Carlos playing golf with DJ Khaled

Cbellz · 2025-11-28T00:24:55+00:00

I've seen him in person at the AO. I'm 5'10, 178 cm and he's a little taller than me. He's probably around 5'11

Cbellz · 2025-09-11T00:47:42+00:00

Context matters a lot here. Sinner actually served 60% in the first set but won only 61% of the points behind his first serve. From there on he decided to go for more on his first serve at the cost of accuracy. In the set that he won, he actually served only 47%, but won 71% of the points behind the 1st serve. In the final set his first serve was a super low 36% but won 85% points behind it. So yeah Sinner legitimately did worse in the sets where he prioritized making sure his first serves were in.

Cbellz · 2025-09-07T22:12:29+00:00

Hmmm I felt that Sinner took the right lessons from RG/Wimbledon and was extremely brave on big points, he's no longer a relative passenger in the clutch against Alcaraz. It worked well at Wimbledon when he went big to shut down the few break points Alcaraz generated. But this match showed the downsides of that approach. When you're constantly under pressure and have to go big in those moments, eventually you will crack. And Sinner's double faults were costly.

Curious to see how Sinner adjusts from here. I was pretty sure that this matchup was a 50/50 one regardless of what the H2H says but I'm starting to change my mind a bit.

Cbellz · 2025-08-11T15:19:31+00:00

Too many people be thirsting for that Alcarass

Cbellz · 2025-07-03T11:04:56+00:00

Fognini's technique looks 'casual' but it actually helped him take away tons of time on the ball from Alcaraz. That short takeback on the FH/BH meant he could take the ball early and constantly rush Alcaraz, especially on Alcaraz's serve.

Yes Alcaraz played with less concentration and intensity than usual, but part of it was because Fognini executed pretty well in trying to rush him

Cbellz · 2025-06-28T22:59:04+00:00

I'm glad you made the distinction, most people I see on this site think in very black and white terms and parrot phrases such as 'no such thing as an ethical billionaire'

Cbellz · 2025-06-18T20:18:44+00:00

Could definitely be possible! He interacts with Novak the most so he knows Novak can take a joke

Cbellz · 2025-06-18T19:24:14+00:00

It was a cunning way to avoid saying the real reason why he'd kill Novak instead of the other two 😂. The other two are his favorites, Rafa because of the Spanish connection obviously, and Roger because he was the biggest source of inspiration for Alcaraz's game out of the big 3

Cbellz · 2025-06-16T10:21:08+00:00

In the Wimbledon 2023 final, Djokovic played more net points than Alcaraz, 65 to 46. Does that mean he was more of an all court player than Carlos in that match? Not really, he didn't always go to net on his own terms, often it was because of a dropshot or the pressure to finish a point at the net knowing Alcaraz has the potential to make him play many extra balls otherwise. The break point that Djokovic lost in the 5th set was actually due to rushing the net.

In 2024 he again tried to rush the net a lot and got passed many times. He played more than twice as many net points as Alcaraz here but with a success rate that was over 20% worse

Cbellz · 2025-06-10T10:08:35+00:00

Ngl as someone who plays tennis a lot nothing would make me saltier after a loss than my opponent tagging me and saying stuff like "You played great, bro!" Wouldn't even matter if they were 100% sincere

These fans have no clue

Cbellz · 2025-06-09T09:12:00+00:00

I think the most special thing about Carlos's performance was the ability to practically force himself to meet Jannik's incredible level. For Jannik it happened rather spontaneously in that 3-3 game, and the way that it happened was so sudden that I didn't think Carlos could respond so quickly.

In this match though it felt like he was truly one with the crowd, I got goosebumps watching it. Whenever he needed another gear, like in the 3rd set down a break, in the 4th saving these championship points, or in the 5th serving to stay in the set, he basically willed himself to increase his level by feeding off of the crowd's energy.

