Match analysis: Muchova vs Sakkari, French Open 2022

Written by: Evan Gaudreau | May 26, 2022

Coach Evan is back with a match analysis from French Open 2022: Muchova vs Sakkari. Did you watch the match?

Muchova vs Sakkari, French Open 2022
Match Analysis by Evan Gaudreau

You can watch the highlights of the Muchova vs Sakkari match here.

Hereโ€™s the thing about analysis pieces. If I bang it out on the first watch, itโ€™s going to be missing something. Maybe itโ€™s the way I process a match. Maybe my brain doesnโ€™t work fast enough. Either way, there’s always something new that pops up the second time around. After watching the first three games last night, I shut the computer off.
I was frustrated.

There seemed to be nothing going onโ€ฆ.and I wasnโ€™t in the mood to watch so many unforced errors.
Waking up this morning, I thought about what I could be missing. Is there more than what we see? Is there something going on behind the scenes? Or is it the way the player’s process strategy that makes them come out of the gates like bucking horsesโ€ฆ.all fired up and nowhere to go to.
Unforced error city.

Thatโ€™s a place Iโ€™m not particularly eager to go to.

What is Sakkari up to?

Lately, Iโ€™ve been thinking about how players process information or strategy and use it during matches.
After the first three games, Iโ€™m scratching my head.
What is Sakkari up to?

A thought popped into my head. Maybe she trains technical. Maybe she warms up and rips balls here and there, working on a form, feel, and power randomlyโ€ฆ.yet the coaches are asking her to do a specific strategy during the match that contradicts the training sessions.

For juniors at home, it’s like going to your lessons, hitting back and forth with the teaching pro most of the lesson.
Crosscourt.
Down the lines.
And then playing points and wondering why the student is hitting back to you when you want them to hit the open court.
Does that make sense?

Dichotomy on the WTA Tour

On the WTA Tour, I feel that a similar problem is happening. I feel as though the training and the strategic planning arenโ€™t meshing.
Thereโ€™s a dichotomy.
The coaches assume the player can go out there and perform a strategy they havenโ€™t worked on (too much technical training).
Is that why the womenโ€™s game is so wishy-washy?
Could it go deeper?
Would deeper investigation reveal the โ€œblockerโ€ seed was dropped at ten or twelve years old?
By the parents!
Parents! What you say to your kid’s matters and the words you use are triggers that hold them back.

Easy example.
Do you leave the court on a negative? Are you constantly telling them what they did wrong? How you talk to your kid matters.
No shit!
Weโ€™re missing the thing thatโ€™s right in front of us.
Iโ€™m just as guilty as anyone.
(There is a time and place for negative feedback, though, when you’re planting a seed that needs to be soaked in).

Two things.

One is that my daughter left the court after making an error on her last shot last night. The Dad in me wanted to feed her another ball until she made it, and the coach in me said Oh Well! Maybe she will work harder the next time sheโ€™s on the court and not make that error. I joked about it in front of her with another parent.

โ€œThe Dad in me whatโ€™s to feed her another ball,โ€ I said to another parent and a coach. โ€œItโ€™s funny as a parent. Weโ€™re always wanting to baby them.โ€
The Mom laughed.
โ€œBefore I had kids, I had big ideasโ€ฆ.like how tough I would be on my kids. So they can learn to be strong..โ€
Etc. Etc. Etc.
โ€œWhen I was a kid, Iโ€™d go home and beat walls against the garage after leaving a hit like that. Iโ€™d obsess over the mistake and try to make sure that never happen again.โ€
Life is not always so hunky-dory.
Sometimes itโ€™s good to leave the court on a negative.
Sometimes!

The players who get brow-beat after every hitting session are the ones who lose any passion they had for the game. They are ready to call its quits by the time they’re eighteen.
They are sick of the B.S.

Second thing.

So! Iโ€™ve been working on a specific combo/drill with my daughter for the last three-four weeks. Itโ€™s more of a patient, return-type philosophy pattern. When she was playing points, the girl she was hitting with was pushing her around the court like a rag doll.
I was boiling inside.
Why was she letting the girl run her around like that and why was she hitting everything into the wheelhouse?
And thatโ€™s why I woke up with the thought about how coaches train their player’s effects how they construct points.
Duh!

Why would I think my daughter would go on attack mode if we have been working on defense?
I feel lucky in the sense that a lightbulb went off. How often do we blame our kids or someone else for not getting it when the person who doesnโ€™t get it is staring us in the mirror?
Guess what weโ€™re working on today?
Keeping the ball out of the middle and attacking from the first ball. Iโ€™ve been spending too much time on defensive patternsโ€ฆ.Time to give her some cake instead of a heavy dose of veggies.

Back to the match.

