How Daniil Medvedev made Alexander Zverev a better player
Alexander Zverev has finally won again against Daniil Medvedev in London. Our tennis insider says: "Meddy" made Sascha a better player.
by Marco Kühn
last edit: Nov 30, 2021, 06:53 pm
"Everything that we dislike about others can lead us to better self-knowledge." - Carl Gustav Jung.
Was it twelve or fourteen times? Alexander Zverev himself probably didn't know. Inside he must have been damned annoyed. After all, the sloppy man with the half-combed side parting on the other side of the net had already forced him to congratulate him on the net five times in a row.
After an endless rally, fourteen times the ball flew mostly flat over the edge of the net, the mistake came. Sascha rolled her eyes, the head rocked briefly to the left. As a viewer you could almost be a listener of his thoughts: "Damn it, don't get caught up in these long rallies. You know that it won't work!"
The Zverev-Medvedev feud is a wonderful example of how you can improve as a tennis player. You don't just look stubbornly at your basic strokes, you also consult your defeats. Alexander Zverev, I assume in this article that he was aware, not only learned from his defeat against Daniil Medvedev.
This rivalry has made Sascha an all-round better player. In this article, we'll look at how an opponent's irritating play can take your game to the next level. But we start with something else. With your head.
The smart way of ticking off defeats
I don't know how you are. But in the past I was always advised to check off defeats quickly.
It may be that I misunderstood something. Because the better I got at just accepting defeat, the more I got excited about moon ball tennis. This anti-tennis is based on playing the ball slowly and up to the backhand. I lost all matches in ranked tournaments to people who weren't better than me.
How learned I ticked off these defeats. Until a coach advised me to analyze these games. To wonder why this style of play was getting me down on my nerves and, more importantly, why I almost always lost to this style of play.
I quickly realized that I had extreme problems accelerating slow balls from my opponent. I also realized that my footwork was completely overwhelmed by constantly moving back and forth. Another lesson clearly stated that I was a zero in longer rallies. I lost patience if the ball crossed the net more than four times.
This simple analysis told me what I had to work on in my game: accelerating balls, footwork and keeping the ball in play.
If you are clever, you tick off defeats emotionally and then playfully analyze them. We now look at how Alexander Zverev almost shamelessly exploited Daniil Medvedev's sometimes strange game to become a better player.
Trapped in the world of endless rallies
When Daniil Medvedev strikes back, I usually give a quick start and think to myself: "Man, he's stripping too late!" But then he plays the ball three centimeters from the baseline and repeats it until the opponent makes the mistake - or he plays a stop.
Zverev has powerful punches. As a big player, he also moves well behind the baseline. In his matches against Medvedev, the selection of his powerful strokes is crucial. The experts like to speak of the "shot selection" here. In the five defeats Sascha was sometimes wrong in important game situations with this selection. The balance between a controlled offensive and simply playing along slipped. In the endless rallies, only Novak Djokovic is stronger than Medvedev.
Sascha had to optimize his game in such a way that he learned to use his powerful strokes as early as possible in the rally, but by no means only from an emotion. A small lever that gave his game a big impact. Let's keep looking at how those little levers have consistently improved Zverev's game.
Aggressive tennis at the right time
We have found out so far that Daniil Medvedev is stronger than Alexander Zverev in long rallies. In his game, Sascha has the powerful strokes to shorten the rallies. In addition, Alex has a serve which, as soon as he plays it variably, is a real weapon against great return players like Medvedev.
This results in two small levers that make Zverev's game more effective than ever before. He was almost compelled by the rivalry with Medvedev to find ways to use his powerful punches intelligently. And this is exactly what has happened in the past few months.
Under no circumstances has Sascha played stupid before. But Medvedev's sometimes irritating style of play meant that Sascha punished every hit by the opponent that was not played long enough with enormous aggressiveness. He does not overpower and he does not make rash decisions. Zverev got to know his own game so well through the rivalry with Medvedev that he can use it much more effectively. Especially with the big points, when it comes to trusting your best tennis the most.
The second lever in Zverev's game is the serve. Sure, a floor comes out with the first service. But that would be too little against hardened return players like Medvedev or Djokovic. Instead of going boringly up to speed, Zverev mixes up his serve variations. Sometimes with a slice on the outside, sometimes with a slice on the man - then with force on the body. I've never been on a court with Sascha. But I don't think you can tell from the way he's throwing the ball where he's going to serve and how. This serve strength can hardly be cracked even for the best return players.
Conclusion
As a hobby player, you can take a lot with you from the Zverev-Medvedev story. Zverev managed to improve its strengths even further. To do this, he was guided by the style of play of the players who could beat him regularly. Even if you don't swing your racket at the Zverev level, you can adopt the principle for yourself.
What style of play frustrates you? What is the lack of your game in order to survive against this frustrating way of playing? What shots and skills should you develop to be able to beat this style of play in the future?
The honest answers to these questions can improve your tennis for the next several months. And always remember: defeats don't mean anything to you, they just want to tell you what you still have to work on.