Alcaraz Stunned by Botic & Notebook Dump From Opening Rounds | US Open 2024

Intro welcome everyone to Monday match analysis from New York day five at the US Open recording Friday morning powered by bet us uh this is going to be a little bit different than uh normal because working for us open radio I have uh been at the US Open every day I have been roaming throughout the outer courts I've been giving hits on uh the the various matches I've been interviewing players uh what I have not been doing is watching many of the biggest matches on ash start to finish uh taking notes Point by Point all of that in-depth analysis stuff so it's going to be kind of a what do they say 30,000 foot view on many of the things that have happened and gone down this first week and last night something big happened last night we lost one of the main title contenders BK Von desano beating Carlos alarz in three sets I'll start with that uh but just to to throw a little tease in here uh I'm going to talk about Medvedev I'm going to talk about Fritz I'm going to talk about deor I'm going to talk about uh some of the changes that the US Open has made I'm going to talk about emiru kanu I'm going to talk about Danielle Collins I'm going to talk about Stephanos Titi and H garuna and I'm going to talk about Lorenzo MTI and just what I've been doing basically is jotting down topics when they pop into my mind over the course of the last four days uh which is you know a lot of it has been based on what matches I've been assigned to and stationed at all right so the upset last night let me start with with botic which which is not the natural BVDZ Shocks Alcaraz place to start many would probably start with alcarez but let me start with BK one of the most incredible things about this comeback is the fact that vonel wasn't playing well it's been a very very difficult last year for him it's been difficult for him since Munich last year and that's kind of the line that I drew you know when he was up it was either five 1 or 52 going for his first career ATP title in Munich for the second time the first time he made the Munich final he had to retire and he's up in the third set 5-1 or 5-2 on hul garuna and completely seizes up and is unable to close unable to win that title it seemed like that shook him to the core as much as it seems after last night like BK is unshakable and and it it certainly looked that way and that he doesn't feel nerves because he is the calmest player you have ever seen in your life those who followed botic before last night know that that really hasn't been the case it got so bad for botic that his comments after losing to Fabio fenini at raneros this year were pretty apocalyptic uh they were they were severely severely concerning for BK's career he was essentially saying that he was thinking about stopping players are emotional after matches I'm not sure anybody should have fully bought into the idea that BK was going to retire at 29 years old because he wasn't able to win matches but that's how bad things were he dipped down to the Challenger tour he has had a couple of really good runs to the final I I believe he won he did win a title on the Challenger tour since R onas and that seemed to get him going again and then last night he beats Carlos Haler as in straight sets is it a little bit disrespectful to say that this is one of the greatest upsets of all time that this is one of the most insane upsets of all time I kind of think it is I kind of think it is and I am the same guy who said after Fabian Maran beat Carlos alarz in Rome in the first round I am the same guy who said no that is one of the biggest upsets of all time but as as much as BK's story has been one that would suggest he's not ready to beat alcaraz that he's not in good form that he's not the player who he was here's a former world number 22 here's a guy who has beaten six top 10 players before coming into the match against alcarez here's a guy who made the quarterfinals of the US Open a few years ago so is it the most wacky insane upset of all time I don't think so I don't think so give me give me Steve Darcy over adal at Wimbledon over this just to name one you know I mean it would be interesting obviously it's obviously it's a major alcarez has won the last two the best players Peak for slams it's a little bit different than Rome albe it it's a Masters 1000 I get that it's best of five there's more time for alaras to find his level all of those things are true but it's also true that BK has shown in the past that he can play a high level a top 30 level and can be extremely dangerous has made ATP finals in the past as we discussed so uh you know I just think compared to Fabian Maran for example who had never beaten a top 100 player coming into Rome who is outside the top 100 who nobody had ever heard you know what I mean there's an argument there there's an argument that this isn't the biggest upset of alcaraz's career which is a respect to botic now as as far as the tennis goes itself I was on Armstrong I was covering medv