There were a lot of remarkable things about Djokovic’s win against Musetti in the semifinals of Wimbledon. The comeback just five weeks after meniscus surgery. The masterful switching between game plans. And, it turns out, 73 points at the net.
Of those points, 56 were during rallies and 17 were serve-and-volley. Musetti had cut the game of American No 12 seed Taylor Fritz to ribbons in the previous round, using a combination of backhand slices and chipped returns on both wings to send Fritz into a tailspin.
Djokovic’s solution was simple. Musetti wanted to defend by putting balls either deep or short with backspin, so that they would bounce, skid, and be generally annoying to deal with. Djokovic just didn’t let the ball bounce.
That forced Musetti to hit more groundstroke returns and passing shots, frequently rushing the net even from the centre of the court and asking him to find an angle, rather than approaching down the line as is more conventional. Musetti didn’t have an answer. It was just one of the remarkable things, but perhaps the most effective.
