Yep, it's was certainly an incredibly strong return performance. Hope she can keep it up, I really enjoyed watching her just destroy any 80-something mph second serve, and seeing the effect it had on opponents.
There's almost the non-statistical trad journo-coach interview version of your analysis here, by the way, including something on how she got to this level. :) https://archive.is/YccTK
There have only been 7 female players who won their first Grand Slam at a younger age than Raducanu, and all of them went on to win multiple Grand Slams and all 7 became world number 1. I think it's a pretty strong indication that she's special and should do well. In fact of the 15 female players who won a GS as a teenager, only 1 of them (Iva Majoli) retired without winning at least one more GS title. I think both Fernandez and Raducanu have very, very bright futures near the top of women's tennis.
Great article and analysis. Fernandez had a miserable day serving (low first serve %, lots of double faults); I wonder whether Raducanu would have dominated as much on return if Fernandez' first serve had been on song. Probably she would have. Raducanu might be the female equivalent of Djokovic on serve.
Yep, it's was certainly an incredibly strong return performance. Hope she can keep it up, I really enjoyed watching her just destroy any 80-something mph second serve, and seeing the effect it had on opponents.
There's almost the non-statistical trad journo-coach interview version of your analysis here, by the way, including something on how she got to this level. :) https://archive.is/YccTK
There have only been 7 female players who won their first Grand Slam at a younger age than Raducanu, and all of them went on to win multiple Grand Slams and all 7 became world number 1. I think it's a pretty strong indication that she's special and should do well. In fact of the 15 female players who won a GS as a teenager, only 1 of them (Iva Majoli) retired without winning at least one more GS title. I think both Fernandez and Raducanu have very, very bright futures near the top of women's tennis.
Great article and analysis. Fernandez had a miserable day serving (low first serve %, lots of double faults); I wonder whether Raducanu would have dominated as much on return if Fernandez' first serve had been on song. Probably she would have. Raducanu might be the female equivalent of Djokovic on serve.