2024 US Open Men’s Final Preview (Sinner vs Fritz) & Semi-Finals Analysis

Sinner vs Draper Analysis hey guys in today's video I'm going to preview the 2024 US Open men's final between Yanik cner and Taylor Fritz and before I do that let's talk about the semifinals and let's start with Center against Draper I'm very impressed with Draper's performance in this match I thought that c was going to win this match more comfortably but Draper is a very uncomfortable opponent one of the best servers in the world Rock Solid backhand heavy Top Spin forehand he's going to be a tough player as he continues to improve one of the things that Draper has lacked in the past and something that he's gotten a lot better at is performing well when the matches go to distance and he did a really good job yesterday hanging with Center for two sets but eventually the body and possibly his mind let him down and he was exhausted in that third set and I thought that Center's level in the first two sets which went 75 76 in siners favor were not siners top level now you can make the argument that it was dra who was responsible for CER making some uncharacteristic mistakes because again being a lefty with those attributes it's something that's tough to deal with for everyone including cner so the thing that surprised me was how difficult it was for CER to get the break because in both the first and the second set so many of Draper service games went overd where CER had looks to get the break but he just couldn't Draper was hanging tough playing some clutch tennis and important moments on the service games but see the thing about big servers and this is going to be something that's important when I talk about the TFO Fritz match is that they want to hold comfortably when a big server has to fight to hold their service games go over Deuce multiple times this is not good for server's confidence so while Yanik was making some unforced errors and some of the dra service games the fact that he was extending Draper service games in my mind it was only a question of time until Draper service game started to fall apart now C did get a break and won the first at 75 however in the second set which was more contested than the first set Draper started having some physical issues and in the postmatch interview Draper said that those physical problems started at 5 all and the first set continued all the way through the end of the match and I'm sure you guys saw that Draper was throwing up on the court he was sweating a lot having a hard time holding his racket and I'm going to dedicate an entire video on how to prevent the racket slipping out of your hand because here in southeast Florida the humidity is Skyhigh and what happens with a lot of players when the hand gets sweaty the racket goes flying out of the hand and especially on the serve this can result in a cracked frame I've seen it many times also when that racket starts to slip in your hand you can lose control of your shots but in any case Draper was struggling physically a lot and interestingly at four all in the second set possibly the best point of the match where Center retrieved the ball that was behind him where he slid backwards and what happened to cner was exactly what happens to me when I try to slide my foot gets stuck and I go flying so that's what happened to CER uncharacteristically so because CER is a great slider his foot got a little bit caught he went flying and he braced his fall with the palm of his hands which is exactly what you're supposed to do if you fall with the racket in your hand or if you fall on your elbow or in a different part of your wrist this can cause a severe injury but falling on the palm of your hand is generally safe and you might be hurting a little bit and be sore but you're probably not going to break anything and spectacularly centner got up from that fall and hit maybe the best forehand he's hit the entire tournament an absolute laser beam of a passing shot off a draper overhead but then after the point he started shaking out his wrist and I was initially worried but then when I saw the tape it didn't look like he actually hurt his WR that much so Center ended up toughing that second set out in tie break and Draper completely fell apart physically and mentally in the third set which Center won comfortably 6'2 so again this was a super impressive performance from Draper I didn't expect this match to be so tight this was his breakthrough moment and I'm expecting to see big things from him him in the future now Tiafoe vs Fritz Analysis the fritz thefa match was such an entertaining one because there was so much at stake as I talked about in one of my earlier videos I regarded tillet Fritz to be slightly above the rest of the guys that he came up with because Fritz TFO opela and Paul all came up together they're all of a similar age and while this match was going on the entire time I had the head-to-head record in my mind I just kept thinking Fritz won six matches in a row against TFO Fritz has not lost to TFO on tour since 2017 this is going to come into play despite the fact that it looked like TFO was going to win for three and a half sets so the first set started a little bit shaky from tf4 where he got a surf broken but then he turned it on and started hitting very aggressive into the corners and he was putting Fritz in very