WATCH: Difference Between the Return Serve of Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev Explained by Patrick Mouratoglou
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Patrick Mouratoglou
Serena Williams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou recently shared a post on his Instagram handle in which he explained the difference between the return serve of World No.1 Novak Djokovic and World No.2 Daniil Medvedev.
Novak Djokovic returns his opponent’s serve very differently than the way Medvedev or Alexander Zverev do. Further, Mouratoglou highlighted in detail how the two returns are different.
How is Novak Djokovic’s serve different than Daniil Medvedev?
In the post, Mouratoglou says that there are two ways to return serve; a classical way and a new one.
Novak prefers the classical way. “The player stays close to the baseline, which implies that he has to shorten his preparation because the ball is coming very fast.The classical way- like for example, Novak Djokovic.” said the coach. He also said about how Djokovic leaves “not so much distance between the server and the returner.”
On the other hand, the newer way to return serve is seen in the way Daniil Medvedev or Zverev do it. According to the coach the new way is where the player is “staying extremely far from the baseline.”
In performing the new way the players save a lot of time. “So they start the rally hitting the ball with full swing, and Medvedev is doing that extremely well.”
According to Patrick, practicing the new way makes a player more dangerous. Mouratoglou explained how people think that doing the new way requires lot of strength as the player has to hit the ball from behind. But then he said that Medvedev has proved everyone wrong by playing the new way very efficiently.
“Everybody thought that in order to hit the ball from very far from the baseline you have to be super powerful and hit with a lot of topspin. But Medvedev hits flat, deep, and fast from extremely far,” Patrick explained. Because of this ability of Daniil, the coach calls him a nightmare.
But Patrick further said that this way can also become the of the player as the player stays far from the baseline so a drop serve or an underarm serve leaves players too far behind the line to get to the ball in time.
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Drishti Geete
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