Canada Clean Sweep ATP Cup Final and Rafa's Comeback Title

Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime's backhands enable their forehands, Nadal's return strategy

Shapovalov d Carreño Busta: 6-4, 6-3

Shapovalov did two things really well today, against a red hot Carreño Busta who hadn’t dropped a set in the ATP Cup so far. This matchup is usually a case of Carreño Busta representing the more stable level and Shapovalov having the higher peaks and troughs. This is borne out in the winner to unforced error rates:

• Shapovalov: 27 winners to 30 unforced errors

• Carreño Busta: 11 winners to 18 unforced errors

But Shapovalov did brilliantly to maintain both his A and B level when it mattered for most of the match. Shapovalov saved 8/9 break points and Carreño Busta 3/6 but the first two games of the 1st set saw 7 break points to start the match (Shapovalov facing 5, Carreño Busta facing 2). If you discount those first two, initially edgy, games they each faced 4 break points.

Carreño Busta had a fairly obvious serve strategy for the most part: aim into the Shapovalov backhand and try to set up points on his terms. But Shapovalov returned really intelligently when it mattered, notably to break for the set at 4*-5 in set one:

— ↑ This 2nd serve from Carreño Busta (near end) got punished all match long. He’s trying to find Shapo’s backhand but because the ball is central and short Shapo can run around and crush a forehand to take control of the point.

— ↑ Carreño Busta could have done better on the approach forehand and the backhand smash but Shapo putting this quite awkward ball back in play, by slicing it short off his backhand, was great to see. So many times in the past would you have seen Shapo making a return error off this kind of 1st serve rather than forcing the opponent to play.

↑ Another solid first serve return from Shapovalov to get him into the point, plays the right high margin backhand as his 2nd shot and then finds a way to work his forehand into the point to take control.

↑ Again, another really good 1st serve backhand return from Shapovalov which manufactures a neutral rally until Shapo can find the aggressive forehand to force the error.

And it continued into Set 2:

↑ Another safe but effective backhand return from Shapo and then patient backhands, including a change of pace slice. Shapo’s backhand can be flashy and hit winners but it’s almost always much more important for him to keep errors low rather than winners high off that wing.

↑ More of the same 2nd serve return dynamic on that AD side, Shapo able to run around and hit a forehand on the return to take control of the point. He finishes with the backhand winner but it’s the safe but aggressive first two forehands that create the space to hit into.

↑ Rinse and repeat to get the decisive break in set 2.

The interesting thing about all the above points is that they strike a great balance between patience and aggression. Shapovalov’s forehand is always going to do most of the damage (Shapo was usually winning the point when he got to play a neutral ish forehand in a rally today), but his backhand also needs to not let him down in order to set up enough opportunities to hit those forehands. That was what was most impressive today from Shapovalov, either:

• making backhand returns and playing the right, quite high margin backhands in rallies, in order to get the opportunity to hit the big aggressive forehand strike that would likely end the point. Only 15% of Carreño Busta’s 1st serves went unreturned today.¹

  or…

• hitting big but aggressive spots on 2nd serve forehand returns to take control of the point immediately.

The more returns Shapovalov makes, and the fewer cheap backhand rally errors he makes, the more opportunities he has to strike aggressive forehands, which no one on tour has an answer for when he’s playing well. The key for Shapovalov isn’t hitting bigger, it’s for his game to evolve to the point where he calmly enables his strengths as much as possible. This sounds obvious but it’s much harder to execute on in the moment as a player.

Shapo also played well, for the most part, on serve under pressure (a running theme for him this week at the ATP Cup). But his mix of aggression and patience on return was the stand out feature today. With a new coach in his corner (Jamie Delgado) hopefully that balance might be a more consistent part of his game going forward.

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Auger Aliassime d Bautista Agut: 7-6, 6-3

Apparently a running theme for Canada today, Auger-Aliasssime’s backhand held up superbly, for most of the match, against Bautista Agut and gave the Canadian a strong foundation from which to dominate with his forehand weapon. Bautista Agut has one of the most consistent backhands in the game and the Spaniard regularly breaks down opponents cross court. But Auger-Aliassime not only traded successfully for most of the match, backhand to backhand with Bautista Agut, but he set up many of the right sorts of balls to attack.

Auger-Aliassime (this end) saving an early break point. The Canadian not only stayed extremely solid off that backhand wing but knew when to run around that backhand and take a big aggressive swing at the forehand (like he does here, forcing an error).

Auger-Aliassime’s backhand holding up so well meant that Bautista Agut was forced into trying other patterns, but that usually meant finding Auger-Aliassime’s forehand, which is his stronger wing. Auger Aliassime didn’t hit many winners off his backhand, but crucially he did create many rally opportunities for his forehand off the back of the quality of his backhands.

