at 0-40, to surrender the early break. Federer lead 4*-3.

1st Set: Federer’s advantage didn’t last long however. Anderson crushed a return ace to put some pressure on, but back to back forehand errors from Federer did the real damage, giving Anderson the immediate break back. 4-4.

1st Set: The momentum was swinging wildly back and forth, with Federer going up 0-40 in Anderson’s very next service game. At 0-15 and 0-30, Federer used cutting, low slices to exploit Anderson’s poor forward-backward movement. Federer then converted his first of three break points with a brilliant drop volley.

1st Set: The see-saw swung violently back the other way again, after a Federer double fault and a stinging Anderson pass got Kando to 0-40 on Federer’s serve at 5*-4 (14 points in a row won by the returner). Federer saved the first two BP’s after Anderson could only go long with forehands, and then bombed an ace to save the third. A huge forehand cross court from the Swiss set up a first set point, which Federer converted with an un-returnable serve. 6-4 Federer.

1st Set Summary📊 : The key to the set was Federer’s variety and 2nd serve. The Swiss used the slice to great effect to move Anderson around and coax some short balls from the tall South African. Both players had some pretty severe ups and downs, but Anderson’s inability to hit through Federer, especially after Fed started slicing more, hurt him. Anderson his just 5 winners in the first set, 3 of which were aces (which will probably be Anderson’s lowest winner total of the week). The other difference-maker was Federer’s far superior protection of his 2nd serve compared to his opponent. Federer managed to set up lots of 1-2 punches even when he missed his 1st delivery, winning 8/13 or 62% of his 2nd serve points compared to Anderson’s 4/11 or 36%. The set also featured an impressive returning performance from Federer, winning 36% of Anderson’s 1st serve points, with some very nice blocked returns.

2nd Set: Both players started the 2nd set well on serve, holding easily for the first 7 games of the set. 3-3*. At this point of the match Federer had won 23 points over 5 shots compared to just 9 for Anderson. This was down to the Swiss successfully stopping Anderson from being as aggressive as he would have liked, with lots of good depth, mixed with some nice low slices to keep Anderson away from his happy place on top of the baseline.

2nd Set: Federer continued to boss the longer rallies, and he managed to break through thanks to an Anderson forehand error, and yet another Federer slice that Anderson had no answer for. Federer breaks for a 4*-3 lead.

2nd Set: Federer looked to close out the match as fast as possible, getting to MP on Anderson’s serve at 3*-5, thanks to some brilliant defence. But a forehand error let Anderson off and they were locked at deuce. But Federer set up another MP after some more impressive defence, and then appropriately converted the point with a deep slice backhand forcing Anderson into an error. Federer wins 6-4, 6-3.

Match Summary📊: A really positive match from Federer, who got better and better as the contest wore on. The first set featured lots of momentum shifts and edgy service games from both (Federer faced 4 BP’s, saving 1, and Anderson faced 2, saving 0). But as soon as Federer worked out how effective the slice backhand would be vs Anderson, he exploited his tall opponents weakness with brutal efficiency. Anderson was making constant errors or short balls in reply to cutting Federer slices, and really failed to impose his aggressive game on the match, thanks to the barrage of variation coming at him from across the net. The 2nd set featured a very high level from Federer, who landed 60% of his 1st serves in, but most impressively defended his 2nd serve so well, winning 63% of 2nd serve points compared to 29% for Anderson (Fed also faced 0 BP’s in 2nd set). Federer’s blocked backhand return in particular almost entirely neutralised Anderson’s kick serve out wide to the ad side. Very encouraging performance for Federer fans.

What does this mean?

✅ Federer finishes the group 1st (plays his semi-final in the afternoon slot on Saturday).

✅ Anderson finishes 2nd (plays his semi-final in in the evening slot on Saturday).

Thiem d Nishikori: 6-1, 6-4 💥

Key Moment’s & 📊’s:

1st Set: Thiem started well, holding serve comfortably and then immediately creating a break point in Nishikori’s first service game. Nishikori tossed a slow, 88mph 2nd serve in, but Thiem missed wildly with the return. Another break point came, another 2nd serve from Nishikori, but this time Thiem was the stable one, forcing Nishikori in to an error to go up the early break. 2-0 Thiem.

1st Set: Nishikori, in the early stages, was continuing his puzzling form over from the match vs Anderson a couple of days ago. Kei just didn’t look like he was comfortable on the timing of his shots, which given how solid he usually is from the baseline, makes little sense.

