I am here to report the matches I saw live yesterday:
First, I went to see Carlos Alcaraz match against Mackie McDonald. I can see on why tennis analysts and fans are excited for the future of Carlos Alcaraz. First, I want to talk about his tennis game. He has the aggressive mentality of Federer, his backhand especially when hitting from the defensive position is similar to Djokovic and he has the mannerisms of Nadal (including the jumping high before the matches). However; the shot I was super impressed with Carlitos yesterday was his forehand. That particular shot will win him multiple slams and make him world number 1 in the future. The reason I say this is because he can hit his forehand with power, different spins, and variety. Furthermore, he can control his forehand easily, so Mackie was stuck like a Yo-yo and Carlitos was the one controlling him. With all the good techniques that Carlitos has, there is one shot he needs to improve on if he wants to take his game on the next level: Serve (specifically serve placement). He can hit his serve up to 135 mph, however; he needs to improve his serve placement because he hit some serves yesterday that if he faced a better returner, he will get his serve broken frequently. Lastly, while he has the game to be the number 1 player in the world, he has the charisma AND physique to achieve that accomplishment. At 18.5 years old, he has a good physique and stadium was full packed in both his singles and doubles matches. People have high expectations for him and hopefully he is able match the expectations.
Second match I watched was the Nadal-Korda. I will skip the 1st two sets because they were pretty one-sided. I will jump straight-forward to the game where Nadal lost his service game at 2-4 in the 3rd set. Everybody in the stadium gasped and shocked went that happened because they were not used to Nadal playing like THAT. At that point, everyone assumed Korda will score the big upset, so they were rooting for him to finish the match. Then, Korda serving at 5-2 started to get tight as drum. In addition, Nadal started to hit his backhand magnificently to turn the tide of the match, then the crowd started to chant "Vamos, Rafa!" and "We love you, Rafa!" and its like people forgot about Korda already. Move forward into the tiebreaker, we already know what happened during the tiebreaker. One emphasis I want to point out here is that Rafael Nadal is a ROCKSTAR! I think Jelenafan have said this before, but there is something about Nadal that gravitates the crowd towards him. It is a different aura with Federer or Djokovic. With Nadal, when he is playing, people will go this match, whether he is playing good or bad. I mean yesterday was just a 2nd rd match on an early Saturday afternoon and the stadium was fully-packed. They love watching Rafael Nadal and will watch him religiously until officially retires from the tour. By the way, his double faults were more because he was going big on his 2nd serves. He wanted to continue his aggressive mindset of going big on his 2nd serves to preserve his body from long rallies. His groundstrokes were more of a problem than his serve.
Last match I saw live was the Sinner-Djere match. As I said last year, watching Sinner live is so fascinating. The reason I say this is because when you watch him in TV, it looks a normal shot, however, on live, his shots are mesmerizing. Sinner does not hit hard groundstroke shots (he can if he needs to), but what makes him special and potentially a future world 1 number player is the accuracy and precision of his ground strokes. He was just an archer last night meaning he was hitting his shots with not a lot of power but just pinpoint accuracy. Djere (and the crowd) was shock on how Sinner was able to hit groundstrokes accurately and consistently throughout the match. By the way, Sinner was not even grunting at all, so the silence from him makes him deadlier on a smaller stadium. I think my favorite from Sinner is his backhand DTL. That shot from Sinner is similar to Djokovic's BH DTL shot. He can hit it with pinpoint accuracy. But what makes that shot special from Sinner is that he can hit that short after hitting a CC BH to the opponent, thus surprising his opponent at the very last minute. He did that a lot to Djere last night and I was just in awe of that shot. He is also a great lateral mover for his size. He does not use unnecessary steps to go from side to side. Now, his forward movement need improvement lol. With all the good/great shots, Sinner has one weakness on his game: his serve. For his size, he does not have a powerful serve at all. The fastest serve he can hit is 130 mph and he does not want hit consistently. In addition, his second serve is weak. For his size, he needs to hit his 2nd serve AT LEAST 103 mph in order to be more effective. If he can improve his serve tremendously, he will definitely be future great player. Another thing he can improve about his game is variety from the ground (slices, going forward and net game). His groundstrokes are world class already, but if he can somehow add variety to his game, he will really be a complete player.
Bonus: I was able to watch Jannik Sinner practice at night with little spectators because he went straight to the practice courts right after his match. His new coach wanted Sinner to worked on his slice and forward game because his pupil did have a bad slice and forward game match. It went about an hour so...and then after his practice, he was extremely nice because he signed some autographs for the younger fans. Also, he gave some of his practice gear to some lucky fans so that was cool from him.