Swiatek: Saba plays more rationally, and Oba is more likely to hit the ball by surprise!

Unexpectedly! Totally unexpected! Ostapenko not only beat world No. 1 Sabalenka to the point of dumbness, but also beat the opponent's mentality to the point of collapse, and won the world's top two championships in one event, Ostapenko's trip to Stuttgart this year is really crazy.

In fact, when Ostapenko defeated Swiatek for the sixth time, many began to compare Ostapenko with Sabalenka. Some people believe that both men have a lot in common, such as aggressive play, outstanding ability to grab the opponent's serve, and the ability to suppress the first three boards are very domineering, but surprisingly, Swiatek can play back and forth with Sabalenka, but it is difficult to beat Ostapenko once, why is this? This women's singles final seems to give the best answer.

Take the first set of the women's singles final as an example, if you look at the technical statistics alone, you must have a hard time believing that Sabalenka will lose like this! In the first set, Sabalenka had 5 aces, 70% of the first serve, 15 winning points and a mere 4 unforced errors, while the opponent Ostapenko did not have as many second-serve points as Sabalenka, and while the winning points were equal, there were three more unforced errors, but even so, the winner of the first set was still Ostapenko. Personally, I think that the core of the problem lies in the lack of a very important item in this statistics, that is, forced error.

In this women's singles final, Sabalenka played a defensive role most of the time, she was in a very passive position, Ostapenko's return was heavy and powerful, and the terrible thing was that there was also an angle, which made it difficult for Sabalenka to play her own style of play. While it looks like Ostapenko's second-serve rate is only 25 per cent, he still has an 83 per cent first-serve rate, and Sabalenka's 38 per cent second-serve rate is similarly low, so a little carelessness in this kind of hand-to-hand game can cost a whole set.

Swiatek has spoken about the difference between playing against the two in an interview, and she thinks Ostapenko is more inconsistent than the "more rational" Sabalenka, "I mean, there are a lot of differences between them. Sabalenka plays a little more rationally, and she plays a lot of spin, so her picks don't usually get out of hand. But Ostapenko has a more adventurous style of play and less spin, so, yes, there are a lot of differences between them. ”

That's true, looking back at this women's singles final, Ostapenko's performance was crazy and peaking. With 21 winning points, there were only eight unforced errors, and Sabalenka was overwhelmed by the return link, which made a number of return winners. And the high first-serve scoring rate of 81% allows her to rely on serve to resolve it as soon as she encounters a crisis, which is a rare scene in previous games. As netizens said, "Ostapenko today is "crazy", crazy enough to wipe out Saba's fiery state. ”

In fact, aside from the characteristics of his style of play, I think one of the things that Ostapenko often overlooks is the concealment of his shots. In fact, since Ostapenko's debut, her batting movements have often been "criticized", she likes to twist her neck when serving, and she often deliberately loses her center of gravity when hitting her forehand, but it is these personal characteristics that make her return extremely difficult to predict.

When Ostapenko won the French Open in 2017, Wozniacki admitted that it was impossible to predict which side her return would take. Ostapenko's hitting is largely due to the fact that she doesn't use a lot of waist power, so a lot of times you can hardly see her completely using the power of the twist to hit the ball, and her pull is not too large, and when hitting the ball, she often makes full use of the instantaneous power of her legs and hips, and the whole thing is done in one go. But this will also give the opponent a certain illusion, that is, she does not have any "signal prompt" before hitting the ball, and almost does not move the ball to the left and right, so sometimes, the "wild way" is not necessarily unreasonable, maybe it is unreasonable to the extreme, everything will be very reasonable.(Source: Tennis Home Author: Lu Xiaotian)