1st Set: But Nishikori started to improve, and found himself with 2 break points with Thiem serving at 3*-1. Thiem struggled to hit with margin on his backhand, missing a backhand by about 3 metres. But the Austrian saved both, one with a good serve, and the other after Nishikori missed long. Thiem then faced two more BP’s, saving the first with a huge ace, and the second with a series of huge groundstrokes forcing an error from Nishikori. After a long battle, Thiem finally held after Nishikori netted a forehand return off a second serve. Big hold. Thiem leads 4-1*.

1st Set: Nishikori was in yet more trouble at 1*-4, and by the end of this game Kei had hit 23 unforced errors for the set, which should give an indication of his struggles. The double break for Thiem came courtesy of a Nishikori double fault on break point. Thiem lead 5*-1. A hold to deuce for the Austrian converted the set, 6-1.

1st Set Summary📊 : Whereas Nishikori picked up where he left off from his poor performance vs Anderson on Tuesday, Thiem was so much better compared to his level vs Federer. The Austrian’s string change seems to have helped him reign in his errors, hitting 10 unforced errors (to 6 winners) compared to Nishikori’s 24 (and 5 winners), and generally looking the far more stable player. Thiem dominated the short points, winning 23 points under 5 shots to Nishikori’s 14. And Thiem managed this thanks to a much better first serve performance than we have seen in his earlier matches this week, landing 81% of his 1st serve in. This high % allowed Thiem to construct the points on his terms, and enabled plenty of 1-2 punches that were just too hot for Nishikori to handle. Anytime Thiem can lands lots of first serves will usually correlate with him not being exposed for his defensive tendencies on hard courts. If he can start the point out on the front foot (close to the baseline), his elaborate preparation and preference to back-off are covered up by his incredible, early groundstroke power.

2nd Set: Nishikori was in trouble once again at 2-2. A couple of bad errors, including a backhand landing half way up the net, created two break points for Thiem. But, clearly unable to make any progress on his groundstrokes from the baseline, Kei charged the net three points in a row to save both BP’s and hold serve for 3-2*.

2nd Set: Nishikori’s game continued to leak errors. At 3-3, Kei’s backhand fell apart offering up a BP for Thiem. The Austrian then absolutely crushed a backhand down the line, which was too big for Nishikori to put back in play. Thiem leads 4*-3.

2nd Set: Theim cooly served out his remaining service games to run out a pretty routine 6-1, 6-4 win.

Match Summary📊: First things first, Nishikori was confusingly bad again. 41 unforced errors for the match is pretty astounding for such a low number of games played. But on the other side of the net, Thiem produced one of his best indoor hard court performances. A high 1st serve in % usually lays the foundation for any time Thiem plays well in these conditions. And 71% in for the match is a very sturdy building block to base his big hitting, first-few-shots-of-the-rally aggression on. Theim won 43 points under 5 shots to Nishikori’s 33, and rarely had to back off the baseline in his own service games. Good signs for Thiem going forward. The Austrian is admirably trying damn hard to improve on his worst surface, which is more than can be said for a bunch of other players in a similar age bracket. Nishikori has had a wonderful season, coming back just as impressively as Nadal, Djokovic & Federer relative to their respective levels. But this was a sad end of the season for Kei.

SHOTS OF THE DAY 😮

— Great feel early on from Nishikori

— Thiem one of the only players on tour who can pull off this open-stance, single-handed, sliding, backhand pass. So much strength required, with his right arm and shoulder having to stabilise contact (as opposed to the double handed version using both arms). Amazing (slow mo below).

— Unreal. Everything about it, until his left arm lets go of the racquet, is analogous to the double handed version.

— Thiem’s 1-2 punch today was devastating. Dominating the 1-5 shot rallies.

— Effortless return ace from Nishikori.

— Nice anticipation from Nishikori to read Thiem’s backhand pass. Saving a BP.

— The elusive slice forehand winner (Nishikori).

— This Thiem dropshot has some serious side-spin on it (slow-mo GIF in ‘Extras’)

— Federer getting Anderson on the run early in the match. Taking the forehand nice and early to take time to recover away from Kando.

— Nice backhand put away from Fed.

— Really powerful first three shots from Anderson. Never lets go of control and is so good on these mid court balls.

— Something Federer did really well tonight, protecting his 2nd serve points with nice variation. Converted an impressive number of 2nd serve points with 1-2 punches like this.

— Slice forehand improvisation to force a slow Anderson to the net, and then a wonderful backhand pass.

— Federer converting the decisive 1st set break. Great touch to finish.

