Beanalysis: Toronto Quarterfinals

Well everyone, we are to the point where you get less writing, because there’s less to write about now. Only four matches tomorrow in Toronto, and they all seem pretty good. I’ve done enough blabbing though. (But isn’t the entire writeup blabbing? I don’t know, and you obviously don’t care because you continue to read them.) Anyway, onto the fun stuff!

Alcaraz v. Paul

Well someone had quite the scare last round. Hubi took the initiative early and took a set for himself. Although you can’t really beat Alcaraz in just one set, he kind of is good at comebacks. So for two years in a row, Hubert Hurkacz has lost the Canada Masters to a Spanish player that nobody paid any mind to a couple years ago. Although this time he has an excuse because he wasn’t the favorite to win the match. Either way, he’s gone, and Carlitos isn’t, but what’s new there? With this match, the stats somehow make sense and don’t at the same time. Like, how did Alcaraz win more points, despite losing more games, and yet still winning the match? That doesn’t really logic, does it? Nothing works the way it’s supposed to anymore. I will say that Hurkacz was able to get a lot of breaks on Alcaraz, but he could only hold one of them out to win the set. So that’s something to see if Paul can maybe do, is catch Alcaraz’s serve while it’s poor, and keep his own serve tight.

Speaking of, Tommy Paul had a nice match against Giron, and won easily. Giron, similarly to Carlos, had a poor serve in his last match, but the difference was that he couldn’t come back and break Paul’s serve. It does look slightly promising, though opponent difficulty is a variable, that Paul was able to keep his serve so locked down, and like I said previously, that may be a key factor in Paul trying to beat Alcaraz. It’s going to be a mountain for sure, but I feel like it’s something that may just happen. He didn’t make many unforced errors, which is always a good thing, and he won a lot of points overall, and that may just be enough to convince me that TP is a possible threat to Alcaraz. I didn’t ever think I’d say something like that, but here we are. In terms of the outcome of this match, I still have that nagging feeling of “It’s Carlos Alcaraz, he’s probably gonna win” but I choose to ignore it and say TP in 3!!!!

Monfils v. Sinner

Well that’s a pleasant sight. Monfils in a Masters QF, to be honest I didn’t know if I’d ever see that again. In his last match against Vukic, Monfils played a pretty standard game statistics-wise. He did have a slightly worse first serve percentage, but he had better stats in pretty much every other category. There isn’t really much to say here except that Monfils is back playing some spectacular tennis, and I’m hoping this form continues into tournaments for the rest of this year. To fill my government mandated quota of funny, I’ll tell a joke where the punchline isn’t locked behind a player winning, because that worked out very poorly last time. So, how do you find Will Smith in the snow? You look for Fresh Prints! Please, save the applause. I’ll be here all week.

Now moving on from that really bad joke, Jannik Sinner had a great day, and by that I mean he didn’t even need to show up. I guess the old man was up past his bedtime and couldn’t play tennis. Quite unfortunate for all the British tennis fans out there. Either way, the day of rest will be accounted for in this writeup, but for stats I guess I’ll just recycle or something like that. It is kind of good for the environment or something. A quote from a very esteemed tennis writer who is also quite charming if I do say so myself. “Looking at Sinner’s match on the other hand, shows a more clear picture, complete lockdown service games, and just enough returning and clutch to get the one break needed to win the set (without tiebreaks). This goes to show how simple it can be to win a game of tennis. Ok well that was a lie because it is definitely not that easy to win a game of tennis, but the stats go more to show how easy it is for Sinner to win a tennis game.” Man, maybe I should start recycling more of my old stuff. Just kidding, I would never stoop that low. Anyway, both these guys are playing their best tennis against the more mediocre players out there, so it’ll be interesting to see how they do against each other. I think this prediction is honestly as simple as it sounds, Sinner is better at tennis I think, and so he will probably win. Although it could very well go to three sets.