defensive situations now what saved Fritz in this match was a serve because after losing that first at 63 Fritz started serving incredibly well see they had the great camera angle early in that first set and they were showing Fritz from behind eye level and you can exactly see where he was tossing the ball and I felt like in the first set Fritz was leaving a lot of his tosses at 1:00 some of them even went to 1:30 2:00 area and then in the second set it appeared that Fritz was keeping his toss between the 12:00 and 1:00 area and he was mixing up a serve a lot more it seemed like he was slicing a tremendous amount of serves in the first first set so Fritz became more aggressive with his serve in the second set and started holding serve very comfortably he had a lot of love holes in the second set and deep in that second set at 65 Fritz got a look at a break and capitalized on it now super interesting thing happened early in that third set and after holding pretty much the entire set to love Tay of Fritz played a terrible service game the first game of the third set and that's a very dangerous game for a big server it doesn't appear to be that important because it's love love after all but see often what happens is you win a set and your intensity goes down a little bit now on the other hand tfo's intensity might have gone up a little bit because he knows that sometimes the server's intensity can go down so a possible combination of both factors resulted in Fritz getting his serve broken in the first game of the third and TF was serving well controlling the points being aggressive on his service games he won that set comfortably off that one break and now in the fourth set with TFO being up two sets to one I felt like TFO had the advantage and if you remember when Fritz was up 3-2 in the fourth and it was game point TFO on his serve and he hit that inside out forehand with that extended grunt afterward and got the crowd all excited I thought that TFO was going to get the break at three all it just seemed like all the momentum was on tfo's side but then at 305 on Fritz a serve we had possibly one of the best rallies of the entire match at 31 shot rally where Fritz went from playing a tremendous amount of Defense to all of a sudden dominating the point playing offense pinning TFO in the back of the Court making him hit slice backand and then finally hitting a forand cross cord winner now in the postmatch interview TFO was asked whether this point was the turning point of the match and he said no he said the Turning Point came much later interestingly they asked Fritz the same question and frit said that he was extremely exhausted after that point but he didn't want to let TF that he was exhausted now remember what I said about Draper versus Center how it's not good for a server to play these super long rallies and extended service games a big server wants to hold comfortably that's how a big server collects confidence on the service games so while a lot of people are attributing this particular Point as the turning point of the match in my opinion the Turning Point came much later because despite tful losing this game and somewhat conceding the next two points in that game because at three all 4015 Fritz serving in the four set TFO hit a lightning fast forehand return winner that you could identify as a tank shot and on the very next point he didn't really try to get the serve back in play and Fritz had an easy Ace the next game however when TFA was down 34 he held comfortably and he was actually playing really well all the way to being down 54 in that four set up 4015 that in my opinion is where the match turned and that's exactly what TFO said in the press conference it is not that long point that flipped the match it was the fact that he served two double faults in a row up 405 down 54 and the fourth that destroyed his confidence because he ended up getting broken in that game and he looked completely out of the match mentally and physically now if you remember alcaras cramping against jovic a couple years ago at the French Open alarz wasn't cramping because he was out of shape AP akaras was cramping from tightness from the pressure of the moment that he was feeling and it is my belief that tfo's physical problems stemmed from the pressure that he was feeling he simply got tight but see tennis goes two ways while tifo now was struggling mentally and physically Fritz was on the top of his game and he started dominating not only his own service games but also he started dominating the return games and I actually thought that that fifth set was going to go six love in Fritz's favor because he was the far better player so this is a super tough loss for TFO but he can be proud because he was able to turn his season around it's going to be interesting to see whether TFO can continue to play like this because one thing's for sure he's a super exciting player to watch but you know what impressed me the most and this was somewhat confirmed by Taylor in his postmatch interview is that I always believed Taylor had a small mental block and grand slams and the thing is that Taylor had proven himself self to be the best player out of the group of Americans by winning a Masters 1000 in Indian wals that was a huge title for him and Taylor said in an interview it irked him that a lot of the other guys Paul