Maran I was covering uh Waki versus zarua had alcarez been able to extend the match I would have made my way over to Ash to begin watching that one and covering that one but I never made it there because BK wrapped it up in straights so in terms of what happened in the match uh I'm I'm relying on some other tennis mines who I trust I was on the US Open radio broadcast with uh Sam Smith former pro herself and a commentary Legend one of the greatest in the game and uh David mcferson who coached John Isner who coached Mike and Bob Bran who uh whose insights I have been enjoying and and learning from um all week last couple weeks actually and then you know I can also take a little bit of what I know of alcaraz's performance against Lee 2 another one I didn't watch but one that I listened to uh the great Mike C call alongside Double's great Mark Woodford it was an avalanche of unforced Errors I think there are things BK seem seemingly did well I he was deadly on his forehand when the ball dropped short he's got a big forehand it's difficult to read it's deceptively powerful it's tough to defend I know alcarez didn't have much success defending last night I know BK was coming forward and finishing points up at the net when he had the opportunity to do so behind his forehand especially on the backand bic's you know a patient player he doesn't try to do too much with it uh his serve has a lot of movement it has a lot of Swing to it the slice serve into alcaraz's forehand I know that Carlos really struggled on the return He you know his slice serve is somewhat similar to Novak jokovic is in the sense that it really does have a lot of left to right movement I know he used it into alcaraz's body a lot and he used it out to alcaraz's forehand a lot BK one of BK's main weaknesses is he does not flatten out the serve to the righty backhand very well he doesn't hit the t- serve on the de side all that well he does not hit the wide serve on the ad side all that well so if you are a righty playing botic you mainly need to defend your forehand return and apparently alarz still struggled despite botic being a somewhat predictable server alcar still struggled to make quality Returns His forehand uh in the rally or likely both ground strokes it seems were also just falling VI vitim to poor shot selection and the timing wasn't there and the the control on the ball clearly wasn't there from start to finish in this match but alcarez doesn't have emergency mode and I think we've seen it go a couple ways this year you know we've seen oh my God alcarez he just keeps going for his shot and then suddenly he he gets it and he reaches this Unstoppable level and because there's best of five he has time to sort of find that and he's Played with Fire in Majors this year a couple times and he has not been very efficient in his runs to Major titles at Wimbledon and Roland garos but at a certain point he just finds it and at that point you could praise Carlos for continuing to play his game not letting errors derail him the other thing that can happen is you can never get the train on the tracks there's no emergency mode without grass what do I mean by that emergency mode would be I don't have it right now my footwork isn't good my timing isn't good my balance isn't good my feel isn't good I don't have it so I'm not going to be ambitious offensively and alarz theoretically he has that option against BK Von anul he's not playing Novak jokovic or yanic siner or Alexander Z ver or denil meddev he has the best Court coverage in the entire game so back up play safe make balls certainly BK his performance was a model of steadiness he never got tight he never had a blip he never made crucial errors here I'm I'm sort of calling for alcaraz to have almost you know asked asked botic to relent to make errors maybe it wouldn't have happened but at a certain point I think especially early in Majors we know what Nadal and jokovic and even feder and Murray we we know we know how what they did in this situation they were not going to hand it to their opponent as much as alcaras handed it to BK last night that was just not an option for them so you know it's something to consider and I do think alcarez has done better on the year as a whole of recognizing when it's time to scale back the pace leaning into some more variety uh but also things seemed a little bit weird between him and Juan Carlos Ferrero I don't want to go too much into it again I did not witness all of it uh I was tracking it on a on a screen in front of me even though I was inside Armstrong Stadium uh it it felt for the first time I haven't seen this I don't think it felt that Carlos was almost a little bit dismissive of of his box that he didn't really want to hear it that he didn't want to engage with it that there was maybe some friction maybe some tension and that is that is generally not been the case in fact I have I have felt that the the constant while while the constant interaction between alcaraz and box has gotten certainly some some negative attention