2 comments

1. Kudos to Rafa for taking care of business today. He was getting more depth on his ground-strokes, especially with his backhand. His depth of shot needs to average 29 feet -10 feet from the baseline – or better, in order to win this slam. He’s been about 3-4 feet short of that goal throughout the clay court season, which is why he has struggled so much compared to a year ago. Today was better, but still not good enough. I expect him to steadily improve as the tourney progresses, as he has in previous years. I’m not concerned about his serve speed because he’s focusing on getting a high percentage of first serves in, which is his normal strategy on clay, especially in the early rounds. If he needs to hit 120 mph serves later on, he will. My only other concern about his game is his return of 2nd serves, where he’s hitting too many balls into the net, especially on break points, because he tries to use extra topspin to make sure his shot doesn’t sail long. But he ends up putting SO MUCH TOPSPIN on the ball that it barely reaches the net. Less topspin, more drive is the solution to this problem, but apparently, Uncle Toni never got the memo. Hopefully, Rafa will figure this out by himself, and figure it out soon. VAMOS!!!

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2. Always the gentleman. Always humble. Always complimentary of other players. Always a winner!

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