Shelton TFO had made a grand slam semifinal and he hasn't because he sees himself as the leader of that group as the best player of that group and look there was an opportunity in the draw with jokovic going out and it's not easy to beat Zev and T in the quarterfinals and the semifinals of the US Open so the fact that Fritz was able to make the final from the mental standpoint this is a huge success for him now does he have Sinner vs Fritz Preview a chance to win the final against Center and make people stop talking about Andy erotic and I think Andy wants people to St talking about him winning the US Open in 2003 to Andy wants an American to win very badly but unfortunately I don't think it will happen so C and Fritz played each other twice both times in Indian wells and in 2021 Fritz beat cner and last year cner beat Fritz in three sets so let's take a quick look at the strengths and weaknesses of both guys and try to figure out why CER is such a big favorite in this matchup so on the forehand I'm going to give both guys a check mark while Center's forehand is one of the best in the world I also think that Taylor has an amazing forehand I don't think Taylor hits his forehand as hard as Center but Taylor does have an aggressive forehand and he can dominate rallies with it and it it is a weapon so I'm giving both guys a check mark there on the back hand clear check mark for Center I am going to dedicate a video on the tayor fritz back end which is Rock Solid but it is unorthodox and Taylor Fritz especially when he has to defend on the backend side has a disadvantage compared to Center CER not only hits one of the hardest 200 back ends that I've ever seen but he also hits it with control he has a lot of spin on his two-hander and not only that Center is extremely good at hitting aggressive from defensive POS positions with his backand when it comes to the serve I'm going to give both guys a check mark and Taylor Fritz is one of the best servers in the world and the serve is going to be a key factor whether he's going to have a chance to win this match but Yanik cner has improved his serve tremendously I made a video a while back on Sinner's serve development he has tinkered with his technique quite a bit but towards the end of 2023 and through the vast majority of this season CER has been serving exceptionally well so both guys get a check mark on the serve return of ser serve is a clear Advantage for Center Taylor does return really well especially off second serves but when it comes to returning first serves I'm giving us Edge to cner and cner also can pounce on second serves as well so cner gets a check mark on the return of serve when it comes to the Net game Taylor shared a funny story in his interview and him and TFO are very close friends and he said that every time Taylor makes a valley TFO will look at him and smile because TFO thinks that Taylor has an atrocious Valley I actually don't think that Taylor's Valley is that bad and he was actually volleying quite well in yesterday's match and interestingly CER was asked in the press conference what his weakness is and he said that shot selection sometimes can be poor and his volley can improve so while both Taylor and Yanik are pretty decent valers it's clear to say that the Net game is not either one of their strengths so neither of them will get a check mark in the Net game department the same can be set for feel both of these guys are not known to have a lot of feel in their games but having said that both Taylor and Yanik have gotten a lot better at hitting Drop shots so just like the valley I'm going to leave the field Department empty because not something that these guys utilize to win matches all right the next one is super tricky and that's offense and while Taylor is one of the best servers in the world he can hold sures very comfortably if we're talking about offense off the ground once that ball is in play center has the clear Advantage the same can be said for defense while Taylor surely fights and defends well I think the difference in the defense is that Center is able to do more from defensive situations especially on the backend side so Center gets a check mark when it comes to defense and when it comes to movement Yanik CER does not get enough credit I think it probably has to do with the way Yanik looks on the court he looks skinny tall and lanky and it doesn't look like he moves well but to me Yanik is an exceptional mover of course not quite as good as alarz and jokovic but in my opinion it's very close to that level and when I talk about defensive shots what is required to be really good on defense well it's movement and just like jokovic just like Alara CER is able to play with incredible power from incredibly defensive positions where movement is key and that's why I'm giving Center check mark when it comes to the movement part and when it comes to the intangibles this is where CER has an advantage as well first of all he spent less time on the court he's going to be the fresher of the two Fritz exerted a lot of energy to make it into this final both against vev and against TFO but also the pressure of winning the US Open as an American has to be immense and the problem for Fritz is that he has to do it against cner who already has a grand slam so it's for those reasons why I'm picking cner to win the 2024 US Open