McDonald v. Davidovich Fokina

Well Raonic’s fun was ended quickly, I guess history didn’t listen to me. Which is kind of unfair considering I spent countless hours in school listening to it. I feel like the favor should be returned, you know? Well, it didn’t happen that way, and now we must deal with the way it did happen. McDonald seems to have done the logical thing, and jumped on second serves to win a whopping 70% of second serve return points, and a just as whopping 40% of return points in general. That’s a pretty good stat if you ask me, and you obviously did, because why else would you be reading my stuff? Anyway, McDonald wasn’t as good in the winners department, but a lack of unforced errors probably helped make that deficit have minimal effect on the match outcome. (Note: I can’t tell you guys how many times I’ve had to refrain myself from making a fast-food related joke when referring to McDonald. It’s hard being a copyright-free humor machine.) (Also note: please disregard any comments about a certain Taco Bell in previous writeups this week. I am copyright-free :) ) Either way, McDonald is playing well, but I think the same can be said for ADF.

Notice how I said “think” because I made that statement without looking at stats or video or anything. I could be wrong. Well beating Casper Ruud (RIP Ruudbucks) is probably a sign of playing well. ADF did one thing really well in that match with Ruud, and that was hitting winners, he hit about double the winners that Ruud hit. But for every good, there is probably a bad somewhere in there. The “bad” here is that he also hit double the unforced errors that Ruud did. He also got ambushed on his second serve a lot, which is something to look out for in this match. To be completely honest with you guys, this match just has the aura of a match that ADF loses. I can probably justify it with some of these stats, like the one where ADF’s second serve is kind of easy to target, and from his last few matches, McDonald has been able to do that. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one goes the same way. ADF loses in grand fashion (and in 2 sets.)

de Minaur v. Medvedev

Well we’ve reached the last writeup quicker than normal, which is nice for me at least, because now I can sleep more! Call me Andy Murray because I hate doing anything late into the night, even if there’s money involved. (Disclaimer: There is no money involved in me writing, and I don’t really even want money out of this, it’s just a hobby of mine. Although there’s probably somewhere you could make some money doing this) Regardless, onwards we march. ADM’s match with fellow Atlanta champion Fritz went pretty well for him, he was able to do damage on Fritz’s serves, even with them being mostly first serves, which is a very good sign of playing well. I didn’t watch the match, and maybe it was a huge choke job by Fritz, but if it wasn’t, I have somewhat high hopes for ADM. If you didn’t know, he’s one of my favorite players. Anyway, he looked good in terms of his service games, putting a fair amount of them in, and winning a good amount of the points. He broke one more time than he got broken, so that’s always a recipe for success. The other one involves some weird South American peppers that are guarded by all the failed Diego Schwartzman tennis clones. (Some of those guys are pretty scary looking, especially the one who they made too short, and he’s like Ant-Man or something, yikes) Either way, ADM is on to the next round playing some great tennis, but his biggest test has yet to come, and it’s the polar opposite of the way too short Schwartzman clone.

That’s right! It’s Daniil Medvedev! Medvedev continues to be a brick wall, except this time the brick wall was not very offensive, only just winning enough return points to get the set winning break of serve. Another monstrous serve line of: 62% first serve %, 82% first serve points won, and 48% second serve points won. This is crazy, he’s like a servebot, but without all the pesky and unnecessary tiebreaks! No wonder people like this guy, me included. I will say he didn’t do bad with the return games, but he didn’t completely blow Musetti out of the water with them. I don’t know how else to explain his stats so I’ll just leave it there. It kind of speaks for itself in the scoreline, and it says “hey guys, Daniil Medvedev is like, a good player or something. I dunno I don’t get paid enough for this.” Or at least that’s what I heard it say. Maybe that’s just the voices coming back to haunt me. Maybe it’s history again. OH NO! NOT HISTORY! PLEASE DON’T HARM ME HISTORY! I WAS JUST TRYING TO MAYBE INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME OF A MATCH TO MAKE ME LOOK COOL AND SMART I PROMISE I WON’T ABUSE YOUR ABILITIES LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN! Ahem, sorry where was I? Oh match prediction. Well these two are playing very good tennis, and this is a match I’m not going to want to miss. I feel like Medvedev has the edge here because he’s been so lock-tight, and really has just been playing lights-out tennis. So I have to go Medvedev in 2.