Sinner's Serve and Ruud's Return

Spins, serve techniques and blocked returns

Oct 04, 2021

Sunday’s Finals

Astana Open: Van Uytvanck d Putintseva 1-6, 6-4, 6-3
Chicago: Muguruza d Jabeur 3-6, 6-3, 6-0
Sofia: Sinner d Monfils 6-3, 6-4
San Diego: Ruud d Norrie 6-0, 6-2

Just a quick roundup of a few things I found interesting from the various smaller events happening this weekend.

Sinner’s improvements

Back in August I wrote about Sinner changing his serving motion — going from the pinpoint stance he had used since 2018, back to his original platform stance:

The Racquet

Sinner's Serve

Jannik Sinner has put a stop to his mid-season slump in form to reach the Washington final this week. Tonight he plays Mackenzie McDonald for the trophy. Something interesting happened with Sinner’s serve after his round one loss to Jack Draper on the grass at Queens a month or so ago. Sinner went back to the serving motion he used throughout his junior …

3 years ago · 5 likes · Matthew Willis

It’s still too early to tell definitively whether the changes have helped. But there are some very good numbers coming out of the young Italian’s serve since he made the change. There’s more detail in the post above but a quick refresher:

Sinner put together some pretty ridiculous serving numbers throughout the week in Sofia (he won 25/27 or 93% first serve points in the final against Monfils and 17/27 on 2nd serve or 63%) and if we take a look at all 17 matches he’s played on hard courts since he made the change to his serve, he does seem to be getting a bit more out of it:

I’ll update this at the end of the year with a larger sample which should give us an indication of whether the improvement is here to stay. But good signs for Sinner and a deserved title.

Ruud the all-courter

Casper Ruud won his first hard court title in impressive fashion in a stacked San Diego field.

I’ve always thought it a bit strange that players like Ruud are called ‘clay courters’ by commentators et al, just because their best surface is clay. It would be like calling Medvedev a ‘hard courter’ which no one ever does. But Ruud winning San Diego in the way he did is a solid answer to the critics, beating Murray, Sonego, Dimitrov and Norrie for the title.

There were a few interesting things about the Ruud Norrie final, two of the form players of the season clashing.

Firstly, it was fun seeing the spinniest two handed backhand on tour (Ruud) clash against one of the flattest (Norrie). Ruud hits both his forehand and backhand with an extraordinary amount of topspin, while Norrie has this funny Jeckyll and Hyde groundstroke pairing of very spinny forehand and flat-as-a-pancake backhand:

Here’s a side by side of Norrie’s groundies, and their completely different ball trajectories, from last year:

Yesterday both players averaged around 3000rpm for their forehands, but the difference is backhand spin is one of the biggest I’ve ever seen:

Backhand topspin yesterday:

Ruud: 2520 RPM
Norrie: 1078 RPM

As for the actual matchup, the build up to this final suggested it would be close based on form. But considering Norrie’s underpowered serve (especially 2nd serve) and Ruud’s return of serve ability, especially against non-big servers, this match was always likely to be quite one sided. And Ruud has found one particular shot during his improvement on hard courts that is causing many opponents trouble: the blocked return.

Ruud, like lots of players who have grown up on clay, has quite big swings on that forehand side especially. But over the last year or so the Norwegian, instead of trying to drive those 1st serve returns, has been blocking slice balls back in play more and more. Just 15% of Norrie’s 1st serves went unreturned in yesterday’s final, with Ruud giving Norrie a minuscule number of free points. Ruud also did this particularly well against Murray (despite the fact Murray probably should have done more on some of the +1 forehands):

Ruud has been getting better and better with these blocked/slice 1st serve returns. The shorter ones like this also bring the serving player into net whether they like it or not, in which case Ruud can use his enormous amount of topspin to hit passing shots that are a nightmare for the server/volleyer to deal with.

Again, Ruud finds a nice solution to a good Norrie body serve (which would have been very hard to hit a full swing forehand drive off of) by blocking the ball back and forcing Norrie to net. Great pass.

Good depth on this forehand block return. Ruud is essentially looking to either create an opportunity to pass (examples above) or develop a baseline rally. The deep block return gives Ruud a chance to recover back to the middle of the court and forces the serving opponent to hit their 2nd shot deep in the court, with little-no pace to work with. And Ruud would be a favourite in a baseline rally against most players.

Ruud also has it off the backhand wing. Good, deep, resetting blocked return which initiates a neutral baseline exchange (ie Ruud’s happy place).

And then off the 2nd serve return, Ruud can use his usual deep return position to load aggressive spin onto the server’s baseline:

Given any time on the return, Ruud does what Nadal has always done so well from deep return positions by effectively setting up return 1-2 punches and negating the servers 1-2 punch. Aggressive but safe thanks to the spin/margin.

This combination of blocked 1st serve returns and loaded topspin from deep in the court on 2nd serve returns can be a very effective mix on a hard court. Wawrinka used to do this very well during his better years and it means that the server is regularly uncomfortable and dealing with a lot of different types of ball as their 2nd shot post serve, making it hard to build rhythm.

My favourite thing about Ruud has always been how little he gives opponents for free, almost always picking the right shot and using his tools to move points into his own happy place, ie either neutral baseline exchanges or hitting dipping passing shots. With his improving return game on hard courts he’s becoming even stingier. A great week for the Norwegian.

— MW