(..)There is however a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy
Which are not thoughts and to which as yet
I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt to language.
These fancies arise in the soul (…)
I have always been fascinated by RFection, in any field, and I have tried to be as close as possible to this, both literally and in deepening the phenomenon embodied by a seemingly imperfect being. I was either next to the Master, at Cincy, or next to accomplished artists, Roger Waters, Knopfler, Clapton, Jobs, etc.
For some time I have been troubled by this genius in the making, who is Sinner, and whom I would have discovered as a gem in the Sahara. Once I identified its Intagibility, and prognosticated its future as world number one, it remained to understand its secret, those surreal blows that apparently defy the laws of Physics.
And lo and behold, after thorough study, I am able to reveal to you the secret of his phenomenal right and lapel strokes.
In addition to Jannick hitting everything fast, the ball moves differently. His balls go so fast and deep that you just feel them, with a heart like a flea, that they will be long. But they sit somehow masterfully, apparently in an optical illusion EXACTLY next to the line in the field, always putting the opponent in difficulty. The question is how, how he manages such a performance, rare in tennis.
I don’t hide from you that I wasn’t really mediocre in Physics, and Thermodynamics and, later in college, Fluid Mechanics, fascinated me. In tennis, the laws of physics are unbeatable, and somehow the strokes of this phenomenal player must fit on a horse. His technique is based on a well-known principle in physics, Bernoulli’s Principle, (that total pressure, as the sum of static and dynamic pressure, is constant) but taken to an extreme level, which I will explain. The easiest way is to present baseball technique. There, besides other pitching techniques, extremely important is throwing the ball with underspin, that is, the ball rotates around its axis… up. This creates, just like the wing of the plane, the lift effect. Below is a simple description of the phenomenon, at its core:
To make a long story short, the air above the ball offers less resistance to the ball because the surface of the ball moves in the same direction, so the imaginary lines of air flow move faster than those under the ball, which encounter a lot of resistance from the ball, because at the bottom the ball rotates, relative to the air speed. in the opposite direction. As such, dynamic pressure, which is defined as the product of half the density of air and square of velocity (basically it is the longitudinal component of the speed impregnated to the ball), so this dynamic pressure is different above the bottom of the ball. Basically, the dynamic pressure is lower up and higher down, generating the Magnus Force upwards. The higher the speed impregnated to the ball (and we are talking about the effect composed by the velocity square) and the higher the spin, the greater the lift effect (identical as in airplanes).
A picture makes a thousand words, a youtube video makes a whole book sometimes. Below is an extremely well made clip that demonstrates the concept of lift.
How things are in tennis and, especially, why and why Sinner is so special.
In tennis, the ball hits with topspin, so the effect is exactly the opposite than that in baseball (we refer to underspin balls given in baseball with the intention of reaching as high as possible to travel as far as possible before being killed by the force of gravity). Of course, we have players where the flat aspect of the ball predominates (like delPotro) but the vast majority rely on topspin, because that’s what puts the ball to sleep. There are two important aspects, the ball to fall down, but also the rain balls given by pushers fall down, but the balls given with spin are heavy, meaning the opponent must have the strength and precision not only to block the spin but also to turn it with similar parameters. Of course, the king of spin is Nadal, but why Sinner will be over Nadal is that Nadal’s spin is helped. That is, his spin is vaulted, which adds reaction time to the opponent. Of course, Nadal being so strong, his balls explode on contact with the ground, forcing his opponent to either a retreat (clear suicide) or a blocking game (here Medvedev is a god), which basically gives Nadal another chance to put him in difficulty. Of course, Nadal’s technique is impeccable, and it has brought him and will still bring him many satisfactions, but Sinner’s technique, which I will explain in a moment, is superior.
As I said, in tennis you cannot generate the speed of the ball of 100 miles per hour, longitudinal, that is, directly towards the opponent and at the same time turn it at 5000 revolutions per minute. It is simply not humanly possible to vectorially compose those forces in microseconds. My Andrew has a great ball feel, and hits the ball extremely hard. But if you do a slow motion, you will see that it does not continue the acceleration of the ball on impact, and for example, on the lapel you can see the racket somehow “pushed” a little back by the weight of the ball, and on the forehand, it simply seems to remain in a succession of pictures. If you look at Federer’s slow-motions at work, that’s where it’s most obvious, you’ll notice that there are some seemingly missing frames when the pronation starts, because the acceleration is incredible, and insufficient for a camera of even 60 frames per second (professional cameras have samples of several orders of magnitude larger). So, the junior’s balls go long lasers, that is… They stop falling, which requires increased precision of his extremely risky shots from the back line (it’s pure geometry, a degree of ‘laser’ error is projected into half a meter onto the opponent’s back line.
At Sinner, his balls fall folha seca, that is, they lose altitude rapidly on the last metre practically like a dry leaf, from a point of seemingly incomprehensible discontinuity. What’s going on? Well, Sinner’s ball is accelerated tremendously, so it has a slapper effect, propelling the ball forward, but also with a particularly high spin. Until before the last meters, the ball is dominated by the effect produced by percussion. The ball loses between 15 and 20% of its speed in the last meters, but because it has that spin, which you can practically only see in a tennis robot that has multiple engines, the ball simply becomes more … light, relative to air. The friction force is significant and leads to increased lift, as explained above. I feel somewhat puzzled so I propose a little exercise of imagination. If you hit a standard, heavy soccer ball, therefore, the maximum force you as ordinary mortals can produce does not accelerate the ball so much that air resistance force is an important factor in trajectory dynamics. But if you hit the same ball exactly as shown in the video below, giving it a kick combined with topspin, voila, the ball falls folha seca! That’s why, in the pros, extremely, extremely few players (the most representative in this matter is Ronaldo) can execute something like this. Romanian footballers usually, trying this technique, strike with clockwork precision at the stadium clock. Why? Because the ball doesn’t become easy for them, they don’t overwhelm it with percussion and topspin, that’s the secret of fire!
Why will Sinner be hard to beat in the future? Because he produces this technique, from an extremely low altitude, practically 10-20 cm over the net, and due to the huge percussion, the ball stays down (the only ones with special technique on the lapel, on the forehand there are none, there are Djokovic and Kyrgios, but in both very rarely the shots are accelerated to the maximum, at Sinner, they are practically the winner set-up shot, Because the opponent can no longer generate topspin due to lack of vertical space.
And when you have something special, like Federer’s serve (diversity) or Kyrgios and Isner (sheer strength), you make a difference immediately. That’s why I saw this boy as the next world leader when he was exactly on 1000 ATP. Because with him, it was easy to see that something Intangible. Because:
‘Simplicity is the ultimate of complexity’
L.E. 14 November 2020 (article above was written exactly one year ago)
Sinner would win his first ATP tournament in a race of his own against time to become world leader, a race extremely similar to Federer’s in 2000. He will be joined by two more future Terminators, Alcaraz and Musetti, if they remain hungry and with their heads on their shoulders.That’s with Swiss clockwork precision.
The future looks exceptional again, In Sinner we trust!
