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Aug 18, 2023

"This is for the 'manual' on HOW to watch tennis matches": Federer's ex

Roger Federer’s ex-coach Ivan Ljubicic has been leftimpressed by the statement of the former world number one Britain’s Andy Murrayregarding how he learnt a few things after watching the final of

Roger Federer’s ex-coach Ivan Ljubicic has been leftimpressed by the statement of the former world number one Britain’s Andy Murrayregarding how he learnt a few things after watching the final of Wimbledon 2023.

It was Spain’s young tennis sensation Carlos Alcaraz who gotthe better of Serbia’s legendary player Novak Djokovic in a five-set thriller witha score of 1–6, 7–6(8–6), 6–1, 3–6, 6–4 to lift the third Grand Slam of theyear in London last month.

Murray, in a video shared by a social media platform pageTennis TV, stated that he ‘learnt a lot’ watching the final.

“I learnt a lot watching those two,” said Murray. “As the matchwent on, I thought they both played better and better and you could almost seeAlcaraz learning as the match was going on. It could’ve gone either way to behonest, it was that tight.

“I ended up taking some videos of the guys, just focusing onone side of the net. Looking at their return positions and movement betweenshots. Also looking at the times when, particularly Alcaraz, was looking toplay aggressive, offensive tennis and how he was going about doing that, when Iwas sitting there, I was also looking a little bit at the teams and seeing theplayers and their reactions between the points.

“Both of them, on the TV, appear like they are calm, [but] youactually see there’s a lot of stress and frustration and all of those thingswhich, when you just watch on TV, they often cut to people in the crowd for theguy that’s just won the point and you don’t see those immediate reactions.Seeing the frustration was there but also how they were responding to it wasinteresting.”

Ljubicic, while quoting that tweet, urged the young playersto follow in the footsteps of someone like Murray and watch full tennis matchinstead of just watching highlight to learn how great players adapt todifferent situations.

"This is for the 'manual' on HOW to watch tennismatches if you're a player. Today I find that young players are not watchingenough tennis. If anything, highlights, which obviously don't say anythingabout the match. So much can be learned from matches of other players,” he tweeted.