This is fabulous tennis footage. Thank you so much for posting it. When Thiem really gets rolling, his game is overwhelming. He gets so much torque on the ball, it's exploding off the court. I watched him at the French Open two years ago. He's a bigger, stronger guy than I expected. When he plants his right foot, and leans into the forehand, it makes this incredible sound, and he just vaporizes the ball. It's bananas.
This is like opposite of what a Wawrinka Fed practice match looks like. These guys are playing full gritty points; the only thing not 100% might be serving and running for the last ball.
You know, I can't believe how Thiem plays with a racket like that (Babolat Pure Strike). It is rated very highly on Tennis Warehouse for players of their level. But actually it is very light for a pro, a mere 320 g strung, even lighter than Nadal's racket. The beam is thinner as well, 67 stiffness. And the string pattern is 18x20, all gut. So this is all control, but quite easy to swing fast. No wonder he's absolutely murdering every shot. Gut might help him on flat shots like his first serve. But seriously, for a strong guy like Thiem, he's made it impossible for himself to have easy power. He'll have to slog and slog more. This racket won't do anything if he doesn't swing it as hard as he can. I'm not sure how long he can keep hitting like this. Nadal chose a stock racket with a 26 mm beam, all poly and a 72 stiffness and all he's ever done was to add weight to it over time. Right now it's around 336 g strung. So very easy power, big sweetspot and spin and very aerodynamic shaped, so he can arm and wrist it easily. No wonder he plays like that. Now Fed's racket is like 370 g strung with the grip and dampener, and it's even stiffer than Thiem's at 68. He uses poly in the crosses and gut in the mains. Wawrinka's like over 370g with all RPM blast and swingweight is a massive 370. These rackets are tanks in comparison to Thiem's. Simply pointing at the ball will send shots back deep. Djoker uses a 95 in custom mould of very low stiffness (52 something) but huge swingweight 380+. No wonder he hits so deep all the time, but never 100 mph+ winners.
Don't be silly. He uses a big swingweight (345) and a pretty heavy frame (339g). Babolat adds that weight to the pure strike model for him. No ATP pro could get away with stock specs and swingweight on a tweener frame. Stiffness is way less important than swingweight.
It is a fact that pro racquets are different weights than commercial ones. But I'd like to see a person politely corrected and not called names like silly and gullible just for a wrong assumption. Insolence seems like a culture on RU-vid now.
