Big Talk episode 2! What happened to rope a doping Djokovic?

Back by unpopular demand!
In all seriousness, Noles crushing all before him, including Andy, who today hit the ball really well, lot of speed and depth and some attacking shots, but didnt look like nearly the fire-power needed was there...

Then I think back to Dolgopolov earlier in the year, and some of the times Fed took him off guard. A really good tactic by most peoples estimations was to not try and hit through him, but throw some dodgy slice, some slower balls, a bit of rubbish, and take him out of a rhythm. Slow spinning balls to the bh worked really well, and Novak never looked comfortable hitting it, the short slice too...

Yet I cant remember the last time someone tried to rope a dope Novak since the Dog earlier this year, Murrays abandoned it, Fed has switched up to trying to blitz him down...
Part of Stans success is that he hits a few rubbish balls, and then smacks them out of nowhere, but no ones really trying it anymore, why?

Is he not weak to it anymore?

Doping?

Not like that doping,
erm maybe its too english an expression.
For tennis, it basically means throwing in some slow balls and junk, like what Ashe did at Wimbledon to Connnors

I am not a big fan of Nole's game, and I find it quite one-dimensional (as opposed to those who think he has "no weaknesses"), but I definitely give him a lot of credit for working on his weaknesses:

- His serve used to be ok-ish, but no better than that.  He has since then developed it into a pretty solid weapon.  The number of times he manages to bail himself out with a good serve these days sometimes feels almost Federeresque.

- His backhand slice used to be absolutely horrible, but it is now quite passable.

- Similar for his net play.  It may not be great, but it is quite solid by now and far far better than it used to be.

- As a result, where in the old (but not so old) days one could get him out of his comfort zone by feeding him some shortish slices into his BH, he can handle all that quite well now.

- His overheads are not misfiring nearly as much as just a couple of years ago.

So, while I do not directly answer your question, Novak has definitely been working hard on plugging the most gaping holes in his game.  And his strengths are obviously still there, so, on balance, he has become very very difficult to beat.

temporary21 wrote:Not like that doping,
erm maybe its too english an expression.
For tennis, it basically means throwing in some slow balls and junk, like what Ashe did at Wimbledon to Connnors

I know of Rope-a-dope from boxing but the doping topic is v interesting.

He's become much better at both playing and dealing with the low sliced balls.

He's still more vulnerable when players don't let him get into a rhythm, but I don't think many players have the skill set or match intelligence to do that.

The fact is the low slice I think actually is harder for him on the FH because of his grip. He has to work extra hard getting down a little more because of his grip which requires more up and down on that shot. Variety is good and difficult for any player to handle not just Djokovic if you mix up your tendencies. But the problem is that his baseline game is so good (serve, return, FH, BH) that it is difficult to disrupt him enough with the other stuff to make up for the deficiency the opponent faces in the main areas of his game.

I do believe that Dogopolov had an answer with his brand of tennis to play Novak, not the stamina sadly, but he did unsettle and indeed rattle Novak and I honestly believe that is the way to play him. However there are not enough players who have that type of game , or have the guts to risk it...at the moment at any rate

It is a rare thing to agree with Haddie. Up the dog!