Auger-Aliassime extending his lead in the tiebreaker with more excellent backhands.

The absolute war of a first set was really where the match was won and lost, and by the middle of the 2nd set (even at the end of the 1st set) Bautista Agut looked worn out, perhaps a bit jaded after his epic vs Hurkacz on Friday:

Not often you see Bautista Agut bail out of a baseline rally like this. Auger-Aliassime’s backhand once again holding strong.

Auger-Aliassime hit plenty of brilliant forehands today, both out of his backhand corner and from his forehand corner. That shot, alongside the 1st serve, certainly took most of the glory. But, after a slightly shaky first few games, Auger-Aliassime managed to take away most of the strategic rally edge Bautista Agut was looking to hold, i.e the backhand to backhand battle. Bautista Agut was therefore forced into two bad options:

1. either keep trading cross court with Auger-Aliassime, which because of Bautista Agut’s backhand technique tends to land quite central rather than angled which gives Auger Aliassime more opportunity to run around the backhand to hit an aggressive forehand…

2. …or just hit into Auger-Aliassime’s forehand which was mostly a losing play because of how devastating that shot was today.

There were other interesting things, like Auger-Aliassime intelligently moving back to a deeper return position to return 2nd serves in the middle of set one, which worked a treat as Bautista Agut won just 25% of 2nd serve points for the match. But mostly this match was an extremely promising display of Auger-Aliassime’s shot selection, with that backhand looking like it’s received some serious training and discipline from coaches Frederic Fontang and Toni Nadal in the off season.

Both Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime notch brilliant straight sets wins against tough opponents. Both of their forehands took most of the glory. But both of their backhands stayed strong enough and high-margin enough, to enable much of that glory.

Awesome win for Canada.

JEREMY NG/AFP via Getty

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Nadal d Cressy: 7-6, 6-3

A slightly sharper Nadal probably would have won this in more routine fashion than he did, and after missing multiple break points in set one it took a very close tiebreaker win for Nadal to open up a one set lead, before also having to come back from a break down in set two. But there were two particular moments in the match where Nadal elevated his game.

Nadal double faulted at 5-5 in the first set tiebreaker to hand Cressy a set point on his serve. Cressy missed the first serve but still landed a very aggressive 2nd serve right onto the line:

Nadal finding a great return to save set point.

This return above, and the next few I’m about to highlight, all have the same thing in common: they’re not returns from a particularly deep return position. Nadal is renowned for that deep return position but he’s often extremely adaptable and has used the more aggressive return position, with a more abbreviated backswing, pretty consistently against serve and volleyers. One of the two reasons it’s important, especially against a serve and volleyer, is that by standing closer to the baseline Nadal is giving the volleyer less time, and a worse court position, to play the volley. Notice where Cressy is when he tries to play the volley above, split stepping in no-mans-land well behind the service box. Had Nadal been standing deeper Cressy would have been closer to the net by the time he played the volley and likely would have had more of the line covered.

Nadal managed to win the 1st set but then went down an early break in set 2. He managed to break straight back however thanks to an incredible return game:

This is the second reason the more aggressive return position can be important: It means that Nadal is less likely to be caught out by angled serves like this. Cressy should have played a better volley here, but if Nadal had been deeper to return, this serve would have been unreturnable. Nadal was guilty of being exploited by those angled serves for large parts of his loss to Muller at Wimbledon in 2017 if you’d like to see the deeper return position failing in similar circumstances.

This whole return game was just too good from Nadal, off Cressy 1st serves no less. Although Cressy did seem a bit stubborn by going into Nadal’s forehand over and over on that AD side.

Nadal finished the match returning particularly well and rediscovered one of the things he’s so good at, especially against those looking to serve and volley against him, while breaking to serve for the title a few games later:

Nadal, at his best against serve and volleyers, finds these returns again and again. An abbreviated backswing to bunt the ball short in the service box forcing uncomfortable half-volleys from the server. When Nadal is making these sorts of returns I haver only ever seen one player win more of these types of points than they lost: Tsonga in the the 2008 Australian Open semi final.

An easy path but a very good title for Nadal after pretty much 6 months out with injury. And a great run to a first tour level final for Cressy. Refreshing to see an out and out serve and volleyer these days, even if they have it tough against the current tennis meta.

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Interesting first week of 2022…

—MW

Twitter: @mattracquet

See you on Thursday

Top: Brendon Thorne/Getty

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1. I’m writing something more in depth on this at the moment, but I’m convinced that the biggest potential for improvement in elite men’s tennis right now is number of returns made.