Bronze Feels Like Gold

Carreño Busta serves up a medal

Tennis gold medals in Tokyo

• Men’s Doubles Gold🥇: Mektic/Pavic d Cilic/Dodig: 6-4, 3-6, 10-6

• Women’s Doubles Gold🥇: Krejcikova/Siniakova d Bencic/Golubic: 7-5, 6-1

• Mixed Gold🥇: Pavlyuchenkova/Rublev d Vesnina/Karatsev: 6-3, 6-7(5), 13-11

• Women’s Singles Gold🥇: Bencic d Vondrousova: 7-5, 2-6, 6-3

• Men’s Singles Gold🥇: Zverev d Khachanov: 6-3, 6-1

I wanted to write a bit about one of the gold medal matches, but to be frank nothing that interesting or out of the ordinary happened in either of the singles finals. Something fascinating did happen however in the bronze medal match, with Carreño Busta upsetting world number one Djokovic. Novak was clearly tired, both mentally and physically, after playing so much tennis coming into the Olympics. But there were a few clear bits of strategy that Carreño Busta got right regardless of Djokovic’s fatigue as the match wore on. Carreño Busta has played Djokovic very hard in their last couple of meetings on hard courts (Carreño Busta was serving for the first set when Djokovic got DQ’d at the US Open last year), and this match was no exception.

One of the reasons why Carreño Busta matches up quite well against Djokovic is that the Spaniard doesn’t have an obvious weakness. Novak sniffs out frailty and exploits it perhaps better than anyone, but Carreño Busta can happily trade on both forehand and backhand for long exchanges without either breaking down. Djokovic will regularly match up more favourably against powerful players who have a weakness (because he can root that weakness out) than against all-round, consistent players who don’t have obvious holes in their game (think Bautista Agut, Carreño Busta, Medvedev et al). But in their bronze medal match, Carreño Busta’s edge actually came on his serve:

Djokovic’s average return performance since the start of 2019:

• 36% 1st serve return points won (vs top 20 it’s 31%)

• 56% 2nd serve return points won (vs top 20 it’s 56%)

Djokovic against Carreño Busta in the bronze medal match:

• 27% 1st serve return points (-9% compared to avg)

• 43% 2nd serve return points (-13% compared to avg)

One of Djokovic’s usual competitive advantages is that he makes the servers +1 (2nd shot) less routine than it would normally be against everyone else, thanks to his excellent and consistent return depth:

Matthew Willis @mattracquet

No one better than Djokovic at hitting consistently devastating returns in that boxed area. Almost always aims central enough for it not to flirt with sidelines and also benefits from lower parts of the net. Brutal yet repeatable (for him at least) return strategy

But Carreño Busta’s serve strategy made it just that bit harder for Djokovic to find that deep, central sweet spot on return as consistently as he would like.

The Spaniard did this mostly thanks to two key serves.

• The slice 1st serve out wide to Djokovic’s forehand on the deuce side.

• The kick 2nd serve out wide to Djokovic’s backhand on the AD side.

The 1st Serve

I can’t remember the last time I saw Carreño Busta hit these slice serve spots so well and so short/angled in the service box. On deuce points especially the serve came up extremely clutch:

(Carreño Busta far end) Brilliant angle on the slice 1st serve. Djokovic took quite a deep return position for much of the match and the perfect way to exploit that deep position is to find those short-in-the-box angled serves that pull the returner forward and out of court.

Rinse and repeat.

• Carreño Busta faced 13 deuces overall on his serve in this match.

• He made 8 first serves out of those 13 points.

• Out of those 8 first serves, he hit 7 slice first serves out wide, and won all 7 (as well as one T serve, also won).

Those are 7 times when he saved himself from more break point pressure, against the best returner in the game, with that excellent slice serve out wide.

This slice-1st-serve-out-wide supremacy was no better demonstrated than in the final game of the match with Carreño Busta serving for the bronze medal. Djokovic pushed the game to deuce and threatened to break back for one final comeback. But Carreño Busta’s slice serve out wide said ‘no’, three times in a row:

Three excellent slice 1st serves, three times Carreño Busta refused to give Djokovic a break point opportunity to get back into the match. A point later and Carreño Busta had secured the bronze medal.

The 2nd serve

Djokovic was 0/6 on break points for the match. Four out of those six BP’s were saved on 2nd serves, kicked wide and high to the Djokovic backhand on the AD side (three in set 1, one in set 3):

(Carreño Busta far end) Brilliant second serve from Carreño Busta. Gets great width and uses the quite high bouncing court to get the ball up into an uncomfortable position for Djokovic’s backhand. Coaxes the short reply and then that forehand +1, inside in, from Carreño Busta was excellent all match long.

I particularly liked this 2nd serve strategy on the AD side because Djokovic redirects pace better than anyone, especially when the server goes into his body. By finding consistent width out wide and hitting quite safe speed-wise, but high-bouncing, kick serves, Carreño Busta forced Djokovic to generate his own pace and take the ball at uncomfortable heights. This is in marked contrast to Berrettini’s 2nd serve strategy against Djokovic at Wimbledon a couple of weeks ago, where Berrettini hit very fast body serves and got completely picked apart by Djokovic’s return. Obviously the grass and a higher bouncing hard court enable different sorts of serves, but that Wimbledon final and this bronze medal match serve as nice contrasts of serve strategy if you put them side by side (full analysis of Wimbledon final here).

Another break point, another Carreño-Busta kick serve high into the Djokovic backhand. This was a more conservative serve placement than the previous one but the height of the bounce still gave Djokovic a less than ideal return contact point, and set Carreño Busta up to control the point with his forehand (eventually winning it).

---

Bronze? Feels like gold

Yes, this wasn’t the best version of Djokovic. And yes, if both were completely fresh the result could conceivably have been quite different. But as Nadal likes to remind us all — ‘if, if, if… doesn’t exist’ — and Carreño Busta has played Djokovic hard enough in the past to suggest that he has the requisite ability to hurt Djokovic regardless of where Novak’s own game is at. A thoroughly deserved win, and medal, for Carreño Busta, who continues to do the best thing he can in the face of various detractors who marginalize his hard court abilities. He just stays winning. And others will stay mad.

Carreño Busta when interviewed post-match:

It’s a Bronze medal but for me it’s like a Gold.”

His golden serving performance agrees.

— MW

If you have any questions on the above, let me know in the comments. No question is dumb.

I’ll see you on Thursday.

Twitter @MattRacquet

The Racquet goes out twice a week, a (free) topical piece every Thursday and a (paid) analysis piece every Sunday/Monday.

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Top: Clive Brunskill/Getty

Bottom: Alexander Safonov/Anadolu Getty