like oh should this be in the game or do you think lesser of Carlos because of this or does he is he reliant on this all that aside I think the harmonious nature of the coaching uh coach to student relationship with alcaraz and Carlos Ferrero has been largely deserving of enormous praise because that is not so easy and we'll get to topics later on uh that that kind of addresses the idea that that is not so easy to achieve last night it seemed a little bit off the other Factor couple a couple more things on this does alcarez take tough losses too hard I mean it's yet to be seen but Cincinnati Championship points lost last year against jokovic didn't do much for the rest of the year lost in the Olympic gold medal match and since then he hasn't he hasn't looked he hasn't looked good at all not in Cincinnati not in his first round match against lead 2 and not against BK Von desan schul in round number two does he have a problem taking gut punches at this point in his career look he's he's so young he's human so he's got he's got plenty of time to Iron that out if it's a problem it it's hard to also alarz said it it wasn't alarz said he wasn't thinking about you know the Olympics and that it didn't affect him he sort of denied the idea that that it might affect him but you know a pattern is pattern and right now that's what it is something to consider that's a skill on the tour can you take your lumps can you get punched in the face and come back a couple weeks later and so far when alcaraz has been punched in the face seemingly you know I think probably the two toughest losses of his career unless I'm forgetting something are those two jokovic losses he hasn't been able to rebound the last thing is that alcaraz was due absolutely due for a loss like this I've I've covered it I've made it known so many of you have heard this but Carlos had never taken a bad loss at a major and it happens to everybody his worst loss until last night since becoming a top 10 player was against Yanik sinner sinner was ranked number 12 when he beat alcaraz at Wimbledon 2022 every player has these it's going to happen so it happened there's no reason to to really really uh I don't think anybody's panicking so I don't think I have to say there's no reason to panic but over the course of of a career no matter how good you are you're going to take a stunning defeat in the first couple rounds of a major just going to happen okay ready to move on to other topics also a reminder before I do that that we're powered by bet us currently bet us is offering an 125% deposit match on your first three deposits up to $2,000 here's a look at Friday's matchups at the US Open I cannot wait for Shelton versus tifo rematch of last last year's quarterfinal that one is going to be insane I don't know how much of it I'm going to be actually able to uh to watch in person but uh man what a blockbuster please gamble responsibly and don't harass the players all right I'm working backwards so last night as I mentioned I was at denil meddev against Fabian Medvedev's Serve Maran and the serving wasn't very good that was my main takeaway medev was uh really good from the Baseline very very good he shut down Maro Jan's drop shot completely he is so good against the drop shot when he's in position denil like when he gets there he is so good most players switch to Continental grip and they chip they either redrive or they slice deep in the court but they chip denil is so good at driving the ball when he gets up to drop shots and because of that speed because he's able to hit the ball with conviction with his Drive grip forehand and backhand he really hurts you when he gets to drop shots if you don't hit a winner and Maran was destroyed on on the drop shot throughout the night um he he also really struggled to find a way to finish against meddev he was coming forward getting passed constantly denil was very good from the Baseline uh Marjan needs to work on his serf it's a big hole he's 6' three he's got the height but it it he averaged 112 he was averaging 112 miles per hour on his first serve it's just not going to cut it there's going to be a a real ceiling a real cap on Maran uh what he can do on a consistent basis especially off clay if he can't if he can't serve bigger than that meddev broke him eight times in three sets now what about denil surf one of our big topics throughout the year medvedev's hold percentage is lower than it's been since 2017 you have to go back to 2017 since meddev has been broken so much 2024 I'm talking about year you know start of the year to now numbers his his hold percentage is the lowest since 2017 so we're looking at his surf I'm not my concerns are not alleviated I'll say that I don't think last night was a night where you could say oh you know denil serve looks a lot better than it did against Yuri leka when he served 43% serves in play uh tonight or sorry last night he was 47% for serves in and he got broken four times in three sets against Maro Jean who's a dangerous player who who record against top 