In Stuttgart we saw a Berrettini determined to enhance the best aspects of his skills: serve, forehand and an excellent backhand
In a press conference a few years ago, I asked Matteo Berrettini of his frequent use of the cut backhand and sincerely I praised the successful execution: “… incisive and slippery as that type of solution must be”, I said for fear of appearing like the know-it-all.
So I rejoiced and continued to investigate whether he was working hard on it. “No – he began decisively – the bare minimum! In fact, with my coach we try to avoid it in favor of the scrolling version.”
Surprised by such a statement, I ended up wondering if the Capitoline giant had fully understood the advantages offered by a solution which on the other hand had no appreciable side effects.
It was a short step from here to wondering about the Berrettini seen in Stuttgart. Not so much to talk about the final that just ended, but to make sense of it to the mountain of underspin backhands played by our team in the five rounds of the German tournament. We are on grass, I know, and this changes, albeit slightly, the use of shots but the fresh finalist’s use of a confident backhand slice suggests a change of direction in favor of a tennis less prone to damned injuries .
And the German tournament gives us a Matteo Berrettini with increased muscle mass, useful for enhancing the best aspects of his baggage, dedicating less attention to the weak ones than in the past. The calculated aim is to shorten exchanges that are too long, harbingers of physical and mental stress and move towards a quicker resolution of points.
The 63 aces served throughout the tournament of the Germanic south-west are going in this direction, just as the forehand winners accumulated in 15 sets of excellent tennis are going in this direction. And in the strong part of the baggage I would also put that cut backhand, naturally alternating with the top one, wrongly considered as a shot to stay away from and which finally seems to enjoy full confidence.
