Sinner vs. Schwartzman

Sinner vs. Schwartzman - Wimbledon 2023, Day 3 (Round 2)!



And off we go, our first match write-up ever!  Sinner vs. Schwartman, in a battle of two of the lightest guys on the ATP tour (as an aside, I don't believe that Sinner's weight is actually >75 kg).  But that's neither here nor there, onto the tennis....

The pick: Sinner -7.5 games


Overall, I don't see how Schwartzman keeps this competitive.  A few things to look at with Schwartzman:

  • Schwartzman is 0-3 career vs. Sinner, all three matches in the past two years
    • 6-2 6-2 in 2021 Antwerp
    • 6-0 3-1 in Monte Carlo 2023 (Schwartzman threw in the towel after 9 round of a 12-round fight)
    • 6-2 6-4 in Barcelona 2023
  • In Schwartman's last ten matches vs. ATP top 20 players (all within past 52 weeks), he is 0-10 and has not taken more than 4 games in 21! sets (OK, 20 full sets and one set where it was incomplete because he threw in the towel
  • Here's a complete list of Schwartzman's wins in 2023: Kecmanovic, McDonald, Borges, Zapata Miralles, Wu (2x), Goffin, Federico Coria (I think Guillermo would have provided a bigger challegne honestly).
Meanwhile, Sinner is 10-0 vs. players outside the top 100 in the past 52 weeks, and is 24-0 in sets.  I think we would agree that Schwartzman is outside the top 100 on grass

I hear you saying "OK, so all that's nice, but explain why this is the case".  There are three reasons for this:

  • Sinner is simply a better player than Schwartzman at this point in their career
  • Schwartzman's serve is a huge liability, especially on grass
  • Schwartzman lack of power matches up poorly with Sinner's ball-striking, power-based game
  
The first point is self-evident, so we'll start with the serve.  In the past 52 weeks, Schwartzman has won 57% of his service points and is holding ~70% of service games, more stunning he's won just 60% of points when making the first serve!  These are well below par, ATP players generally hold serve ~80% of service games so Schwartman is giving up ~1 extra break per set, even against average ATP competition.  Against a player like Sinner who is going to hold against anyone with the serve/forehand combo, this liability probably costs Schwartzman ~5 games over a best-of-5 set match, which is absolutely massive.

Onto baseline power, for that, check out this video


Honestly, you don't really need to even waste your time, pick any 15 second clip and you'll see the same thing.  Schwartzman's power does nothing to impact Sinner, Sinner just waits, bludgeons a ball, gets Schwartzman out of position, and can use whichever two-shot combo he prefers to finish the point.  Overall, Schwartzman's way to win this match is to move Sinner around the court.  Watch the first half of these highlights to see Schwartzman's path to victory (this is Schwartzman v. Rune in 2023 Miami, Schwartzman lost in straights but was a bit more competitive)



What you'll see here is Schwartzman's path to victory, creating "scramble points" where he can use his precision, angles, tactical intelligence, scrappiness, and underrated net game to win points.  The problem is that Sinner's biggest problem (outside consistent injuries/illness) is a lack of variety, so he's unlikely to create the situations that Rune created here allowing Schwartzman to steal points... this makes sense when you look at Schwartzman's victories this year.  Kecamnovic, Goffin, McDonald, etc. are players that rely less on power and more on accuracy to win points.  I expect this match to play out similar to the Barcelona match.

Overall, take whichever pro-Sinner line you prefer most.  My preference is -7.5 games, I would probably lay up to 10 games here if I had to.





Thanks for reading!  Leave a comment, a like, etc. if you find this useful!  If you find it awful, leave a comment letting me know what I can do better.

OK, lastly Schwartzman is my favorite player of all-time, so I'll just leave you with this last present before I go...




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shanghai Day 6 Write-ups! Mannarino vs. Rublev

Image
 Hi All! We are back to the blog after a long layoff of doing videos.  That said, Loudmouth has gotten noticeably uglier in the past month and so it is time to go back to blogs.  Today, we will look at a match between Adrian Mannarino and Andrey Rublev!  (Yes I know this match is on a hard court.  But those pics looked cool...) The Pick:  Mannarino to win a set (-105) OK, so why are we on an old dude to win a set vs. the powerful and mighty Rublev who has been a mainstay in the top 10 for years now? The stats Here are the players' stats since August 1 (looking at current form) W-L Hld% Break% SPW% RPW% Rublev 6-4 79.2 27.8 65.0 41.3 Mannarino 13-4 82.1 29.7 63.5 40.2 Looking at these stats, these two players are playing at a similar level.  Two notes on the interesting disparity between Mannarino leading in hold/break% while Rublev leads in points won%.   1)  I wouldn't be surprised if Mannarino is playing more strategically at this point in his career and playing the score a b
Read more

Shanghai Day 6! Humbert vs. Tsitsipas

 OK!  We are back.  After doing no write-ups for two months, we have found the time to provide two write-ups in a single night for the Shanghai GBM plays of the day.  This post will be dedicated to the Humbert/Tsitsipas matchup, where we will see two 25-year olds face off, with the loser getting the price of being allowed to leave Asia and head back to friendly European confines. The Pick:  Humbert ML (+155) Both Manny and Brad believe that Humbert is being significantly undervalued here by the books.  We will break down why The Stats The table below shows the stats for both players since July 24 W-L Hld% Break% SPW% RPW% Tsitsipas 8-5 86.9 19.1 71.0 36.2 Humbert 12-6 82.1 29.7 63.5 40.2 It's important to call out while all of the matches shown here are on hard court, 4 of Tsitsipas' matches are from Los Cabos, which is an exceptionally slow court.  Excluding Los Cabos, Tsitsipas falls to 4-5 and the underlying stats (hold+break% and SPW+RPW%) fall slightly below Humbert Additi
Read more

Day 5 Wimbledon Match Write-up - Musetti vs. Hurkacz!

Image
 Hi everyone, back to the write-up grind!  Your favorite loudmouth was too sleepy last night after the GBM Pod and fell asleep on his laptop in the middle of the Raonic-Paul write-up.  Too bad, you literally would have seen that the write-up said that Paul was a better tennis player to the tune of 3-0, but that his choking tendencies + Raonic's serve gave Raonic a chance of winning one set, but winning two was highly unlikely.  Alas, I don't get to count it because I didn't complete the assignment (though GBM did cash the bet so at the end of the day, hope you tailed us and cashed too!).   While we are staying at it, we also called the Sinner-Schwartzman match quite well, we told you to lay up to 10 games if necessary (Sinner ended up winning by 11games, 7-5 6-2 6-1). Live photo of Loudmouth sleeping last night OK, enough of the past (thanks  Rafiki ).  Onto today's write-up where we have a matchup of two top-20 players, Lorenzo Musetti vs. Hubert Hurkacz!  Will the you
Read more