Hi, so I've been a by-stander for much of the past month having stumbled across this forum and having enjoyed myself and found Honeybadgers thread fairly insightful and useful for ideas, I felt / thought I'd share a couple of my own.
Hope to be of use and welcome well reasoned debates.
I use a 1 - 10 bracket rating system.
Tomorrow's finals. WTA HERT
Zheng (8 rating) vs Coco Van
Zheng is a small player with a huge heart, she has great movement across a grass court and she absorbs the pace of the ball really well, which is what grass allows a player to do. Zheng has a good low center of gravity and because the ball has a low and skidding bounce on the grass it favors her. It's perfectly in her strike zone, she can counter-punch perfectly on this surface and understands the dimensions of a grass-court as almost equally well as Simona Halep understands the dimensions of a clay-court, that's the quality of the angles she can manufacture.
Zheng is an aggressive counter-puncher, hits aggressive when on the back-foot and defending and ball-strikes, hitting clean and through the ball when on the front-foot. Zheng hits on the front foot, leaning forward, beautifully, perfect weight transfer everything... there's a solid reason she is a former Wimbledon semi-finalist... and completely out of NO FLUKE. Coco has a big serve and the occasional big forehand and yes she can over power opponents, however she will be matched in the power department from the baseline here. The advantage coco generally has over her opponents is she can smother them on their weak and pathetic 2nd serves, as most females possess weak second serves on the WTA, however on the grass Zheng is able to vary her second serve and find pace off of the surface with it. The edge Zheng has in this match-up is she is able to defend better on a grass court and hit balls when on the back foot, nice and deep and flat into the players body and the corners of the court. Her shot selection is ridiculously good on the grass and her ballstriking off the backhand sick. Coco has a bog-standard tactic off going inside out to the opponents backhand, however Zheng's backhand is her strength. So essentially... coco's go to shot, goes straight into Zheng's go to shot and Zheng can take her backhand down the line, letting it slide off her racquet and timing it with perfect weight transfer. Zheng will be looking to move cococ around the court, which coco, like many other american female tennis players, isn't the most adept to.
The most pinnacle deciding factor in what makes me overwelmingly confident Zheng will lift the trophy tomorrow is nerves however. She will be the much calmer and composed of the two players, as this isn’t unknown territory for Coco and the important of breaking through here is psychologically huge and she will know this. Her first ever WTA final, this will almost definitely and inevitably cause her to tighten up whenever faced with a big moment or a dose of adversity. In conclusion: Zheng will be able to play closer to her best and I don't see how Coco matches up well at all with her. The only way Coco can win is if she'll be able to 'redline' her game for the majority of the match and that isn't going to happen considering the magnitude of the occasion for her.
Fingers crossed this goes to plan.
Hope to be of use and welcome well reasoned debates.
I use a 1 - 10 bracket rating system.
Tomorrow's finals. WTA HERT
Zheng (8 rating) vs Coco Van
Zheng is a small player with a huge heart, she has great movement across a grass court and she absorbs the pace of the ball really well, which is what grass allows a player to do. Zheng has a good low center of gravity and because the ball has a low and skidding bounce on the grass it favors her. It's perfectly in her strike zone, she can counter-punch perfectly on this surface and understands the dimensions of a grass-court as almost equally well as Simona Halep understands the dimensions of a clay-court, that's the quality of the angles she can manufacture.
Zheng is an aggressive counter-puncher, hits aggressive when on the back-foot and defending and ball-strikes, hitting clean and through the ball when on the front-foot. Zheng hits on the front foot, leaning forward, beautifully, perfect weight transfer everything... there's a solid reason she is a former Wimbledon semi-finalist... and completely out of NO FLUKE. Coco has a big serve and the occasional big forehand and yes she can over power opponents, however she will be matched in the power department from the baseline here. The advantage coco generally has over her opponents is she can smother them on their weak and pathetic 2nd serves, as most females possess weak second serves on the WTA, however on the grass Zheng is able to vary her second serve and find pace off of the surface with it. The edge Zheng has in this match-up is she is able to defend better on a grass court and hit balls when on the back foot, nice and deep and flat into the players body and the corners of the court. Her shot selection is ridiculously good on the grass and her ballstriking off the backhand sick. Coco has a bog-standard tactic off going inside out to the opponents backhand, however Zheng's backhand is her strength. So essentially... coco's go to shot, goes straight into Zheng's go to shot and Zheng can take her backhand down the line, letting it slide off her racquet and timing it with perfect weight transfer. Zheng will be looking to move cococ around the court, which coco, like many other american female tennis players, isn't the most adept to.
The most pinnacle deciding factor in what makes me overwelmingly confident Zheng will lift the trophy tomorrow is nerves however. She will be the much calmer and composed of the two players, as this isn’t unknown territory for Coco and the important of breaking through here is psychologically huge and she will know this. Her first ever WTA final, this will almost definitely and inevitably cause her to tighten up whenever faced with a big moment or a dose of adversity. In conclusion: Zheng will be able to play closer to her best and I don't see how Coco matches up well at all with her. The only way Coco can win is if she'll be able to 'redline' her game for the majority of the match and that isn't going to happen considering the magnitude of the occasion for her.
Fingers crossed this goes to plan.