10 competition coming into last night was 5 and five and meddev came away with a three set win the score the score line looks good for denal it looks like a good win and it is a good win but if you're just looking at his serve eight Aces 10 double faults 47% first serves in broken four times in three sets you're still not feeling very good about his serf and that is going to matter if it doesn't get better at the end of the tournament I interviewed denil after the match I asked him for an update I said I know the shoulder was giving you problems Midway through the year and that you weren't able to serve as well as you want what is the status on that now and he did brush it off he said it was more of a problem for clay season and then he said I think I feel like everybody this is a classic denil response he told me that he thinks that that a lot of players are struggling with their serves at the US Open this year from watching on TV he feels like everybody's serving badly and then he brought up Yanik uh he brought up Yanik specifically as an example uh so classic denil you know just kind of like making an observation a larger picture a lot of tennis players kind of live in their own bubble but meddev is always looking for the greater context and maybe that's how he's rationalizing it maybe you know know he doesn't want to put something out into the public like oh you know he doesn't want to show vulnerability he doesn't want to downplay his weapon so maybe he's just keeping his cards close to the vest I don't know he did come up with some good first serves in the third set tie break against Maro Jan that did help him get through so that was Fritz def. Berrettini timely the previous match two nights ago on Armstrong where you can typically find me Armstrong night sessions uh that was Matteo bartini against Taylor Fritz what a stunning performance by Taylor unbelievable first of all he made bartini completely uncompetitive on return games when when Fritz was serving and this was one of the matches where I was saying throughout throughout the second set especially that this match isn't as close as the scoreboard says not only did Matteo never break serve it felt like he couldn't even get to 30 all he couldn't even get to deuce Taylor Fritz made Mato bartini who's had an outstanding year so far in the limited time that he's played The Limited number of events that he's been able to play he made Mato bartini look like world number 200 when when Fritz was serving it was that clean of a performance from Taylor uh who was you know moving better than Mato who threatens off of both Wings where Matteo struggles to do that handled slice well enough Taylor's backhand he he was mostly driving it off of bartini's backhand slice he was going down the line enough to keep Matteo honest uh but it was the way Fritz was returning serve that was really the the biggest Revelation to me he was standing up on the basine first of all he was saying Matteo give me your one 28 give me your 130 I'm standing on the Baseline and somehow he was able to shorten up enough on the forehand and the backhand hit really what I would consider especially on the forehand block returns but hit them so crisply with so much Pace relatively that he was knifing the ball into bartini's backhand and making him hit first ball back hands at a really impressive clip some players struggle to do that off of Matteo's second surf bartini has one of the heaviest second serves in tennis and sometimes I'm watching bartini Tini matches not sometimes all the time and I'm watching him get plus one forehand behind his second serve because returners are not able to handle the quality of the second serve uh and and they're not able to get it to bartini's backand Taylor was so dialed in Matteo was always hitting back hands behind his second serve second serve forget about it but even the first serve a lot of the time look at the tie break there were a couple of returns that Fritz took super early and knifed very low and very quick and and Mato just he couldn't do anything off of it really impressive from Fritz some of the best I've ever seen against verev at Wimbledon Fritz started standing up and then he he moved back he was like okay never mind so I don't know if this is something he's I think it's probably something he's been working on the I'm going to take it really really early and block the return hard it was really impressive against mato uh demor I uh I saw a lot of Alex demor versus Marcos gon and I have to say De Minaur Status after that one I'm surprised that Alex was able to take out Otto verin in straight sets in the next round I know that Otto might have had some some health issues himself but I spoke to deor after the match it did not Inspire confidence he is still feeling his hip he is not back to 100% his movement against Deon I would describe as controlled as careful it was not the the same Alex deor that uh that we know as someone who's going to scramble hard into the corners with Reckless abandon and he is in alcaraz's quarter