^^^
Am I wrong, or does anybody else think Julia moved better and efficiently and in these days at Copenhagen than nowadays ?
Yeah, she played a great match against Caro (and should have won it as we know). Idk, if she really moved better back then but she was definitely in great shape. Winning her firt title two weeks before probably gave her some extra confidence and playing Caro motivated her even more, I guess.
Thanks for all the videos, finally can see a little bit of matches from Barcelona -- posters on Youtube like Vadim should really be elected for the HOF. The quality is exceptional.
First time I see Muguroza in the highlights, she really has a very athletic, super-fit almost sprinter like body -- she reminds Andrea Petkovic somehow in that department -- also her forehand take-back is ridiculously short almost like a slap shot, she kinds of reminds me KDK, she seems to have short but quite explosive swings which in taking the ball early simultaneously can do wonders. I don't find she hits the ball that "hard" but generates lots of velocity with her shots --
I'd really like to see a whole match somewhere I'll search in Vadim's library.
^^^
Am I wrong, or does anybody else think Julia moved better and efficiently and in these days at Copenhagen than nowadays ?
Julia seemed to have quicker feet indeed but it's kind of hard to tell. I wouldn't say she was moving more efficiently but she was executing faster.
Julia made a lot of progress on endurance, being able to stay more physically engaged in matches and probably it penalized her footwork in the process.
She had such a lean body back then, similar to Djokovic, she was light and flying on court certainly -- by taking body mass then that could be the reason why she lost on the foot work --
In terms of foot-work, you can judge the efficiency of a player via the amount of screeches or noise their shoes make on a hard court surface -- players like Nadal, Federer and Djokovic exceptional movers have recurrent music with their shoes.
By listening here could say the frequency with which Julia moves her feet in this match is quite high IMO but you could still feel for example on the run and changes of direction for example she was heavy.
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One thing I've never understood though with Julia's foot-work is why she doesn't do the cross-step when she turns around her backhand from a long distance ? In this match you can see her do it perfectly and many times in this match against Caroline.
On the contrary, she does a tons of small little steps which IMO kills speed and precision at times on her forehand. It makes her kind of rigid whereas if she did that, she would cover bigger distance and get to touch her forehand almost all the time like Federer or Nadal.
This close up video on Federer shows it pretty well at 0:33 -- he combines small little steps and a cross-step where his right foot like comes in front his left foot to turn around his backhand. There it's on a short distance but from longer position, it allows to cover so much ground -- I think I rarely see Julia do this anymore or probably I'm wrong.
Last edited by Vikapower : Apr 15th, 2012 at 01:10 PM.
I think that this vid is a good example how Julia`s way to move and to play has changed in her career. Also her grunt is very different.
Imo, you get pretty much to the heart of it when you say -
Quote:
Julia seemed to have quicker feet indeed but it's kind of hard to tell. I wouldn't say she was moving more efficiently but she was executing faster.
Julia made a lot of progress on endurance, being able to stay more physically engaged in matches and probably it penalized her footwork in the process.
The "ease" and determination in this sequences is probably due to her youth and inexperience at that time.
Hard to say, but I wish she had taken along a little bit more of it in her further development.
Last edited by joy division : Apr 17th, 2012 at 09:35 AM.
Correction : In the post above, I correct just one little thing -- I slightly exaggerated when I insinuated Julia does small little instead of a more efficient small steps combined with a cross-step to turn around her backhand on a longer distance -- it's only sometimes. That said she could ameliorate that specific aspect to be able to cover more ground and get to her forehand much more often in my opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joy division
^^^
Thanks for your extended post.
I think that this vid is a good example how Julia`s way to move and to play has changed in her career. Also her grunt is very different.
Imo, you get pretty much to the heart of it when you say -
The "ease" and determination in this sequences is probably due to her youth and inexperience at that time.
Hard to say, but I wish she had taken along a little bit more of it in her further development.
Well Jules didn't get too old, right ? -- Yes, Julia's movement has changed, I do think though that her movement on clay has drastically improved --
For that you can compare Julia versus Serena in Roland-Garros to the match for example Johnbert posted above -- against Serena, Julia's right or left foot in changes of direction were all over the place. It was making her lose a lot of time and she was always late on Serena's shots, I think she ameliorated that a lot.
Well, yes I agree the youth etc. played a role -- I do think also that the gain in muscular mass Julia took from end 2010 up to 2011 deteriorated her footwork somehow. Such change in the body weight, mass etc. definitively makes you heavier and additionally slower especially for somebody who's not as physically gifted.
Well I'm not a specialist in musculation etc. so I'm just trying out some few ideas here and there.
If I had been the ref I had demanded a red shirt for the German team.
Typical for Andrea, straightforward but also a little shy and Julia very excited, smirking all the time.
And we can clearly see that she uses a quality product and not the cheap tissues from ALDI.
Last edited by joy division : Apr 23rd, 2012 at 06:49 AM.
If I had been the ref I had demanded a red shirt for the German team.
Typical for Andrea, straightforward but also a little shy and Julia very excited, smirking all the time.
And we can clearly see that she uses a quality product and not the cheap tissues from ALDI.
the cheap tissues from Aldi
Julia made me a big smile on my face when I saw her blow her nose again she never forgets
@Laechler great quality! pretty nice video including her tissues again she´s way worse than me
Julia's video thread
I'll search in Vadim's library.
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