Did Sakkariโ€™s coach talk too much about the strategy going into the match and not training the patterns?
And how much time do they have between tournaments to work on stuff?
Sakkari opened up the match by returning to the center of the court and hitting her first ball to the backhand corner on her first service game.
SO far, sheโ€™s down 3-0.
But on her second service game, she hit the first balls over to the forehand side and had an easy hold.
Iโ€™m curious to see what strategy will continue.
Always playing short points is a volatile strategy.
Itโ€™s streaky.
This is why Barty will be missed in the women’s game. But Jabeur is interesting to watch.

A song popped into my head

A song popped into my headโ€ฆby Band of Horses. โ€œCasual Partyโ€
The chorus line cracked me up.
โ€œBlind faith, it donโ€™t sit right
You got to rage wound so tight
I wanna leave
Best get out of the way.โ€

Why is this popping into my head right now?
It makes me think of players playing aggressively and listening to coaches’ faulty strategies.
Having โ€œBlind Faithโ€ in a strategy and how it doesnโ€™t feel rightโ€ฆ.and after being down in the set, itโ€™s time to โ€œrageโ€ and play the game plan that makes sense to you. And the coach or parent needs to โ€œget out of the way.โ€
Not a bad song.
Give it a go.
Anyway.

1-4. 0-15. Funny point.

Sakkari gets a lob return that lands at no man’s land. She hits it inside out and Muchova hits a backhand down the line. Sakkari tries to hit an angle drop volley from the service line that sits upโ€ฆ
Listen!
If you can get away with dropping a volley at the service line and winning the point, the player on the other side isnโ€™t that strong or smart.

If youโ€™re working on volleys at home, discipline yourself only to drop when you are halfway up the service box. Develop good habits. Open court drops or deep volleys can work, but they must be โ€œsitters.โ€
Low volleys from the service line should go forward (for starters) or go to the center of the court based on the side of the court you are on.

For instance, If your opponent is hitting a backhand passing shot from the Ad side singles sideline, down the line, and gives you a low volley and you hit your low volley to the Ad side (straight ahead) and stick it โ€œoff-centerโ€ what are they going to do with it.
Go right back to you?
Probably not.

Either way, you put the pressure on them. They have one pass option. Inside out. Or a lob. If you hit the volley to the open court, the pressure is on you. Your opponent has more options. As you recover to the other side of the court, they can go back crosscourtโ€ฆ.if you donโ€™t recover enough, then they have the line and if you commit too hard (a lot of coaches teach to close the net hardโ€ฆa lot of those players get lobbed by junky lobs and lose the point).
Again.

There is a time and a place for everything.

You can hit open court volleys, but you have to plan and establish a pattern. Know the game score. I want to find a point that means little to me and see how my opponent covers the open court volley.
Say Iโ€™m up 3-0, 30-0. I might force my way in and โ€œprobeโ€ my opponent’s open court passing shot. I donโ€™tโ€™ want to wait until they get comfortable in the match, and it’s 4-4 and 30-all to find this out.
So many players on all levels donโ€™t probe early in the match, which is an excellent time to figure out your opponent and โ€œsqueeze the pressureโ€ on.
And itโ€™s so hard as a coach to โ€œsellโ€ discipline.

Donโ€™t confuse discipline with pushing the ball back over the net.
I feel the minute WTA players get traction during the match and open up their game, the more they shoot themselves in the foot right after and give the momentum right back.

โ€œMy Name is Rex, and if you study my eight-week program, you will learn a system of patterns that will make you never lose a match again.โ€
How many Rexโ€™s from Napoleon Dynamite are out there??
Itโ€™s funny how our memories play tricks on us.
Regardless of the scoreโ€ฆwe could be up 5-2, down 2-5, or whatever and the second we get some traction we go โ€œbigger.โ€
Why is that?
What patterns and bad habits have we developed that keep getting in the way of progress?
How many people repeat the cycleโ€ฆ.on the tennis court, at work, in our daily lives?

“I’m so sick of your shit”

โ€œIโ€™m so sick of your shit,โ€ my college coach said. โ€œYou go for the corners constantly. You need to be more consistent!โ€
I wasnโ€™t about to lay down and push balls back over the net. Every time I did that, I got pushed around and felt like a chump.
I felt like hitting out, and when I got grooved, I would take over the match. And it worked. Just not against the top players. I lost sets occasionally and was able to rebound in the third setโ€ฆ.But I kept chasing it. I had won too many matches waiting for the streaks to happen.ย Blah. Blah. Blah.

