meanwhile medvedev losing to tsitsipas in straights in big 2026:

thank YOU for thinking so! i don't feel like an expert at all but i do really try to engage with tennis on a technical level when i'm watching like you. ifl the biggest factor that's helped w this is simply just accumulating a lot of watchtime which unfortunately will only come with.. time lol, so keep watching & paying attention!

i did play tennis when i was younger, but imo it rly only helps w spotting things specifically wrt technique e.g. grip changes, service motions, footwork, not much abt e.g. strategy. i'm sure there's plenty of online resources regarding technique tho.

i think the hardest thing abt trying to seek out resources to learn about technical analysis of tennis is that so much of technical analyses of tennis out there is just...dogshit nonsense lol. and when u don't know anything it's hard to tell what's bullshit or not. but use your usual critical thinking skills, e.g. what biases might they have, what agenda do they have that might make them cherrypick data or misinterpret the bigger picture, and so on. i'll give 2 examples - ik many ppl hail gill gross as a font of knowledge with insightful analyses, and tbh i would recommend him for an accessible entry to technical analysis! but once u learn past the surface level i found there's so many little things abt his takes that grate me lol, bc u can tell when he's making shit up and covering it with common-sense cliches that sound vaguely reasonable. another example is jim courier, who dgmw 100% has an elite level of ball knowledge! but i personally find him hard to listen to sometimes bc you can definitely see his biases and whenever a player isn't playing exactly the way he thinks they should he starts getting extremely snarky and judgemental abt it. he's sort of like american mark petchey, but i could go on and on complaining about commentators lol. just keep it in mind when u come across other ppl's takes, never take anything at face value even if they sound very confident in delivering it!

as far as resources i can recommend, i'd definitely recommend learning how to interpret match stats. it's very simple, just know what each one means and how you can use that to make judgements about a player's performance. you can infer a large part of what happened in most matches just by looking at serve/return stats so it makes a big difference to pay attention to them. a decent 1st serves in% should be around mid 60s-70s, a good 1st serves won% differs by tour and player but e.g. a high tier atp/tbh even wta player should be ranging in around 70s-80s. tennisabstract.com is a fun resource if you want to have a play around w more detailed stats.

this is a tip i advise you take with a grain of salt bc it's sth that i've only developed for myself and hasn't rly been... tested or corroborated lol, but when i think abt matchup dynamics i try to think of it in the 3 axes (or dimensions) of the court: height (topspin vs flat hitting), depth (of shot, but also baseline vs net play), and ad-deuce (fh vs bh). it's just a prompt to get you thinking more than anything but i found it works quite well for me as a bouncing off spot, although it's not comprehensive ofc.

in terms of ppl i recommend, matthew willis (mattheracquet)'s substack was probably foundational to my technical understanding of tennis lol he was amazing (rip his substack). joseph wofford on twitter has great live threads and analysis. this is a bit of a weird one but blurryturtle in degensclub writes matchup previews for all the slams, and idfk how he does it, like does he keep up w both wta/atp down to 125k/challengers level?? anyway he gives a general or historical context to a match even w relatively unknown players so i can always learn sth new abt a player by reading them. ik ppl like hugh clarke/threadoforder on substack for atp too.

Did you by any chance mean Ben Rothenberg? Because from what I know of David Kane, he can be pretty superficial with his tennis. I judge journalists and tennis media based on how they talk about less flashy or lower ranked players; he was on the mini break podcast to discuss the top 10 and just brushed past Fritz and DeMinaur like there was nothing useful to be learned from talking about their 2025 and upcoming seasons. But he will talk about Taylor Swift or Real Housewives for 20 mins and then skip straight to Alcaraz. So probably not the journalist you’re referring to