AO 2021 Final – Medvedev vs. Djokovic racket matchup – 4 racket characteristic they have in common

Posted on by Miha Flisek

It’s been a while since I did one of these. Time for another Grand Slam Final and another Impacting Tennis racket match up analysis. In these posts, I talk about what the rackets let the players do and how that translates to match play on the court and how it shapes the match ups.

 

The 2021 Australian Open Final will be featuring Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev. We have covered both plates already and their set-up quite a bit on this site, so if you are a regular I’ll be repeating my self. They have both been in a grand slam final in the last years. Daniil Medvedev is interesting to me, due to the fact that he is one of the few younger players, who plays with a racket heavy enough and set-up well enough, to be consistent enough to bother the biggest names of our sport, like Novak Djokovic.

Djokovic and Daniil both have a similar game style, so it’s no coincidence as they have a similar racket set up. While there is no definitive data that I could find for what Medvedev uses, I can make a pretty good estimate based on what is available. There is data from someone who owns his old rackets – Wilson Six-One (352 g) and Technifibre Dynacore 305 (35 – 359 g). Daniil used to use the Wilson Six-One racket, which is a heavy and head light racket with a medium swingweight, so it’s safe to assume that this translated to a similar setup when he switched to Technifibre. I remember seeing a picture from his customizer a couple of years ago, that he has some weight at the top of the handle under the grip. This would make the racket less polarized and create higher MGR/I (to mimic the Six-One). Based on his stroke mechanics, my best guess would be a set-up along the lines of 356-369 g, 32 cm balance and around 340 swingweight.

 

Other than slightly different specs, there are many similarities in their racket. Let’s look at 4 of them:

  • Headsize – 95 Sq. inch

  • String Pattern – 18/19

  • Relatively head light balance

  • High static weight

Let’s take a look at the graphic representation of the differences in specs:

What does this mean for the matchup? What really matters is the higher static weight and higher MGR/I that Medvedev uses. This, combined with the low tension that he uses (around 22 kg), enables Medvedev to consistently hit a deep ball with a fairly linear trajectory for a neutral ball. Djokovic traditionally has troubles with this kind of play style. Butista Agut, for example, has a similar setup and he beat Djokovic a couple of times in the past. So Medvedev can keep the ball deep and expand less energy in a neutral rally, while at the same time having more margin for error. Djokovic will have to be more aggressive than usually, because, even though they both like to play rock solid from the baseline, Medvedev can beat him in his own game. What Djokovic has going for him is he can play more aggressive than Medvedev, and he can create better angles with the forehand because of the higher swingweight and lover MGR/I. He can also play with more spin and has an overall higher racket ceiling, which he can use to dominate the point and stretch Medvedev on the baseline. He will have to play attacking tennis, but he will also expend more energy doing so. I would give the edge to Medvedev if the match goes to 5 sets, because like I said he uses less energy in a neutral energy, but also struggles to play really aggressive. On top of that he played a lot less tennis than Djokovic leading up to the final, but this might not play a big role as they both had pretty quick and straightforward semi-final matches.

I try to make the finals more interesting as you can observe the different rackets and strategies behind them at work. If you are interested in more racket specs that tour players use check my database.