Sluiter to serve for the match

6-2 6-4

What a shame

Ah well. It would be overstating the case to say Al got Sluitered, but he did not seem able to cope with the Dutchman's power. Those double faults at inopportune moments did not help either.

For once I actually managed to watch live streaming on the web.

My thoughts:

Alex's serving was really poor today and that was the big difference between them. I think he hit only 1 or 2 aces in the entire match and for most of the time it caused Sluiter no problems whatsoever. In comparison to Sluiter's thundering deliveries, Alex's seemed relatively lightweight, resulting in him getting broken 4 times in the match.

I think that was the key factor. Sluiter was blasting service winnes and aces left, right and centre and rallies on his serve barely lasted more than 3 shots. He was winning on most of his service games, at least 3 cheap points off the serve while Alex averaged about 1 cheap point per 3 service games. In order for Alex to win a point on serve he would have to grind out a rally of about 10-12 shots and it's tough mentally, to keep doing that when you're basically not playing on your opponent's service games.

I think the reason behind this is the courts. Sluiter's serve gets up into the mid 130s while Alex's is mainly in the low 120s and so he relies on variation and different
spins to mix things up. When on slow surfaces, the courts aren't aiding his serve which makes things tricky. Alex's serve is most effective on fast indoor courts and on grass when the speed of the courts gives it extra bite and the balls skids through.

I can see how Alex was the better player in Kolding and Mons though. He's a really big hitter from the back off both wings and he regularly forced Sluiter onto the back foot and opened up the court. However, as the bloomin' courts were so slow Sluiter was able to run down shots and get himself back in the rally. There were countless times Alex hit what would have been clean winners on a faster court but they kept coming back.

Sluiter unleashed some vicious forehands from the back and he's a great player on the defensive - gets some superb angles turning defense into attack in an instant. I think that Alex needed to come into the net more, he hit some really booming forehands which Sluiter just floated back and the Boggo should have been at the net thumping them away but instead he was still at the back of the court, letting the ball bounce and the process repeated itself.

This is definately something Alex needs get used to doing more on slow courts. He did so with success against Henman but not today. He also needs to maybe work more on his 2nd serve and maybe a bit more variation on his 1st serve. Eg with Mikhail Zverev - if Alex had his serve and net game he could be top 30 for sure. The reason why Zverev isn't top 30 is because his baseline game is nothing like Alex's.
Zverev's variation on serve - in particular his topspin 1st and 2nd serves out wide to the deuce court and down the centre to the ad court, cause big problems and it's why he was only broken once against Tipsarevic who's one heck of a returner.

It's disappointing but hopefully Alex can learn from this match, he lost to a top 100 player who played one heck of a match today.