TCUFrog wrote:

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Bob in Spain wrote:

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TCUFrog wrote:

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Welcome to the board TCU Frog.  Our other British TCU Frog is having a tough day in Long Beach Futures today, having lost the 1st set 6-1 in the FQR.  Who knows ? Maybe YOU ARE that other British TCU Frog

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 Thanks! Been watching Norrie since his college days (obviously). Looking forward to Gray this year and seeing how he fits into the college picture

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Spent some time with Ali when he was playing in a Spanish futures last year.  I get the feeling he will fit in well.

Cam has just lost the first set.

QR2:  John-Patrick Smith (AUS) WR 219 defeated (q6) Cameron Norrie WR 112 by 4 & 2 

EddietheEagle wrote:

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Wasn't expecting that result. Is he plateauing out a bit?

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 Nah. We have it on good authority that he will be world number one by three weeks next Tuesday.

JP can be tricky, it wasn't a match I was confident about.

The past two weeks he has run into his absolute worst match-up.... lefties with big serves who protect their serve at all costs and then take big risks on the return game. Norrie's biggest weakness is his return and when a guy plays aggressively (serve and volley or first strike) off serve, he really struggles to have success in return games. And at this point his mental game isn't strong enough to play consistently and never have let downs when serving so he ends up dropping a gimme service game every set.

Of interest, I think his game could be best suited for clay courts, where he has never really had experience.

I hope he really works on his return game over the next few months or he's going to drop a lot of matches to big servers as he plays better competition.

Michael D wrote:

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TCUFrog wrote:

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The past two weeks he has run into his absolute worst match-up.... lefties with big serves who protect their serve at all costs and then take big risks on the return game. Norrie's biggest weakness is his return and when a guy plays aggressively (serve and volley or first strike) off serve, he really struggles to have success in return games. And at this point his mental game isn't strong enough to play consistently and never have let downs when serving so he ends up dropping a gimme service game every set.

Of interest, I think his game could be best suited for clay courts, where he has never really had experience.

I hope he really works on his return game over the next few months or he's going to drop a lot of matches to big servers as he plays better competition.

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Yes, you've obviously watched him quite a bit, that seems a good analysis. I wonder too if his own serve is good enough too, especially his second serve, which at the end of last year didn't seem it would offer much protection against better ranked players... not that he has got that far yet... 

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 Yeah, probably seen 100 matches of his between watching in person at college level and watching streaming. He definitely needs to improve his serve... as long as he is using spin and angles as his primary first serve, he should be serving in the upper 60% range and his second serve needs some refinement. From my amateur view his improvement list is:

1) Return game. Either take a few steps back (he returns on top of the baseline regardless of server), slice/chip the ball effectively or shorten his swing. A 120+ mph/193 km serve to his forehand is impossible for him to return based on how close he is and how long his forehand swing is. And when he does make solid contact it is either all or nothing. 

2) Stay mentally focused on every point. When he loses focus his forehand goes everywhere... you can always tell how locked in he is based on his forehand. When he's locked in, it's a top 20 forehand and when he loses focus it's a bottom-end challenger forehand. It is one of the most random groundstrokes I've ever seen from a top 100 type player. 

3) Refine and improve the serve