I think there's a lot of reason to limit expectations for Alex deor on paper he's the favorite now to come out of that quarter and make a US in semi-final on paper I don't think that's the reality of demon or's Health situation now you know maybe there were some adjustments made against Vin maybe there was a more aggressive painkilling uh regimen coming into the match against Vin and then maybe it was better I'm not sure I couldn't watch it but based on what he looked like against guon that's not a guy who can make the semis based on what he said said to me after his match against Giro and I think the words were the hip is not terrible but not amazing kind of a a cheeky way to put it not a guy who seems like he can make the semis based on what he looked like and what he said I wanted to throw that out there uh US Open changes fan movement pretty good so Fan Movement far I think I think it's worked out really really well you no longer see massive lines waiting for uh waiting to get in all over the grounds um know sometimes on the outer courts when uh the courts are full to capacity you see major lines but it it's much less prominent and the players have dealt with it there have been times that there have been sight delays 5 Seconds 10 seconds 15 seconds maybe in you know in between games But ultimately I think uh sometimes we got that anyway sometimes the the lines or the cues as they'd say in some areas uh would build up and become so long that fans didn't have time to get in uh in a timely manner and even though it was after a change over there would still be a delay waiting for fans to take their seats now you don't see that because the line doesn't build up so that's been a a huge success uh there's also a lateness policy that hasn't really affected anything anymore uh the US Open does not want to start any matches after 11:30 p.m. local which might prevent the like crazy situation of 3:00 a.m. maybe but it doesn't do much to avoid the late finishes there still was there's been it it hasn't been bad this year yet uh but it it's still can be uh with the lateness policy I want to get to Emma Radu kanu I um I was at the Pula Kennan match yesterday I was also at the Kenan raducanu Emma Raducanu match and uh you know Pula I I just say yesterday Pula was just much steadier than than Kenan who still plays such a low margin game and uh there's there's just you know too many too many patches of of inconsistency and errors you know for Kenan um but I I do want to just mention emiru kanu the summer scheduling was inexplicable completely inexplicable she had a good run I think to the semis in DC could have played qualifying in Canada felt that it was you know a quick turnaround and you know maybe a little physical and and didn't want to do it so she passed on qualies in Canada she went back to the UK she didn't come back for Cincinnati this first round match against Sonia Kennan was her first since the city open and she wasn't injured and she still hasn't won a match at the US Open since winning the title in 2021 and you have to imagine that that's a pressure for her that that makes it extra difficult to play a first round match at the US Open so don't you want momentum don't you want match play don't you want to get things rolling a little bit why would you voluntarily sideline yourself for 3 four weeks voluntarily unbelievably puzzling schedule decisions from Roku unbelievably puzzling and she said I'll learn from it that's what she said so okay Danielle Collins Retirement hopefully hopefully she does I'm sure she will uh Danielle Collins surprise loss against Caroline dolah Hy uh there was some confusion on this one I want to clear it up Danielle did not want a retirement ceremony she was uncomfortable with it she asked for it not to happen so it was not the US Open it wasn't that Danielle was so upset about losing so pissed about losing that the US Open planned a big thing and then she stormed off because she was upset which I saw a lot of I saw okay Collins she's such a sore loser that she she left before her ceremony no it was not it was known before the US Open started that Collins would not have a retirement ceremony those were her wishes let's get to some some some upsets on I believe day one I think this Tsitsipas and Rune Upsets was day one Stephanos CPAs goes out holar Runa goes out both upsets that I had circled along with Hubert herot who lost to Jordan Thompson so I did pretty well on my on my upset alerts and my on my dark horses yakob menik threw to the third round who beat Felix o aliim that was another one that uh that I was able to shout out none of these were extraordinarily bold calls konakis was uh the one who took out CTI I didn't see as much of this match as I wanted but I did see some of it and you know tanasi lost to Nuno Borges and straight sets in the in the second round afterwards but he does have a clear plan against CT he can bring big weapons to the court against CTP which sometimes Steph has trouble absorbing in certain conditions it it was a pretty