โ€œItโ€™s like you didnโ€™t think you lost the match,โ€ he said.
โ€œI didnโ€™t,โ€ I would say. โ€œThe other guy just pushed the ball back over deep. I played to win; he played not to lose.โ€
โ€œWho won the match?โ€
โ€œWho cares?โ€ I said like a moron.
โ€œOne of these days, you have to wake up! And accept the fact that that guy beat you.โ€
Deep down, I knew he was right.
But I had dealt with so much mental bullshit from him that I didnโ€™t want to listen.
Not from him.
โ€œStop believing whatever lies youโ€™re feeding yourself and grow up.โ€
PTS Trigger.
The words, โ€œGrow up.โ€

I heard it too many times from my parents. The rage in me wanted to rip his face off. I hate assholes. Call it oppositional behavior. Call it stupidity. I donโ€™t listen to assholes either, even when theyโ€™re right.
Kind of.
After the season that summer, I ran the football stadium (privately) and got in ridiculous shape. I didnโ€™t have to hit winners anymore. I could out-work my opponent.

What a revelation?
But the aggressive side had more reps in my mind and on occasion I would โ€œpanicโ€ and resort to hitting a few โ€œbailoutโ€ winnersโ€ฆ
โ€ฆand errors.
But I was learning.
Slowly.
I wish I had learned that when I was fifteen.

Back to the match again

One successful pattern keeps popping up during the match. Starting the point to Muchovaโ€™s forehand side, centered on the Deuce box, and then hitting the same side with a โ€œpullโ€ angled off on the second shot.
If it works on that side, could it work on the other side too?
At 4-5, 15-all, Sakkari hit a backhand up the line for a winner, off of a forehand down the line from Muchova.
I love those.
Line vs line.
But the opponent has to be conditioned to move to the crosscourt (or maybe if you werenโ€™t so self-absorbed and watched your opponent practice, youโ€™d pick up their training habits).
Muchova is susceptible to the double attack in the corners. She moves out so fast you can hit behind her. I wish Sakkari came out with that game plan.

If Sakkari serves down the โ€œTโ€ on the Duece side what are the options for Muchova?
1) Go to Sakkariโ€™s forehand corner? Then Sakkari can pull the forehand cross-court, angled.
2) Go to Sakkariโ€™s backhand; then she can start crosscourt on the first ball and โ€œsneakโ€ some backhands down the line to change it up.
3) Return to the middle. Then Sakkari can either double the ball back to the same middle location or pull the angle again.

I know it’s not that simple, but why not have that gameplan to start the match and not the
first ball to the backhand?
I also donโ€™t think Sakkari has a solid backhand crosscourt to use strategically. Maybe she should add that into her game. Instead of Forehand. Forehand. Forehand.

Men are meatballs

Hereโ€™s the funny part that just crossed my mind. And it was right in front of me. Women process differently than Men.
Men are meatballs. But theyโ€™re highly competitive and stubborn. They think they know everything about everything.
Women are more trusting. At least they want to feel that youโ€™re on their side. Maybe itโ€™s part of their social aspect. So when a coach is telling them what to do, they listen. And want to be listened to.
Guys donโ€™t care. Because in their head, they are smarter than everyone.

The point is that the WTA needs coaches like a horse whisperer. A dude who can relate, someone who has experience in that department. The problem is that many male coaches are meatballs and only know how to be a meatball.
Women donโ€™t want meatballs!
Or so Iโ€™ve heard.
From older sisters, a wife, and four daughters.
I used to be a meatball until having four daughters taught me to look at things differently.
Rambling.

Iโ€™m stopping at the first set tie break.
At 3-3, Sakkari played not to lose. The strategy was to hit the ball in the center of the court and hope to win.
She lost the set.
There is so much potential in the women’s game. They need coaches who can communicate their way.
Not meatball to meatball.

The takeaway

Itโ€™s ok to have a game plan. But you also need to adjust and know when to adjust, and thereโ€™s no correct answer. Why doesnโ€™t Sakkari attack the angles early in the match and realize that Muchova likes to continue moving in the direction her momentum is going? Does her coach analyze matches? If he did, why wouldnโ€™t they change the strategy? Is he too insecure about delegating jobs and worried that he would lose his coaching position?
That philosophy holds back the game.
On all levels.
Guilty as charged.

Tennis is weird in the sense that there is no collaboration between coaches.
Next time you go out on the court, focus on โ€œTโ€ patterns and use the different combinations you can play by shifting your opponents body weight to the center of the court and then pick a side to hit your first ball to. Or serve wides and take your first ball back to the same location for a few games, half a set or a full set and then change the location.
Look what happens!
Youโ€™re opponent gets confused.

Worst case. Next time you practice play one set working on something and one set to win. You might learn something.

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One comment

  1. Dear Evan,
    You have a gift of writing! You should write some short stories. Or a book. I would love to read it!

Evan Gaudreau