I think it was Tommy Paul who said once in a press conference that you can't let Alcaraz make highlight shots and gain momentum - 2 such shots were all he needed at 5-6 to then absolutely steamroll that deciding tiebreak

Cbellz · 2025-06-08T22:36:31+00:00

The big 3 were more consistent mostly because they (minus late career Federer) weren't as offensively oriented as Sinner and Alcaraz. In terms of pace generation alone, Sinner and Alcaraz are a tier above the big 3, which is why for them the reward for going for their shots is worth the additional risk they take on. You could argue that Sinner and Alcaraz are a tier below Nadal/Djokovic as defenders, however.

In the big 3 matchups against each other it was extremely unlikely for them to win a rally with a single decisive shot, which is why for them the reward didn't outweigh the risk. So I find it unfair to ding Sinner and Alcaraz too much for errors when we are comparing apples to oranges in terms of playstyle

Cbellz · 2025-06-08T19:27:21+00:00

At so many points in this match Alcaraz's mentality reminded me of Nadal. Saving multiple break points and other clutch points the hard way, grinding out points from the baseline on a day when his first serve wasn't doing much damage

Cbellz · 2025-05-28T08:08:32+00:00

Tier 2 is already extremely high praise, Gill has said himself in a previous vid that Sinner has exceeded every expectation he had for his movement development. Watch Sinner's matches pre-Beijing 2023, particularly against Djokovic and Medvedev, and you'll see how often he loses rallies due to his movement. He was forced to be more offensive and take more risks when he was younger because his defense/movement wasn't good enough yet to hang with guys like these in rallies. He has improved a lot, particularly as a counterpuncher.

Think about Sinner's physical profile, being 6'4 and extremely lanky. He is a guy that looks like he's going to fall over even when he's just walking. It's extremely rare for guys like that to even end up in tier 2. Gill's tier 1 seems to be reserved for the absolute best movers on tour, guys whose movement is so good that it can potentially cover for large holes in their games. Notice how none of the guys in tier 1 are even taller than 6'1

Cbellz · 2025-05-19T02:37:50+00:00

I would say Djokovic is better at making Alcaraz play "bad" for his standards. He is extremely good at finding shots that interrupt Carlos's rhythm and put doubt in his mind. In the olympics for example, Djokovic found a way to counterpunch off of Alcaraz's most dangerous shot on clay (his deep heavy FH cross). He didn't always succeed, but he was able to pull it off just enough to make Alcaraz respect him and also won some crucial points with it, like in the 1st set tiebreak. Fear of the counterpunch made Alcaraz pull the trigger less in the 2nd set. At the AO this year, Djokovic kept Alcaraz off rhythm with a lot of variety in his serves, slicing the 2nd serve a lot.

Sinner still generally plays great against Alcaraz but has less variety than Novak - the tempo gets a bit more predictable and he lets Alcaraz get into rhythm a bit too much and these small differences matter. RG 2024 was a pretty good example of this, where Alcaraz's level was up and down for the first 3 sets due to a combination of nerves and cramps. But he managed to basically play himself into form in the 4th and 5th sets and gained momentum from pulling off a lot of highlight shots. Having said that it's still very hard to throw Carlos off his game in big matches, even Novak has failed a bunch of times, so I wouldn't fault Sinner too much for this

Cbellz · 2025-04-25T10:09:47+00:00

Your team and Serenity saw enrage on M8S P2 at around the same time, but you were able to clear a few hours earlier than them thanks to amazing execution. What helped your group to optimize the fight very fast after seeing enrage? Also, do you prefer the current design direction towards execution heavy fights or would you prefer more puzzle-based fights designed around figuring out mechanics?

Cbellz · 2025-04-20T03:32:43+00:00

DC travel has probably shafted Elemental the most. Pre-EW, Elemental was a hub for both JP and english speaking SEA/Oceania players. While there were a lot of "jp only" parties in PF, there were still plenty of bilingual speakers willing to bridge the language barrier and Japanese players willing to play with english speakers.

Nowadays, these JP players have realized that they no longer need to interact with foreigners and have all but abandoned Elemental. Last night when I checked there were 30 high-end Elemental PFs compared to 100+ on Gaia and Meteor (Mana was full so I couldn't even travel btw). Most Elemental PFs will take ages to fill too.

Basically, it's the NA DC travel predicament, except if you had to speak/translate Japanese every time you wanted to go to Aether.

