American nationals Men's singles final

Nigel Fewster Asked 8 years ago

Alois/ Jeff hope you have time to review American national final between Mark Hazinski and Yijun Feng. I would like your review of the match Yijun came out like a house on fire and he seemed totally dominant. How would you handle Yijun I realise Mark had major problems with half long top spin serve but it's more of where do you see Yijun weakness to be?

Alois Rosario Answered 8 years ago

Hi Nigel,

I hadn't watched the final but thanks for the prompt.

Now after seeing it I am very impressed with Feng Yijun.  He is only 18 and a huge talent.  He is very strong on the backhand side.

The area that I see as being the area to expose is to his forehand corner.  When Mark Hazinski changed the direction in the 3rd game he had a lot more success.  In the first 2 games he tried to play through Yijun's backhand side which was way too strong.  A lot of players that have strong forehands are surprisingly weaker when you play the first ball out to the forehand side.  It sounds contradictory but they are used to getting the first ball on tier backhand side and then pivoting and playing forehands from the backhand side.  This is what they have had to cope with most of the time.

For those that haven't watched the final, here is a link.

https://youtu.be/xBhU411cWjI?t=1h13m40s

I also see Navin Kumar one of the US Para athletes sitting in the front row there with a good view of the match.