— BOOM. Huge forehand to set up set point.

— That Federer forehand stayed SO low, forcing Anderson into a defensive slice that sat up for the routine put away.

— Anderson probably should have done a bit better with the forehand, but Federer had a lot of success with bringing Anderson away from his comfort zone on top of the baseline. Brilliant forehand flick to finish.

— Match point, and a great illustration of Federer’s most successful tactic tonight (especially when returning serve). Deep slice forcing Anderson to rush his groundstroke, backing up, hitting low to high. All things Kando isn’t that comfortable with.

INTERVIEW & PRESS BEST BITS 🎤

Federer post-win and qualification:

“We’re used to you lose, you leave and you don’t hang around. So from that standpoint, I think it was more straightforward for me today. I’ve always wanted to go out with a bang today and win the match. If I go through, great, if I don’t well I don’t deserve to be through and that’s okay, too. I’m happy I’m still alive.” Source

“Very happy I came through the Round Robin, was a bit of a shaky week. Today I‘m pleased that I could dictate the match, without some easy faults on my first serve it could have gone with even less effort.” Source

On scheduling/Calendar congestion:

“I can walk out the door right now on vacation and no one can stop me. They won’t like it, but I can.” Source

(Matt: LOL. This is kind’ve accurate, but unless your name is Federer or Nadal, and like them you’ve qualified for total exemptions from mandatory ATP events, a player would get heavily fined for doing this.)

Thiem on his chance to qualify for the semi-finals (would have needed Federer to win less than 5 or 6 games vs Anderson):

“I'm not hoping for it because it's not very realistic. I think both [Federer and Anderson] really deserve to go [to the semifinals]. That's how it's going to be at the end.” Source

Thiem on the sometimes contentious issue of how long the tennis season is:

“I think we cannot complain about it because we have a very nice life.” Source

(Matt: I’m pretty sure you could set Thiem on fire and the guy wouldn’t complain. Such a nice, grateful dude. Nothing seems to trouble him.)

ORDER OF PLAY - DAY 6 (FRIDAY) ⏰

CENTRE COURT

— (2pm UK, 9am EST) —

🇩🇪 A. Zverev vs Isner 🇺🇸 (H2H: 4-1) || (Hard Court H2H: 2-1)

Prediction: Zverev in 3

A lot will depend on whether Zverev looks as washed out tomorrow as he did vs Djokovic 2 days ago. If he does, then this match could be a bit of a whitewash, but my hunch is that the shorter rallies vs Isner (compared to playing Novak) will be a bit kinder on Zverev, and we’ll end up with a competitive match. Their last two hard court matches, both in Miami (one in 2017, one in 2018) were epics, decided by a few points here and there. In 2017, the match went Zverev’s way, in 2018 Isner’s, with 4 out of the last 6 sets they’ve played ending in a tiebreak. Their respective breaker records in 2018 make good reading for Zverev, who has won 64.7%, or 11 wins - 6 losses, of his breakers this year, compared to Isner’s 53.7%, or 37 wins - 32 losses. Unless Sascha has a serving performance like his 2nd set vs Djokovic (42% 1st serves in), Isner should find it sufficiently hard to win a lot of points on Zverev’s serve, especially on this quite dead court. Therefore unless Zverev has a shocker, the worst case scenario for the German should be tiebreakers, which will probably be 50-50 given how mentally frazzled Zverev has looked this week, and how good Isner was in his tiebreaker vs Cilic 2 days ago.

— 8pm UK, 3pm EST) —

🇷🇸 Djokovic vs Cilic 🇭🇷 🇺🇸 (H2H: 16-2) || (Hard Court H2H: 12-1)

Prediction: Djokovic in 3

Cilic has been all over the place this week. His performance against Zverev was a baffling display of mental weakness, crumbling from a break up once in each set, with some very poor tennis. Marin was better vs Isner, but still threw in plenty of very loose games and errors. Neither of those performances will be good enough against Novak tomorrow, who despite still looking a bit under the weather vs Zverev, just isn’t making mistakes or offering up any free points. If Cilic can serve as well as he did in the first set vs Novak in Paris a few weeks ago (70%+ first serves in), then he has a chance at shortening enough points and landing enough 1-2 punches to cause an upset. But he’s been at 52% vs Zverev and 60% vs Isner on 1st serve in this week, and while those are not awful numbers, he’ll need something sustained and extraordinary to blow Djokovic off-court tomorrow. Not convinced Cilic has that performance in him, especially after some of the fragility and inconsistency he has displayed this week.

