I think I see similarities, too, but I still think the differences are more telling. When they have the luxury of time, they both can have a little baseball stance hitch in their backhands sometimes, Maria (there is an instant sometimes when I can really picture her in a batter's box) more often than Jelena, and their forehand backswings look similar up until the racket starts moving forward. Then I think the forehands are very different. In terms of weight transfer moving forward, Maria has close to perfect form with her whole body contributing to the effectiveness of the stroke and the end result providing her with more margin for error crossing the net. Whereas Jelena really relies heavily on her swinging motion with her arm and on her incredible racket speed to do the heavy lifting. I think Maria has the technically sounder forehand and way more consistent footwork, and Jelena may need to trade some of that arm speed and her tendency to swipe at the ball for more control at some point. Just my two cents, don't know how plausible any of it is.Is it me or does Ostapenko hit groundies a little bit like Sharapova?
Good point. There also doesn't seem to be the initiative or desire to have such an event which is a shame.Not a bad idea, although there is some isolated cattiness among some of the top players.
Raonic forced to retire from yet another injury only a couple of days after complaining that the tennis schedule is too demanding. Guy sure knows how to prove a point lol
Hadoop said:Crazy to think the new season is already in full swing. My full slate of predictions:
- Murray wins either the Australian Open or the French (I'm gonna say the AO), possibly both.
- Nadal will have a bounce-back year in the first half of the season, but injuries will derail his second half
- Federer will, sadly, have a rough year, and possibly retire at season's end, if not next year at Wimby (cruel, I know )
- Who knows about Djokovic - I'm not a mind-reader
Outside the big 4
- Pouille finishes the year in the top 10
- Kryrios finishes the year in the top 8 (damn kihei, great minds think alike)
- not too sure about Raonic. But what the heck, I'll go out on a limb and say he wins Wimby (I think that's why he let Moya go)
And on the women's side
- Serena begins her inevitable descent down the rankings
- K. Pliskova (the right-handed twin) wins a slam and finishes the year in the top 3
- Bencic (whom I'm still bullish on) has a bounce-back year
- and lastly Bouchard.... meh