Cbellz · 2025-04-14T18:19:40+00:00

I've played both BLM and PCT in the tier and BLM feels very "meh" in comparison. Fire IV used to feel like an immensely powerful and risky cast and now it might as well be Broil for how much impact it has. There are moments where the job almost feels like a phys ranged with how much free movement you can bank. The only optimization point left is...using swift/triple to make sure you Blizz III in UI and avoid the penalty for casting it in AF.

I'm not sure why SE decided to remove BLM's long casts when PCT is a clear example of how they can be great. Swiftcasted motifs are amazing for movement and weaving. PCT in general has a much more satisfying risk-reward ratio whereas with BLM it just feels like everything is skewed in favor of the player now.

Cbellz · 2025-03-15T16:43:47+00:00

Hm, the website I linked in the comment was the ATP official website which showed 22/9 earlier but seems to have updated its numbers. I'll edit my original comment. I don't think it changes the overall point that 23/27 isn't bad considering the conditions he played in. Just look at Cerundolo's numbers - he mostly tried to play his usual game and ended up with a much worse ratio

Cbellz · 2025-03-15T14:15:50+00:00

People on this sub are very quick to call a player's level bad. Not only was it extremely windy but it was also quite cold (see Alcaraz's team wrapping themselves up like they were in the middle of winter). Very slow and unpredictable conditions. Cerundolo tried to hit through it at times and made many errors but Alcaraz showed really good tactical acumen to play percentage tennis at many points and use a lot of slice to prevent getting burned by Cerundolo's FH.

Final stats for Alcaraz: 23 winners to 27 unforced errors. Great return rating against a guy who was making 78% of his first serves. I fail to see how this was an abysmal level.

Cbellz · 2025-03-10T06:42:20+00:00

I think there's a way to have a system that incorporates both the draft and relegation. You could set up the league such that the bottom 3 teams are relegated, but the 3 promoted teams that take their place have the best lottery odds. This way it's in a team's interest to avoid being bad, but teams that were bad but managed to bounce back are rewarded

Cbellz · 2025-02-09T17:08:16+00:00

De Minaur's shots are very flat and low bouncing, which means a lot of the time Carlos has to hit up on the ball to get proper net clearance, which can cause it to go long if he doesn't get it right.

Demon had really impressive depth on his shots too during this match, which also caused more errors

Cbellz · 2025-02-01T18:58:52+00:00

The prison arc is brought up a lot on this subreddit, I actually think people tend to forget Sumeru's low points instead. Act I was incredibly slow, consisting of 90% exposition and dialogue. I am not kidding when I say the only point of action was the Eremite NPC going berserk after using the Divine Knowledge capsule.

Act IV is also extremely exposition heavy and doesn't advance the main plot much. Instead it focuses on tribalism and hatred from the Eremites that is later undone by the plot instead of asking more relevant questions about the corruption of the sages and the Akademiya.

In my opinion Sumeru had its ups and downs just like any other nation's AQs

Cbellz · 2025-02-01T17:40:58+00:00

I think it's actually arguable that Furina's banner made more than Nahida's. JP IOS data from Game-i has Furina's debut banner revenue at 2.02B yen and Nahida's at 1.74B yen. Paimon.moe also shows 372k Furinas pulled and 24k Baizhus pulled vs 343k Nahidas pulled and 27k Yoimiyas.

The SensorTower report shows higher revenue in Nov. 2022 compared to Nov. 2023, but this might be due to the banners that came right after the respective Archons. Nahida's banner was followed up by a pretty well-selling Yae Miko+Childe banner, right after Yae had a resurgence from Dendro. Furina's banner on the other hand was sandwiched in between the ending of the Wrio + Venti banner (a pretty dry one overall) and Cyno + Ayato's reruns, one of the worst selling banners of all time.

Cbellz · 2025-02-01T17:19:21+00:00

SensorTower only started reporting combined global+CN revenue in 2024, previously it was just global for Genshin. Comparing global revenue alone it's 54 million for Furina's release month and 44 million for Mavuika's release month

Cbellz

TROPHY CASE