2023 Roland Garros Men's Final

As usual, before a big final, I like to get a little behind the scenes insight. Last time, I got up close and personal with the players, but as a result, a restraining order was issued, so this time, I leveled up and installed some cameras in their hotel rooms. This will give us a first-hand look at their prep for the finals.

Casp-o-vision :

Sunday, June 11th. The clock strikes 6:00AM. Norwegian music begins playing. Casper’s eyes open. “Ahhh Kongesangan,” thinks Casper, “the only choice for brushing one’s teeth”. Casper begins brushing. He is already in the bathroom, where he sleeps standing up to maximize efficiency. He brushes the right side efficiently, and does the best he can on the other. Though these teeth are mainly defensive, they are constantly improving. Casper turns to his coaches, who are sitting in the tub watching him brush. They nod and make fists, the only coaching he has ever received from them. He nods and makes a fist as well. The main coach, whose name he has never learned, hands him a plate of Fårikål, and he begins eating. “Shouldn’t I have eaten this before I brushed my teeth?” he asks, but perhaps the storyteller, like Casper’s team, did not think this through. Still though, Google is very informative. “Boy, I sure do love Oslo,” muses Casper. “And fjords.” Wow, Casper is ready for Roland Garros.

Djokocam :

Sunday June 11th. The clock strikes 6:00AM. Norwegian music begins playing. “Perhaps we should not have been roommates” thinks Novak, as he looks across the room to Casper’s bed. But Casper is not there. Djokovic stretches his impervious to cramps body. He is not in a bed, but gently relaxing on a bed of moss, which grew when he summoned it with warrior one. He eases slowly into chair pose, and a chair appears. Goran quickly sits in it.
“Look at my cool new shades!” says Goran. “Very nice, Goran,” says Novak, as he closes his eyes to begin meditating.
“You think we can win, Novak?” asks Goran, while swinging his legs excitedly in the chair.
“Yes, Goran,” answers Novak.
“Can you believe they eat snails here?” asks Goran, while pretending his hand is an airplane.
“Yes, Goran,” answers Novak.
“Would you ever eat a snail?” asks Goran, while pretending he is an airplane.
“Yes, Goran,” answers Novak.
“Wow,” says Goran. His friend Novak is so cool.

Casper emerges from the bathroom, and Djokovic heads in. There are crumbs in the sink, and Ruud’s team shake their fists and nod at him as he begins combing his hair. Novak shakes his head. He is ready for Roland Garros.

Men’s Singles Final :

There is something about Casper Ruud’s game that makes it seem like he is not doing anything special. He is ultra-consistent, and he makes the right choices in almost every situation, but his disciplined approach can make a player like Zverev or Rublev seem like they are on another level. Ruud has made two Grand Slam finals already (both last season), but was summarily written off before they began, suffering defeat at the hands of Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open, and Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros. Here again, he is being given very slim chances by most people. When you do everything right (by the book), there is a sense that you become predictable, and the greats of the game have excellent situational awareness. If they can move early to your shots, you’re not going to get many errors from them. It makes this a very uphill battle for him, because Novak Djokovic is a player that is unlikely to be rattled by the classic patterns and approaches to the game, and is one of the most consistent players the tour has ever seen. Once he gets in a rhythm, you’re playing a tennis game set to expert, so Casper will need to elevate his aggression here.

Ruud will thankfully be fresh for the finals, but after watching the Alcaraz demise it’s hard to gauge how long that will last. Him being a bit older does give him a bit more stamina and experience, and he had a fairly quick match against Zverev. He’s also done this before, so I think physically he is ready to go 5 sets. Thinking, though, isn’t it always the cause of our blunders. Zverev looked competitive in parts of their match, but he is not at the top level of the game yet. His ceiling is, but where does his ceiling lurk? Ruud is nearly robotic out there. You know he is going to execute and move the ball well and his defensive skills are solid enough to make his opponent play several shots to win a point. It’s the discipline he has that allows him to do this regardless of the stage and the opponent. Zverev, on the other hand, is very much thinking out there. When he has a setup, it’s very up in the air what he should do. He’s often creating angles and situations that he is only going to play 1-2 of per match, and it leads to errors as he second-guesses and hesitates on shots (especially rough in choosing when and when not to come to net). In truth, he could have wound up deep in the match against Casper, but when Zverev had control or time, he made a lot of unforced errors trying to crack Ruud’s defenses. Despite having a ton of experience on tour, Zverev has not really ironed out his game and since returning from injury, he hasn’t really dealt with a match where he had to play hard every point in order to win. The ability is there, but the repetition of effort is not.

Speaking of repetition of effort, it should be noted what a great adjustment Djokovic made in his semifinal match. He is very frequently a slow starter on clay, but he came out and looked to match Alcaraz’s aggression from the start. It was a very “I’m not going to miss and I want you to know that” approach, and digging in in this manner started to forced Alcaraz to come up with more and more ambitious attempts. They both have a lot of heat on their shots, but Alcaraz is certainly the one swinging harder on the average ball. He started to make errors, but it looked to me like he would wear down Djokovic’s defenses with the onslaught. There have been a number of matches this tournament where the first couple games were furiously played, and eventually one player settled into their role as a defender, or folded up and forced offense until they lost. This didn’t feel like the case here, as both of these players can legitimately expect to hit a high percentage of their shots no matter what style they proceed with. A good example is how a post-cramp, immobile and defeated Alcaraz was able to guide winners off Djokovic’s serve. Not a strategy to win the match, but something that he rarely uses in match-play yet was instantly able to do.

