ATP statistics guru Craig O'Shannessy: "Carlos Alcaraz is a phenomenon of the century"
Carlos Alcaraz is entering the French Open 2022 this Sunday. A player like the 19-year-old Spaniard just comes around the corner every holy time, says Craig O'Shanessy, the statistics guru of the ATP, in an interview with tennisnet.com.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: May 23, 2022, 01:04 pm
tennisnet : Mr. O'Shannessy. You are a world traveler when it comes to tennis. Are there also points of contact with the German-speaking area?
Craig O'Shannessy : I'm Australian and played college tennis in the US. And for two summers I played club tennis in a little place called Basinghausen in Germany. Namely for Rot-Weiß Basinghausen, a few kilometers away from Hanover. I absolutely loved my time there. I worked at a club called Old California Tennis Camp. Kim and Scott Wittenberg taught there, Scott is still there. I still come back and visit him every now and then. And also helped get his son placed on a US collegiate team.
tennisnet : What did you particularly like about Germany?
O'Shannessy : Germany is so different from Australia! We have so much space and everything is spread out, nothing is really organized. In Germany, on the other hand, everything is well organized.
tennisnet : Based on your experience, would you recommend every young tennis player to go to a US college?
O'Shannessy : Absolutely anyone or anyone. I recently saw a study that proved this. The only case where it's safe to say that you shouldn't go to college but go straight to the pros is when someone has won two junior Grand Slam tournaments. Two. Not just one. There are enough youngsters who have won a major and had to give up early on. The trend in our sport is that the players in the top 100 are getting older, playing well into their 30's. It's very rare, even if we have Carlos Alcaraz right now, that when you're 18, 19 or 20 you're ready for the Tour. The physical demands are much higher, experience is becoming more and more important.
"Alcaraz is a mix of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic"
tennisnet : What conclusions do you draw from this?
O'Shannessy : Goes to college, good college. There you get great coaching, wonderful opportunities in terms of fitness. And many colleges are already helping their students financially so that they can also play tournaments during their college years. It used to be either or. Now both can be combined. Cameron Norrie was a college player and is now close to the top ten. What an ambassador for TCU and David Roditi, the coach there!
tennisnet : You mentioned Carlos Alcaraz. What do you see in him?
O'Shannessy : Alcaraz is a phenomenon of the century. And he's only 19 years old. He is a perfect mix of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. He has the fighting spirit, the attitude of Nadal. That ability to stay calm, to solve problems on the court. Between the points, he looks exactly like Rafa. Novak is obviously his role model for the game from behind. When you watch Alcaraz, you have to pay attention to your center of gravity, your body. He never loses his balance, he doesn't fly around. It is always very stable and always rotates with just the right dose. He doesn't overdo it like some other players. He has mastered the art of hitting a tennis ball unreal hard and still hitting the court. We haven't seen anything like that since Novak, someone hitting the ball as clean as Alcaraz.
tennisnet : And the Federer element?
O'Shannessy : The timing, which is great with Federer. Federer also floats across the pitch, as does Alcaraz. I coached twice against Alcaraz: once here in 2021, where I helped Jan-Lennard Struff beat Alcaraz. And a little later in the year in Winston-Salem, where I worked with Alexei Popyrin. Alcaraz won this match in the tiebreak of the third set. And I sat on the baseline, front row. And I stared at Alcaraz and just kept thinking: "Federer, Federer, Federer" because he took so many small steps. Federer is an all-court player, Alcaraz also loves to go online. He completes extremely well, has no problems playing serve and volleys.
"Tsitsipas has a problem on the backhand side"
tennisnet : And Alcaraz has already managed to get into the heads of some players. Especially in those of Stefanos Tsitsipas, against whom he apparently cannot lose.
O'Shannessy : Tsitsipas has a problem on the backhand side. We saw that in the Rome final where Novak pushed that. His backhand just collapsed. Stefanos can sometimes have a very good backhand, but sometimes that's the side that says goodbye. And Alcaraz can absolutely abuse this backhand side. Alcaraz has an incredible backhand cross shot - but also a strong longline ball. So if Tsitsipas and Alcaraz are in long rallies, Alcaraz has the advantage at the moment. Tsitsipas has to adapt, come to the net more often, change spin.
tennisnet : Your core discipline is tennis statistics. How have they changed over the past decades?
O'Shannessy : The statistical collection of data in tennis started in 1991, on a very primitive level. That didn't change until 2002. Then you thought statistics could become a little more important. But it wasn't until 2015 that the length of the rallies came about. So the division into zero to four, five to eight and nine and more beats. IBM made this data available for the first time at the 2015 Australian Open. And I was shocked to see that 70 percent of all points had four strokes or fewer. A maximum of two shots per player. Seven out of ten points! Back then we celebrated the winners of the longer rallies because of their consistency, but that was wrong.
tennisnet : Is that now generally known?
O'Shannessy : I asked Novak, Andy Murray, renowned coaches what number of shots they think is the most common in a rally. The answer was: four. And that's not even remotely correct. A one-shot rally is the most common, about 30 percent of rallies. After that, there's a dramatic drop to 15 percent, which is the three-shot rallies. And of course, if the numbers are odd, that means only the server can win the point. By the way, four strokes are 7.5 percent ...
"Everyone copies themselves, learn from each other"
tennisnet : What should the coaches do with this information?
O'Shannessy : You have to be obsessed with the first four shots of a rallies in practice. We want a first serve and a forehand. We want a three shot rally. Aces are good too, of course. On a second serve, things are completely different: the return comes back stronger, the risk of a mistake on the server's first hit after service is greater. Here you have to show strength on the defensive. You can train that.
tennisnet : What about tactical patterns?
O'Shannessy : In basketball, statistics are recorded when someone shoots a basket. But also the assist. In tennis there are no statistics for the assist. Nothing. It's really important. It's often the shot three or four shots before the winning shot that puts you in control of the rally. A good pattern is the 2-1 pattern: first you play deep into your opponent's backhand corner. The opponent cannot hurt you from behind. And, like you do on defence, have to respond with a cross ball. Which might come a little shorter. You go around the backhand, play deep into your opponent's backhand again and advance further. With those first two hits, you've already conditioned your opponent to expect another ball on his backhand side. And then you can finish in the open forehand corner. But it was the two balls in the backhand that won the point. When I worked with Novak, these patterns played a role. And also the patterns of Federer and Nadal. But: They all copy themselves, learn from each other.
tennisnet : You are back here in Roland Garros as an analyst. But they also coached on the ATP tour last year - namely Alexei Popyrin. Why has this stopped?
O'Shannessy : I spoke to a very respected coach about this just a few days ago. When you start with a player that you are lucky with those things that you are trying to implement. That promotes trust. Because as a coach you spend most of your time collecting balls. That sounds awful. But it is like that. A pat on the shoulder here and there. You make sure that everything doesn't fall apart. Before matches there is strategic work, that's true. It's so so hard after the match when a player loses. Because they fall into such a big hole emotionally. In the first few hours after a match, it's very difficult to have a meaningful conversation. That's why I work a lot with videos. What other coaches don't do. But without video, it's a conversation based on an opinion. And the player will always believe they are right. Coaching on the tour is really not easy.
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