hughclarke.substack.com/p/pa… Where are the new GOAT-ing forehands?

Super smash bros., Halo, Age of Empires II

500s are the new premium tennis product

I’d love to try it!

lol. I thought tennis coaching was meant to be safe from AI. Seriously impressive article from Peter and Nico, as to the capabilities of AI to turn raw footage into technical insights, or at least some more objective measurement of body angles. I still have reservations as to the actual hard part of coaching though, which is how you communicate these insights to the player in the best possible way (and that is the world-class aspect that I think will be tougher for a model to convey, although feed enough data and it will probably get there better than humans). E.g., Richard's backhand: "Bend the elbows a little and keep the racquet head up. Hit the ball just in front of the front hip, and swing through to finish over your right shoulder, not at the sky." Is that world-class coaching? In my humble opinion, it is not. And I wouldn't be surprised if Richard's backhand failed to improve trying to act on that specific set of instructions. While the information *might* be correct, the instruction is too sequential/serial and doesn't respect the more emergent nature of how people self-organise or the more metaphorical way we can enact behaviour change. This might sound dumber, but I think a more elegant instruction (based on Claude's set of feedback) might get distilled to "hit the ball harder" and Richard might discover (unconsciously, perhaps) that a higher racquet head and more elbow bend at the start creates more speed. I also don't think it respects different hitting arm structures (e.g., Tiafoe's double-bend vs many pros who straighten the arms more) but of course this data set only included 11 pros and used Tiafoe as a comp, so not really a weakness of the model in that respect. I also think footage angles and context of incoming ball make video analysis a double-edged sword. E.g., comparing Richard's forehand to Zverev's, where Richard is centre of court/screen on the front foot vs Zverev, left of centre (screen and court) hitting open-stanced. Claude says contact is "further out to the side than any pro" and advocates to "let the ball come closer" -- closer to the body? closer as in later contact? I'd say that is the opposite of what you really want in a forehand, and of what Zverev does on his forehand. But again, that could all be fixed and adjusted for in terms of making sure the model learns to compare more similar game contexts and video angles. Finally, while I write a very technical kind of game report for tennis pros, my thesis in general is that technique is more important the higher you get (i.e., it matters more from getting to 20 to 1, but matters far far less in getting from 400 to 40) and even less still at the club level. I'm waffling here and I have more thoughts than I can put down quickly here, but perhaps an article is warranted on this, because this is what's coming. But overall very bullish on this kind of thing getting refined and used more and making coaching better, so well done guys; I'll be out of a job in no time.

Interestingly the data since 2022 has Djoker doing often deeper/better on average compared to some other locations. But we can't control for return position, so this includes serves that simply miss their spots

Just catching up in Shanghai and taking a closer look at Jodar. Incredible returning at the start. but looking at his 52-week data, of the six serve locations, there's one that generates a Jodar short return far more often — about 10% more than the others: deuce body. He only gets 20% deep here. All other 5 locations he gets at least 30% deep. Makes sense given his aggressive position and rangy physique. Data and analysis courtesy of Courtside Advantage

Alcaraz came out firing the forehand at 88mph through the first 5 games but then changed tempo, creating more angles, heights, slower balls, and was averaging 76mph in set 2. Lehecka loves hip-height power tennis through the middle, so this was a great adjustment from Carlos. Days courtesy of TennisViz and Courtside Advantage

Zverev now 0-7 against Sincaraz and Djoker in 2026. Still only 2 top 10 wins

Probably just a result of a hugely choked up grip needing more swing speed. You see longer backhand swings/open faces on transition/first volleys or when taking slower balls and wanting to add power to the shot. That supination is helpful

If we go through all the team pics the A.I. generated racquets are really something for gear freaks. This is like a blow-up balloon version of a babolat PD

To me that’s just part of the skill of being a good server. Low toss gets rewarded in these instances, and the best servers tend to have a low toss

There’s clearly a lot that can be done with shot clock stuff around the serve. 1). Only one toss allowed. Part of the serve skill 2) shot clock between 1st and 2nd serve. 3) shot clock shortened for an ace or unreturned serve. Some players get along pretty quick (Kyrgios, Alcaraz, Medvedev) showing that you can, in fact, play well without 20 ball bounces and 25 seconds every point.