EXTRAS 🔍📊🎤

📣 The ATP announced their new team event, called the ‘ATP Cup’ (competing with the ITF’s new Davis Cup) which will launch in 2020, just before the Australian Open in January.

TL;DR:

24 nations, 6 groups of 4 nations

10 days

2 singles and 1 doubles

750 ranking points available‼️

15 million USD prize money

Teams/nations qualify based on the ranking of their #1.

2020 dates: 3 January to Sunday 12 January

Non-mandatory.

Takes place across 3 different Australian Cities (probably Brisbane, Sydney & Perth), means the Brisbane ATP event and Hopman cup will almost definitely die.

Djokovic and Isner were at the event, alongside Kermode (ATP President) and Craig Tiley (Australian Open Director & CEO of Tennis Australia):

Djokovic: “The ranking points in the ATP Cup are a big incentive from the player's perspective.” Source Isner: “Our currency on the ATP Tour is ranking points.” Source

(Matt: The ATP’s ability to offer ranking points is a huge, possibly unassailable, advantage over the ITF’s Davis Cup.)

Kermode had this to say on the potential clash with the ITF and the Davis Cup:

Quotes source.

“Obviously this has been talk of the town. We’ve been having talks with everyone in tennis, the tone of the meeting is really good. It’s time to take a fresh look (at the calendar), it’s not going to happen overnight.”

(Matt: This is also what both sides said a year ago, and again 6 months ago. No progress on co-operation so far.)

‘Having the two so close together... there’s a fixation that the ATP Cup has caused the issue with the Davis Cup. Even if the ATP Cup didn’t exist, the Davis Cup doesn’t have a week.’

(Matt: More unproductive bickering between the ATP/ITF incoming)

The dates for 2020 mean that the ATP Cup will finish a week before the Australian Open starts (Australian Open in 2020 starts on January 20th), and 6 weeks after the Davis Cup Finals.

(Matt: 2020 will have: The ATP Cup, The Laver Cup, The Davis Cup & the Olympics. 4 non-mandatory events in one season)

I applaud, and like, a lot of what the ATP and Tennis Australia are doing. Innovation is vital in sport, as are the creation of new events that fans and players care about. But the way that both sides have gone about the process is childish, unproductive and is going to continue to tear apart the two main powers in mens tennis (ATP & ITF), which can only be bad for players and fans.

To summarise the utter shitshow that is the current fragmentation and bickering between the two governing bodies of mens tennis:

Which, contrasts hilariously to this this just a few months ago:

Oh tennis. why do you always try so hard to get in your own way…

— 🇿🇦 Kevin Anderson is the first South African to reach the semi-finals of he ATP Finals in the history of the tournament (since 1970). 🇿🇦

— 📊 Federer has qualified for his 15th semi-finals of the ATP Finals, out of 16 attempts. He has topped the group 14 times including this year. The one year he didn't qualify? 2008.

— 📊 Anderson hadn’t been broken in his first two matches this week. Today vs Federer he was broken 4 times.

— The ATP are just trolling us now. The CPI they provided on Tuesday shows a centre court CPI of 34. The CPI they provided today shows a centre court CPI of 40. Courts do get faster as they are played on, but a 6 point swing is crazy over a couple of days.

— Thiem’s problem on indoor hard courts. More than most players (thanks to his huge swings), Thiem aims for large spots in court, favouring power over precision. He backs-up/winds-up so much to hit this first forehand (above) that he cedes time + positioning to his opponent, who can work a simple angle to create space (as Kei does with his forehand). This problem is exacerbated against players who can take the ball earlier than Thiem and take advantage of the space in the court that the Austrian has left behind, thanks to his time-consuming preparation (and sometimes too central placement). TL;DR: Thiem can regularly overcommit on his groundies, leaving too much opportunity for his opponents to steal control/court-position. It wasn’t exploited by a very poor Nishikori today, but it has and will be against better performances.

NEW BALLS PLEASE 👀

— Thiem has such an interesting, but great, single hander technique. Very elaborate, but the basic mechanics/action is sound. His left arm plays a vital role in stabilising and lining up the racquet until just before contact. Both arms dropping from very high up and then the left hand letting go when the forward momentum starts.

— The sidespin on Thiem’s drop shot😲. Nearly turns 90 degrees.

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GAME, SET, MATCH 👋

— The Racquet is created, and written, by Matt.

— You can find me on Twitter here.

See you tomorrow for Day 6 of the ATP Finals.

(Cover image from ATP World Tour Twitter)