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 US Open Final will be featuring Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev. We have covered both players already and their set-up quite a bit on this site, so if you are a regular, I’ll be repeating my self. In fact, they played in the 2021 Australian open finals and I already wrote an analysis here, so other than a few tournament and occasion specifics, nothing really changed. The biggest difference is off course the fact that Djokovic is going for the CGS (Calendar Grand Slam) and most grand slam wins ever. It’s a special occasion for Medvedev too, as he can hope, that he will be third time lucky in a GS final to clinch the title and at the same time stand in the way of Djokovic’s monumental achievement. All this is bound to play with both player’s minds, but here at Impacting Tennis we mostly talk about the technical aspect of tennis, so let’s see:
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:
- 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. 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 really, 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 that might not matter as one thing is for sure – Djokovic will leave it all out there as this is the most important match of his career and there is nothing he won’t do to win tonight.
Definitely a match no sports fan should miss. I know I’ll be on the edge of my seat, just for the fact that we might witness arguably the best sports achievement in recent decades. I hope you share the same enthusiasm for the match and that this analysis makes it even more interesting to watch.
Remember that this is just the racket match-up analysis, and there are many other factors in play, but to me, the understanding of what the racket enables you to is the foundation of how you build your game and strategy around that.
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.