Camila Giorgi - 2 or 3 Shots Away From Being a Top Player

At the moment her serve is terrible - the toss is too high causing her to lose racquet head momentum and miss the optimal point of contact. She should drop it 2 feet and slow down - she'll hit the serve 50% harder and twice as consistently. But consider her match with Sharapova yesterday and think how different it would have been had she been able to hold serve 3 out of 4 times instead of half?

Her forehand is excellent when the balls are at waist level or above - great racquet head speed and balance, moves her body weight into the shot well too, leading to nice approaches to net. Constructed as a modern forehand, where the racquet head is visible throughout the stroke, she hits with considerable power and spin for someone so slight. She may want to adjust her grip or hit with more spin on low balls which continue to trouble her (e.g. Roberta Vinci last year the the US Open).

Her backhand is shaky - it's too far out in front of her and she's usually off balance when she hit is. Strangely it's most effective when she's moving forward, but she needs to develop a slice or at least a topspin looper to keep her in the point when she's on the defense. If she can find a backhand that she can hit at 75%, her unforced errors will drop in half, and she won't give away so many free points.

She has a willingness to come forward, but her volleys are somewhat clumsy. That can improve, and it would help if she changed her grip, but her swinging volleys are really good. A net game is the key to her becoming more consistent in terms of results, but she has the key element in place - she's willing to come forward, which is more than you can say for 90% of women on the WTA tour.

I really think she has the potential to be very good. The thing that impresses me is the way she takes everybody's time away from her. The only player I've seen that's been able to stretch out the points is Wozniacki, whose defense is exceptional. All the other big babes on tour are hitting off their back foot, and find it impossible to control the points the minute she lays into one of her drives. A sign that a player has potential is if she can do the same thing to multiple players over and over again - Madison Keys, Andrea Petkovic, Maria Sharapova, Nadia Petrova - they're all hitting the ball late and making a ton a forced errors. Then when they have a chance to take control of the point, they over hit because they never know when she's going to belt another one down their throat.

But she needs a plan "B", like slice, moon balls, angled shots. She can't expect to blow everyone off the court all the time. But when it comes together it's pretty impressive. And credit where credit is due - her father never played professional tennis, but his daughter is on the cusp of making it in the game. Not too shabby, and kind of makes you wonder what all the other coaches are doing for the money?

Watched her match against MaSha a bit. After she lost the second set, I was expecting the usual collapse, but she showed guts to hang in there.

Kleybanova comeback was the more interesting, but this result was unexpected.

She is an unpolished version in the Italian mould of Penetta and Errani. It would be good to see her become consistent and win some titles.

Goodluck to Camila!

Good article, of course 2 or 3 shots away from being a top player is very far away. I myself am only probably about 5 shots away.

Henman Bill wrote:Good article, of course 2 or 3 shots away from being a top player is very far away. I myself am only probably about 5 shots away.

Yeah, mirrors my thoughts. I was only really a serve, return, forehand, backhand and volley away from being a top tenner. I was going to include my smash but then I watched Novak and realised that's optional for Slam winning.

bogbrush wrote:I was only really a serve, return, forehand, backhand and volley away from being a top tenner. I was going to include my smash but then I watched Novak and realised that's optional for Slam winning.

The temptation just proved too great at the end there, didn't it? 

You'd have been disappointed if I hadn't.