The Championships, Wimbledon 2018: So how did Kerber beat Serena in the final?

To my mind, the conditions favoured Kerber by playing into her strengths and she exploited them which is part of the game of tennis. I think Kerber’s tactics were quite similar to her tactics against Osaka and Ostapenko, with a few alterations. So I think it somewhat helped her that she had played players in previous rounds who have a similar game to Serena. Whereas Serena hadn’t played a player sufficiently similar to Kerber so needed to adjust more to her style than Kerber did to hers. So how did Kerber beat Serena in the final?

-          One common tactic players use generally, but especially with Ostapenko and Serena, is getting them on the run. They feel it’s vitally important against them because they hit the ball particularly hard and have a weightier shot that is more strenuous to return. By getting them on the run, they hope to take the sting out of their shots to make it easier to stay in the rally and find an opening to hit the winner. Kerber used this tactic against Serena and it worked, as it did in her match against Ostapenko.

But how do you cope well enough against such strong hitters of the ball to even begin to employ this tactic? And how did Kerber manage to win her service games without hitting hard serves yet avoiding them being hit as return winners? I think one of Kerber’s main strategies against aggressive-style, hard hitting players is to block their attacking plan A game by giving them balls which are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to take an attacking swing at without making a so-called unforced error. This gives Kerber so-called free points and helps her gain momentum, confidence and rhythm while her opponent feels like their game is unravelling and feel a sense of mounting panic as they start to angst about stemming the tide of losing points. So how does Kerber play to increase the amount of apparent unforced errors in her opponents?   

-           Ironically, some types of slow serves and groundstrokes can be effective in that they can be misperceived as attackable balls. However, they can have lots of spin on them making them demanding to hit because they require more adjustment from you. They can veer into your body so you hit too close to your body rather than swinging freely. They can move away from you, jerking your body as you lurch after them awkwardly, hitting them off-balance. They can produce or exacerbate bad bounces. At one point, Serena looked disbelievingly at a bad bounce which resulted in her not getting the ball back. A possible explanation I think could be that, although it’s somewhat due to the grass, Kerber may be accentuating the tricky bounces with the spins she uses. If you look at the way Kerber swings her racquet, you can see how she ‘cuts’ the ball as she comes underneath it periodically in a rally. This can produce more extreme slices and sidespins which die on the court, especially on damper grass. For instance, Kerber suddenly threw in a very twisty sidespin to get the error from Ostapenko to achieve a 4-1 lead. Another type of slower ball which produces unforced errors in opponents is ‘floaty’ balls ie they sail towards you and force you to generate all the pace yourself. Kerber also tends to just absorb the pace her opponents give her rather than generate her own. Not only is this more tiring, you are also liable to over-hit ‘floaters’ because you don’t have the same resistance you are used to hitting against. Without this resistance, you power-through the shot with less control and it goes out, often by a larger margin than normally. A slice serve can also produce an effective ‘floaty’ effect. During Kerber’s match against Ostapenko, commentators predicted that Kerber’s slice serve into the body would be a shot she should use against Serena to beat her. Indeed, Kerber used her left hip body serve to save a breakpoint against Ostapenko at 5-3.

-          Chanda Rubin remarked that Kerber is good at controlling the tempo of her matches. I think this is an interesting observation because it reminds me of something I always thought was a particularly underestimated strength of Steffi Graf’s game. This ability to control the tempo is how Graf produced quick demolitions of her opponent’s game and ran away with matches in record time. Apparently, Kerber has spent time with Graf who gave her advice about how to improve her game. So it makes me wonder whether Kerber has acquired Graf’s approach to setting and controlling the tempo of a match to help her gain big leads in a set and make it easier to close out matches.

So what can be done to counteract Kerber’s winning formula?

-          I think one of the main ways is to somewhat counterintuitively not attack every ball, especially early on in a rally so you don’t fall into the trap of making errors by over-pressing your shots for a quick winner. Ostapenko came close to finding a way to prevent Kerber blocking her aggressive game late in the second set. Had she changed her tactics earlier in the match, I think she would have won. Or if it was a best of 5 sets, she could have carried on with her new tactic in the 3^rd set and have a chance to win over the course of 5 sets. But being near the end of the second set in a best of 3 set match, she ran out of time and had too fine a margin to pull off enough points in a row to turn the match around. Kerber had already started to panic and become visibly frustrated within a few points of Ostapenko changing tactic. This is something Kerber’s opponents needed to exploit. Essentially, what was most disruptive to Kerber’s game plan was taking the pace slightly off your shots and being happy to settle into a longer rally and bide your time. By waiting to hit the winner after setting up the point first and reducing explosive attack on your swing, you don’t give Kerber free points, make her work harder for every point and exhaust her while still producing accurate, controlled winners. She also can’t rely on soaking up your pace so doesn’t get the pace off your racquet to simply redirect into a hard hit winner of her own. Although she’s a very quick mover and runner, like Graf was, she will feel under pressure and become despondent. At that point, the opponent has a chance to capitalize and run off winners and turn the match around. Serena’s plan B was classic grass court tennis. She came to the net more, sometimes rushing the net with a drive volley. Although this can be effective, I noticed it was less effective against Kerber than Ostapenko’s plan B of grinding out longer rallies, adapting her swing and using more topspin to control her balls and reduce errors. However, perhaps it was harder for Serena to use more topspin because the grass was damper making it almost impossible to get under and over the ball enough to produce the topspin needed for controlling Kerber’s balls.   

Finally, congratulations to Kerber for winning the title and congratulations to Serena for reaching the singles final of Wimbledon, her 30^th Grand Slam singles final of her career.