After losing the first set, I still like Alcaraz’s chances. It had become the best type of ATP match, one where the player who is serving doesn’t just automatically win. The great big 3 matchups featured so many breaks and yet those breaks weren’t huge cracks or fails at all, it was just that at the highest level, players can play defense and offense from everywhere on the court. They exchanged breaks late in the 2nd set, and it seemed like Alcaraz’s aggression was finally mentally wearing Djokovic down. Early in the third though, disaster struck in the way that it always seems to when a phenom plays Djokovic at a major. Carlos Alcaraz cramped. Spectacularly. His hand cramped, his calf cramped, and he looked like Medusa slid in his DMs for a moment. Big credit to Djokovic for being bigger than the moment, and coming across the net to express concern and help Alcaraz to his chair. Cramping is something that affects a lot of players on tour, but it was pretty unexpected from Alcaraz. His physical strength is off the charts, and he trains extremely hard. If some combination of nerves and over-exertion really caused this, then it’s a by-product of Djokovic being willing to go toe-to-toe with him right from the start of the match.

There are great nutritionists working on the tour, but once you actually go full-cramp, it is nearly impossible to continue playing tennis. The muscle is in pain, and doesn’t want to fully flex even if you do. In short, you’re fatigued, in pain, and weak. Alcaraz forfeited the game so he could get treatment, but with 2 full sets left against the guy who is leading the GOAT debate currently (and competing against off-tour opponents), you’re pretty much finished. Brave of Alcaraz to finish out the match, and I had some hope that the kid would go full-tank and hydrate to recover for a 4th, but it appeared the damage was irreversible. He stood in on some returns, and while this means that any poor returns leave your court position too shallow to cover both wings of the court, he did show a pretty good ability to utilize this tactic. I’d love to see him do more of this in the future, as the best returners are pretty much hugging the baseline and you need this to win with minimized effort on hardcourt and grass. I’d also add, his deep return position was allowing Djokovic to serve and volley an awful lot, and Novak really was the one scoring off the dropshot in the non-cramp sets so Alcaraz will need to work on some other strategies. A good restful win for Djokovic, and a new wrinkle to the “how high will Alcaraz rise” debate. I don’t think too many people were really expecting cramps (to my knowledge it’s the first time he’s dealt with that on tour), and he had the momentum before they occurred.

One of the best things about majors is how long the players are out there. It allows for so many deviations in strategy and planning. Dumping sets to conserve energy, planning to sprint early then take a set off, and changes in strategy (holding back a bit of pace on serves early or playing frequent dropshots to take your opponents legs) can be really effective. Djokovic got the benefit of an interesting result here. It seemed like his defense was good enough to keep Alcaraz at bay but he wasn’t able to counter-punch. If this was by design, kudos to him and his team for allowing Alcaraz to punch himself out. If it wasn’t, it has at a minimum inspired other players to dig in on defense against Carlos now that they’ve seen the gas tank actually on E, which is tremendous for the tour since we’ve seen a few top guys fold against him already. The names on the trophies are less important than creating an environment where these guys can compete at their freest, because the sport won’t continue to grow unless the product is visibly enticing to the non-tennis public.

Djokovic Ruud should be a great match, the same way Swiatek Muchova was today. Ruud has yet to win a set against Djokovic in his career, but almost every single set has been confined to a single break of serve. That’s largely what I expect here. Ruud is good enough to compete with Djokovic for 75% of the match. Similar to the CA/ND situation that caused the cramps, Ruud is good enough to play Djokovic on even terms, but not really able to get out of trouble once he’s in it. Since Djokovic’s measured approach won’t wear himself out like Alcaraz’s did, this means a long match, with a vaguely assured result. This is good for Ruud for a few reasons. One, he won’t be distracted very often. When you’re going uphill but are a great competitor like Ruud, you don’t get caught up in the “what ifs” of an L or fret changes in the scoreline, you just keep an eye on how you’re doing out there. Trying different approaches, working on the spots you’re losing ground in, and communicating with your box constructively rather than complaining are useful, and keep you in the present moment. That’s a good place to stay for Casper here, because the crowd is very likely to get behind him. Djokovic is a beloved champion, but fans want to see a long match. If Ruud was considered an even contender here, he could almost enter villain territory, as fans would not want to see a great champion dethroned. Since he’s publicly regarded as a plucky underdog, he’ll have plenty of support.

Tennis-wise, the problem here is simple. Djokovic has the best backhand in tennis, and Ruud fights his off. He can create some great angles with it, and hits passes fairly well, but it’s a safe target for Djokovic which means the majority of shots are going to go there. We all saw how devastating a weapon the dropshot and forehand inside-in became for Alcaraz when Tsitsipas attempted to camp in his backhand corner, and I fear that Ruud will have similar issues in this match. This is doubly tricky because Djokovic’s backhand dropshots are much better and much more frequently attempted down the line. Ruud served well against Zverev, but he went out wide from the duece court a lot and Zverev never really punished him for it. Djokovic ropes these shots cross-court very well and he’s good at picking a few spots to up the aggression. If Casper is forced to abandon this serve, it’s a problem because it’s generally the best way to ensure that his second shot is a forehand. He plays well behind the pattern, but great returners (and great teams hello Goran) are likely to notice any significant lean on a particular serve. The odds at -450 indicate that Ruud will be competitive (because basically everyone watching is looking to bet on Djokovic at this point), but this would be the most surprising result that has occurred in tennis in a very long time. I think Ruud wins the same set via steady play and heavy hitting that Khachanov did, but it’s hard to see Djokovic struggling with patterns and opponents that he has already figured out. Djokovic in 4.