Sinner vs Jesper De Jong

Jannik sat on the couch in the hotel room.

The light-hitting session had gone well. He had ironed out the kinks after the warm-up and his timing felt good during the pointy, although he was still getting a bit jumpy on the forehand swinging volley.

“What are you thinking about?”

Jannik looked as if he was waking out of a dream. He turned his head slowly.

“I was thinking back to the tennis center. Riccardo used to have us play a baseline game in the juniors where we had to win three points in a row to get a point.”

He took a sip from his what looked like a smoothie.

It was green, but it didn’t taste the way it looked.

The first time he had one he thought it would have tasted…green…like grass, broccoli, or green beans.

Todays had hints of peanut butter, chocolate, and bananas.

“Progression games are fun, no” Umberto, his physio coach said.

Jannik pursed his lips and shrugged.

“Ya…they’re good. I was remembering a day when I was losing to a weaker player,” he said and took another sip from the green concoction. “One boy I trained with was very competitive…we both were…”

“…you still are.”

Jannik smiled.

“I had lost a triple point for the game and he fist pumped and screamed, ‘Vamos.’” Jannik tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and let it out. “I remember getting upset…really upset inside…and I wanted to win the game so much.”

He wondered if everyone remembered those stories from their junior days. They popped up from time to time. They seemed to pop up more after training sessions while he was relaxing. As a kid, some nights he had trouble sleeping and would shut his eyes and “ski down the mountains.”

Sometimes he would visualize competitions.

Other times, he would visualize easy glides down the mountain.

He did the same for tennis.

At times, he focused too much on a particular shot that was bothering him, not realizing how you perceive something, positive or negative, had a profound effect on how you got over the issue.

In the past, he tended to focus too much from a negative standpoint. Over the last few years, thanks to Darren, he was able to process those moments in a more positive light.

His game had started to ‘click’ during the past six months.

Situations weren’t bothering him as much.

“Who won the card game last night?”

“I did,” Jannik said.

“He cheated,” said another voice.

Jannik’s eyebrows furrowed.

“You did,” said the tall guy wearing a Nike hat.

“What are you talking about?” he joked.

“Come on, mate. That’s the only way you can beat me.”

Jannik’s eyebrows furrowed again.

They bantered back and forth for a few more minutes until Simone walked into the room. Then they started going over the next match vs Jesper De Jong.

Jesper had good pop on his first serve. He hit a big ball. Almost too big like all the young guys coming up. They thought Big Serves and (+1) winners were key.

But, like all young players, they made a lot of mistakes.

Unforced errors.

Poor tactical decisions.

Poor mental game.

The mental side is where Jannik had made a big leap. Like the other young players on tour, he could get a little spastic. He had a hard time staying calm.

Staying in the moment.

Learning to use the middle of the court to reset the rally…to spread the guy out for attacks to the corner…for breakpoints down…became a great Add-On to his game. It opened up his aggressive patterns and made them harder to read.

“His ball speed on his backhand slows down when you switch him up…from the forehand side…”

“I could mix up the numbers in the rallies between a Center, Deuce, and move…to a few doubles to each side or triples.”

“Be careful on his forehand side. It’s heavy and has pop, especially when he “camps” out.”

They watched some points from Jesper’s previous match. They noticed he had “heavy” feet after he moved from a spread if the hit ball right back at him.

“We can get his legs to crack. Three qually matches and a main draw. His legs will be good to gone by the second set if we can keep some of the rallies long.”

The team had been working on longer combo depth rallies designed to “tease” the player into believing they were still in the point.

They used Six, eight, and ten-ball rallies that went from spreading the court to keeping it tighter…then flipping the patterns the opposite way. The combos were designed systematically until Jannik showed his concentration level improving. Then they designed them to adapt to the point being played. It wasn’t easy. There were a lot of growing pains. And some doubt.

Nothing comes from nothing.

“If you don’t put the work in, you don’t get results,” his old coach had said.

It always seemed weird to Jannik that the moment you wanted to quit something was the moment you had an epiphany.

It was easy to forget that.

The team used “hitters” as test subjects. The HItters were excited to be out there. They had no clue like most young players that they were being used. They were more focused on winning points against a “Pro” and proving that they were capable players.

The coaches had watched the full match.

They showed Jannik some points to show ways he could exploit Jesper’s movements.

When they were done, Jannik did some stretches, ate dinner and went to sleep.

The first set had gone quick. It started out even while Jannik intentionally mixed in some longer combos. Then he pulled away as the set went on. Jesper had made it hard to throw in the longer combos. He had made too many unforced errors.

At one point in the first set, the coaches had stood up and rubbed their thighs, meaning his opponent’s legs were starting to go.

Once he went up a break in the second set, Jesper started coming into the net more often.

Unsuccessfully.

When players felt they couldn’t win from the baseline, they figured if they came into the net, they could have success.

They also used this when they were feeling tight.

It worked occasionally.

The hard part was if you came into the net too much and there was a period of points that were too short, players tended to lose their timing a bit at the baseline and had to work themselves back up.

During the second set, the longer points were paying dividends.

Jannik made sure to keep one point per game above fourteen shots.

The plan they worked up for the match was working well.

They used four-ball quick attacking combos to attack movement and Longer combos to attack the legs.

Both plans were designed to vary slightly and keep the opponent from guessing what was going on.

Some coaches used a pitch counter that the Major League Baseball players used to keep track of rally lengths. Others used their phones.

Pitch counters were easier and less visible.

In the third set, Sinner had broken serve in the first game. During the second game, Sinner used a longer attacking combo. They had been working on “tweener” combos that mixed the long combos with the short combos.

It reminded him of the movie, Hoosiers, with Gene Hackman.

During the movie, the players had to pass the ball five times before they could shoot.

On the tennis court, it was the same. The new combo had to touch the ball five times before the winner. The hard part was that the opponent had to be a participating player in the game.

Jannik had been working on not exposing too much court with the first three and four shots and then laying a trap for the opponent with a shot that would open his own side of the court, yet open his opponent’s side too.

This had proven difficult.

Watching the matches afterward helped seeing when it worked and when it didn’t.

Later, after the match was over, the team looked at rally lengths during the games. After the long rallies, Jesper tended to make some easy unforced errors. After too many short rallies, the points tended to stay around the same number.

Every player had a threshold.

It depended on their physical shape which affected their mental shape.

Physical shape players who played short points as a whole tended to crack after the bigger points because that is what their training dictated.

They used a lot of short burst conditioning designed to recover faster for the next point. They failed to spend more time on the deeper conditioning.

Sustaining longevity over the whole match.

That was one secret the top players had over the lower-ranked players.

Conditioning designed to sustain longevity.