Indian Wells

Kieran

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It must be an incredible thing for Roger, to have welded so successfully to the new racket, and to see the results so tangibly already. Fair play to him! I think he's going to make this a very interesting season, and the new stick may even prolong his career, or at least, make his final years far more lucrative and competitive than they could have been...
 

nehmeth

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GameSetAndMath said:
I think Murray is better than Novak in handling big servers.

Like the way he handled Raonic this week? :snigger

Here's how they both match up:

Against Raonic: Murray 1-3, Djkovic 1-0

Against Anderson: Murray 1-1, Djokovic 4-1

Against Isner: Murray 2-0, Djokovic 4-2
 

El Dude

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Nehmeth, that's a pretty small group. Let's at least add a couple others:

Against Roddick: Murray 8-3, Djokovic 4-5
Against Karlovic: Murray 5-0, Djokovic 1-1
Against Lopez: Murray 8-0, Djokovic 5-0
Against Janowicz: Murray 2-1, Djokovic NA

Among the seven listed, we get the following:
Murray: 27-8 (77%)
Djokovic: 19-9 (68%)
 

Riotbeard

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El Dude said:
Nehmeth, that's a pretty small group. Let's at least add a couple others:

Against Roddick: Murray 8-3, Djokovic 4-5
Against Karlovic: Murray 5-0, Djokovic 1-1
Against Lopez: Murray 8-0, Djokovic 5-0
Against Janowicz: Murray 2-1, Djokovic NA

Among the seven listed, we get the following:
Murray: 27-8 (77%)
Djokovic: 19-9 (68%)

It really depends on who you pick as a big server. If you add Berdych, IMO a bigger server than Lopez, the image changes again.

Novak: 15-2
Andy: 4-6

Murray: 31-14
Djokovic: 34-11

People with extreme weapons can give anybody problems, if they are on fire that day. Certain players match up better against certain players, but no one is perfect against power players and vice versa.
 

Federberg

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I think it's fair to say that Roddick had a bit more in his locker than just his serve. And Novak probably (I've not checked) played him at bigger moments, when Roddick was still a top 5ish player more frequently than Andy did. Just a guess.. but feels right. Personally if I needed a tennis player to return a serve.. any serve to save my life, I would pick Novak before Andy
 

nehmeth

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El Dude said:
Nehmeth, that's a pretty small group. Let's at least add a couple others:

Against Roddick: Murray 8-3, Djokovic 4-5
Against Karlovic: Murray 5-0, Djokovic 1-1
Against Lopez: Murray 8-0, Djokovic 5-0
Against Janowicz: Murray 2-1, Djokovic NA

Among the seven listed, we get the following:
Murray: 27-8 (77%)
Djokovic: 19-9 (68%)

Lopez??? For a slicing lefty serve - he qualifies. Big serve?? Roddick is retired. I think those kind of skew the results. I'm fine with Karlovic and JJ.

I just picked three of the guys who are presently in the mix of top players. I agree with Riotbeard about adding Berdych, but I would remove Lopez. We'll leave Roddick in there though.

That would put Murray at 23-14 (62%) and Djokovic at 29 -11 (72%)
 

Front242

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Cheers for uploading Federer v Anderson, pavlik89. My stream died last night and missed all set 2. Anderson looks like an old man and he's only 27. Looks way older than me and I'm way older than him :p
 

brokenshoelace

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Lopez is definitely a big server and he does more than just slicing lefty serves.

As far as who does better against big servers, it's not so cut and dry. "Big servers" do not all play the same. For instance, Berdych plays absolutely nothing like Karlovic, and has a much better baseline game, so the match against him depends on other variables too -- not just how you handle his serve.

Meanwhile, it's different playing Lopez than say Raonic, since that would also depend on how you handle lefties, read their serve, etc...

Most importantly however, I don't think you can just look at Novak and Murray's head to head vs. players who serve big and jump to a conclusion, because said H2H might not reflect who handles big servers better, but who's the better player, or at least, the player who's had the better, more consistent results.

For example, without bothering to dig up data, I'm sure you'll find that Nadal has a better record against these selected players than both Murray and Djokovic, but I don't think that means he handles big servers better, nor does he return as well as those guys.

If the question is simply about who has the superior return, I'd go for Novak, especially once we lump first and second serve returns together. However, he goes through occasional patches where he doesn't get a good read on his opponent's serve, and his returning suffers as a result (it's happened a couple times against Isner. Or even someone who's not a "big" server -- though he serves great -- Roger Federer). Conversely, once he actually gets a read on his opponent's serve, he can go through a ridiculous patch without conceding any free points.

Again though, other factors are involved. Given that big servers are typically big men without great movement, Murray can be better at exploiting the rest of their games (ie frustrating them with defense, counter punching, using a lot of slices, etc...). And yet, even that has a trade-off, since Andy's occasional tentativeness means that if one of these guys catches fire, he may not have an answer, whereas Novak is more comfortable at upping his own aggression and take the match to them.
 

Riotbeard

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Broken_Shoelace said:
Lopez is definitely a big server and he does more than just slicing lefty serves.

As far as who does better against big servers, it's not so cut and dry. "Big servers" do not all play the same. For instance, Berdych plays absolutely nothing like Karlovic, and has a much better baseline game, so the match against him depends on other variables too -- not just how you handle his serve.

Meanwhile, it's different playing Lopez than say Raonic, since that would also depend on how you handle lefties, read their serve, etc...