hot a afternoon uh which which makes the ball go even faster and konakis has been playing really really well he's come up on some bad luck tight loss against herot and Cincy tight loss against eventual Champion Corda in DC couple of injuries on the grass but he played well on the grass as well so it's not all that shocking but my observation from the match and Stephano CPAs has still never surpassed the third round at the US Open absolutely insane in fact a lot of these guys a lot of the upsets that I just mentioned were players who got upset at last year's US Open uh Runa lost in the first round to Roberto cabar bayena last year I believe Felix I believe Felix lost in the first round of the US Open last year but I'm struggling to actually remember who it may have been against I know I know Hubert herot lost in the second round last year herot has never been past the second round uh at the US Open or it might be the third round but herot has never done anything in New York continues to be a house of horrors so it it's it's interesting that none of these guys who were kind of on upsett aler maybe some of these guys have struggled at the US Open not really true for Felix he made the semis one year uh none of them got through what about tti's coaching situation that's really what I want to remark on so no apostos apostos I don't think was in New York I didn't see him at any of the practices I didn't see him at uh I didn't see him in at the matches in the box and I think he was actually with one of Steph's brothers that's why he was away so okay what's it going to look like with Greek Davis Cup captain who is an interm coach uh Greek Davis Cup captain uh let me get his name real quick um and hopefully I don't I don't completely butcher the pronunciation Demetrius hotsan nicholo is I believe how you'd say his name Greek Davis Cup Captain just hired this year just an interm solution and it's not uncommon for players to call upon the Davis Cup captain if they need an interm solution like Stephanos was exerting energy and basically diverting some of his Focus that should have been on his opponent and on the match towards his box towards looking for Solutions and figuring out tactics and trying you know to make certain technical things better sometimes you'd watch Titi and I think the US Open loss against Dominic Stricker was one of those occasions and you'd think you know Stephanos is clearly distracted by some sort of emotions that he's feeling towards his coaching box and his father and that was never a good look what was crazy about watching Titi in person is that it almost seemed the same that he was quite distracted quite exacerbated on the court that he did not have a clear vision and that he was going to his box to try to receive the Clear Vision and that there was tension there and that Julia his mother had kind of just taken apostos his place and there was a lot of Animation a lot of constant information and feedback and seemingly you know a lot of flailing in the Box between Julia and demitrus and stepanos the The Vibes there were very similar similarly chaotic to when apostos was at the hel that was my main takeaway with the disclaimer that I only saw bits and pieces of it I wasn't able to watch that match from from start to finish or or even anything close but when I was there I was there in person and I had a Keen Eye on what was happening in that respect and for whole garuna I thought you know similar things were on display in in his match against Brandon Nakashima in the first round not that he was exacerbated with the Box not that he was uh distracted by the box so I I'd say it was a little bit different but emotionally and mentally huler I thought was a shell of himself when I arrived in the third set maybe it was because he was so demoralized by being down two sets to love maybe in the first and the second set hul girl was engaged he was playing with intensity but certainly in the third set he was not and I would argue no matter what there's no excuse for that even if you're down two sets to love if you're whole garuna first of all you want to take some pride in not losing in straight sets you want to see what kind of comeback you might be able to maneuver and it's the first round of the US Open it's the first round the score line I'm not the result is not shocking the score line for hogar must be gutting the loss in itself should be gutting because he was coming off of a Cincinnati semi-final he has had a tough year you felt like things were were turning in the right direction to lose back to back in the first round of the US Open to lose in straight sets man that is a massive blow and if I were to guess this is a guess I don't have any inside information I don't think Kenneth Carlson survives this and Kenneth Carlson you know for hogar to kind of let him take over it was a little bit of a half measure you know what I mean by a half measure Kenneth was already part of the coaching team when Patrick marloo was the head coach so it wasn't a complete regime change change