Sinner

Chart of the share of shots that are drop shots on hard courts and on clay for the ATP top 20 plus Jodar, Tien and Fonseca. Bublik uses them most (5.8% on hard, 8.5% on clay) and every player hits more on clay except Vacherot. Sinner wins 60% of drop-shot points on hard and 66% on clay; Alcaraz 59% and 60%.

On clay, softer hands pay

Every Top 20 player hits more drop shots on clay than hard courts except Vacherot.

May 2026

Two flow charts of first-serve points for top-20 servers in 2025–26: against each other (72.4% won) and against Sinner or Alcaraz (64.8% won). Against the pair, fewer first serves go unreturned (32% against 38%), and the server's +1 shot wins less often on both the forehand (6.5 points lower) and the backhand (8.4 points lower).

The Sinner & Alcaraz Tax

Sinner and Alcaraz tax the top 20 the way they tax everyone else. And nobody can tax them back.

April 2026Essay, 2 min read5 charts

Clay court maps of where Alcaraz made rally contact at Monte Carlo 2026. Before the final, 60% of his contacts were forehands (416 forehands, 268 backhands); in the final against Sinner, 46% (116 forehands, 134 backhands), with backhand contacts clustered on his left behind the baseline.

Alcaraz Rally Contact

It was so much harder for Alcaraz to play forehands out of his backhand corner (usually a major weapon) in the Monte Carlo final vs Sinner.

April 2026

Two court diagrams of Alcaraz's ad-side first serves on hard courts over the last 52 weeks. On all points (n=667) he goes 41% wide, 15% body and 44% T, winning 72 to 74% out wide and down the T. On break points (n=56) 71% go wide or body (48% wide, 23% body, 29% T) and he wins only 59% of the wide serves.

Alcaraz has a serve problem

Possibly a crazy thing to be writing about the current world No.1 and recent Australian Open champion. But margins are fine in tennis and his biggest rival has some hard court gifts that can make even small problems loom large.

March 2026Essay, 4 min read3 charts