Most importantly however, I don't think you can just look at Novak and Murray's head to head vs. players who serve big and jump to a conclusion, because said H2H might not reflect who handles big servers better, but who's the better player, or at least, the player who's had the better, more consistent results.

For example, without bothering to dig up data, I'm sure you'll find that Nadal has a better record against these selected players than both Murray and Djokovic, but I don't think that means he handles big servers better, nor does he return as well as those guys.

If the question is simply about who has the superior return, I'd go for Novak, especially once we lump first and second serve returns together. However, he goes through occasional patches where he doesn't get a good read on his opponent's serve, and his returning suffers as a result (it's happened a couple times against Isner. Or even someone who's not a "big" server -- though he serves great -- Roger Federer). Conversely, once he actually gets a read on his opponent's serve, he can go through a ridiculous patch without conceding any free points.

Again though, other factors are involved. Given that big servers are typically big men without great movement, Murray can be better at exploiting the rest of their games (ie frustrating them with defense, counter punching, using a lot of slices, etc...). And yet, even that has a trade-off, since Andy's occasional tentativeness means that if one of these guys catches fire, he may not have an answer, whereas Novak is more comfortable at upping his own aggression and take the match to them.

I agree with this 100% in terms of it's not a simple, who handle big serves who doesn't. My point of bringing Berdych was not to show that Novak handles them better, but Dude's stats have a lot to do with who you pick for your statistics, and thus the stats approach does not really function well in this case.
 

nehmeth

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Broken_Shoelace said:
Lopez is definitely a big server and he does more than just slicing lefty serves.

meh...

Let's look at the fact that neither Murray nor Djokovic have ever lost to him. 8-0, 5-0 - he just pads both their percentages. I'd still leave him out.
 

Front242

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Gulbis is a big server, as is Brands. One a good day so is Tsonga. Hasn't been very consistent lately but when his serve is working it's pretty huge. I'd add Tsonga and Gulbis to the mix too for comparisons of how Murray and Djokovic handle big servers. Not sure they've even played Brands and too lazy to check.
 

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Hi all;

Trying to help: it is true that all the listed players are different, so comparing the H2H one by one might be misleading, and also that the when the matches were played makes a difference. However, one would expected that if you gather a large sample, that is, a lot of different big servers, you would expect that on average all other aspects "cancel". With small samples, yes, other factors may overshadow the "big serve" factor.

But comparing only their winning percentages is not enough. You shoul compare them to their own winning percentages against the whole field.

The crucial thing here is having a clear cut definition of "big server" (that is, "on a given day" is not good enough).
 

brokenshoelace

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nehmeth said:
Broken_Shoelace said:
Lopez is definitely a big server and he does more than just slicing lefty serves.

meh...

Let's look at the fact that neither Murray nor Djokovic have ever lost to him. 8-0, 5-0 - he just pads both their percentages. I'd still leave him out.

Whether he should be left our or not when comparing Novak and Murray's records is a different issue. I just think he's a big server because he serves big.
 

Riotbeard

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Broken_Shoelace said:
nehmeth said:
Broken_Shoelace said:
Lopez is definitely a big server and he does more than just slicing lefty serves.

meh...

Let's look at the fact that neither Murray nor Djokovic have ever lost to him. 8-0, 5-0 - he just pads both their percentages. I'd still leave him out.

Whether he should be left our or not when comparing Novak and Murray's records is a different issue. I just think he's a big server because he serves big.

I tend to think of Lopez as having a big serve within the spectrum of normal but good serves. His serve is really in different league from Raonic, Isner, Karlovic, even Delpo or Berdych. He is more in that class with Mardy Fish. Lopez has a very good serve, but I am not sure he is a "big server."
 

nehmeth

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Riotbeard said:
Broken_Shoelace said:
nehmeth said:
Broken_Shoelace said:
Lopez is definitely a big server and he does more than just slicing lefty serves.

meh...

Let's look at the fact that neither Murray nor Djokovic have ever lost to him. 8-0, 5-0 - he just pads both their percentages. I'd still leave him out.

Whether he should be left our or not when comparing Novak and Murray's records is a different issue. I just think he's a big server because he serves big.

I tend to think of Lopez as having a big serve within the spectrum of normal but good serves. His serve is really in different league from Raonic, Isner, Karlovic, even Delpo or Berdych. He is more in that class with Mardy Fish. Lopez has a very good serve, but I am not sure he is a "big server."

Agreed. Add his lefty-spin and it puts him a cut above Fish, but not on par with the other guys. Interesting that you suggested DP. He had an adequate serve back in 08. Franco Davin made a point of helping him develop it into a weapon.
 

Front242

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Speaking of Mardy Fish...what the hell is happening with him? Not officially retired but hasn't played in ages. Is he gonna retire or what? Any news on him? Real shame about his heart and depression problems :( His match against Roger in Cincy 2012 had some ferocious action from both guys.
 

Riotbeard

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Front242 said:
Speaking of Mardy Fish...what the hell is happening with him? Not officially retired but hasn't played in ages. Is he gonna retire or what? Any news on him? Real shame about his heart and depression problems :( His match against Roger in Cincy 2012 had some ferocious action from both guys.

Last I heard he was looking into pro-golf. I am a pretty big Fish fan. I don't see him ever coming back, I just don't think he trusts his body (heart) at that top level.
 

Denis

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After a long week settling down with a beer to watch some tennis. Go Novak!