As we see below, Tsitsipas was not trying to blow his opponents off the court with raw power. You also have consistency, direction, depth, height, spin, court position and taking time away from your opponent to correctly prepare for the shot. Power is just one of the qualities that will force errors or produce winners. Hitting the ball harder does not always equate to better. The biggest deficit was hitting only 15 winners to Alexander Zverev’s 24 when he defeated the German 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the semi-finals of the ATP Masters 1000 in Rome. Tsitsipas clubbed 26 winners to the Argentine’s 21. The only match in which he hit more winners than his opponent was a 6-2, 6-7(3), 6-4 victory over Diego Schwartzman in the quarter-finals of Monte Carlo. Tsitsipas dominated the larger data set of unforced errors. Surprisingly, he hit fewer rally winners than his opponents. The first thing to identify is that Tsitsipas won all 10 of his matches in this data set. The Greek will surely be looking replicate this winning formula at Roland Garros over the following fortnight. The following five areas of Tsitsipas’ 10 match victories shine a light on the intricate layers of clay-court dominance.

Once you study his match metrics on the terre battue, you begin to uncover what it is.Īn Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of Stefanos Tsitsipas assembling 10 match victories in Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome last season identifies the subtleties of clay-court dominance, where power and winners take a back seat to getting the ball out of your opponents’ strike zone to extract errors.

Stefanos Tsitsipas has a certain “Je ne sais quoi” on a clay court.

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