it was only a partial change and I think hogar could probably do with a full change because I did not see enough fight Drive intensity from Runa I don't think the feet were moving quick enough as quickly as he's capable of moving the feet I thought that he was uh kind of stuck on the Baseline his court movement his court positioning was n Dynamic uh he wasn't willing to to peel back to play defense sometimes he was moseying up to the net when he didn't have a big enough Advantage which is really a feature of hoger when he's not fully with it he does that all the time when he's almost I don't know if frustrated is the right word but kind of when he loses belief he starts to do that now statistically though I I will point out this it's not shocking that Runa never broke nakashima's surf it's not shocking I mean you look at Nakashima in the last no let's look at 2024 he is eighth in hold percentage so it goes yanic cner Mato bartini Alexander Zev grigor demitro Hubert herot Ben Shelton Taylor Fritz that's the top seven kn Kima is eighth then you get rublev alarz stru tias like hello Brandon Nakashima is in Elite company when it comes to holding serve I still think he has the most underlooked serve in in men's tennis right now he hits his spots as well as anybody break percentage where's hul garuna at now hul garuna at now and in fact I'm checking this live I haven't checked it in quite a bit so I'm uh I'm excited to actually see where he stands at the moment okay it's a little bit better than what it was that's good to see he has risen up the ranks a little bit so 50 49 48 47 46 45 44 4 3 42 41 40 he's 39th among top 50 players 39th out of 50 in break percent percentage he was as low at at one point he was as low as 47th so so clearly he's improved that number but my my main point is that just looking at that that matchup and it's a tough first round draw for for Runa and Nakashima I I forget who he played in the second round but I know he won in straight sets he's been destroying everybody um let me check who he beat you know nakashima's playing great he's a real Darkhorse at this tournament uh and again if hoger had a good five- set battle or something like that and and lost I would have said okay you know tough first round draw whatever but it looked bad he looked uninspired and to L in Straits is kind of where the alarm Bells I think go off let's end on Lorenzo MTI I did not see his five Setter against KET manovic Musetti on HC but that seemed pretty crazy missed that one I did watch him against opela where he did exactly what he did to Giovanni py peric car and Taylor Fritz at Wimbledon he did not let opela serve take over the match he has become so good at at using his blocks to make a lot of returns and from there you know just again ask a lot of questions get volumes of balls in play and hope that there are some mistak akes potentially tap into his defensive Wizardry at times opela opela ended up making some really egregious errors to blow a fourth set lead in that match Riley who I think is going to be a factor in 20125 by the way I think he's become a forgotten man because of the injury and from everything I've seen there's some Rust there there's some inability to to execute and to finish on Opel side but that's going to that's going to fix itself with some extra match play I'm pretty confident in that um but I was able to ask musetti a question that I get that I was getting asked all summer long in the mailbag and that's why I really wanted to bring this up I asked Lorenzo what he's focusing on and what he thinks he needs to do to have as much ESS on hard courts as he's had on clay and grass and his answer was serve return it's about the serve and return and in order for me to to play great on hardcourt that's the part that needs to really Elevate and I agree with him I think he's absolutely right um his backhand return which he gets extra time on on clay and the slice works really well on grass he needs to to figure out a way to still be effective on the backhand return on hardcourt he did that pretty well against opelo what did he do he stood in close and he chipped he stood in close and he chipped um opelo was serving vol a lot and musetti came up with some big returns or some quality returns I should say in order to to make that first volley difficult for opela so he was successful there and uh I'm glad to hear him say that he wants to continue to improve his serve because that's going to be essential for him and uh we'll see how much further MTI can go as he carries on so that's all I got that's my notebook dump uh hope this worked for everybody I know this is different from what I normally do uh I will check in again at some point early next week uh my last day at the US Open is next Wednesday so it's right after the quarterfinals I'm going to fly back to LA and then I'm going to be doing heavy coverage um for what what we like to call the final weekend of the US Open on this channel hope you enjoyed don't forget to subscribe thank you bet us I'll see you next time