Style, Dissected: Analyzing the Wimbledon women's semifinalists

WATCH: World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty leads a top tier of challengers into the Wimbledon semis.

A player who’d won multiple Grand Slam events enters the world of coaching and had a few comments about how the game he’d played and studied for decades was being taught. “There are some very valuable things of the past that have been lost in the wild scramble for speed and power,” he wrote. “These should be recovered and brought back into the repertoire of the modern player.”

The speaker was Bill Tilden. Tilden died in 1953.

How it goes in tennis is that variety is constantly fighting a battle versus pragmatism and the prevailing style of a particular era. To Tilden, serve-and-volley tennis, a highly effective tactic that began to flourish in the late 1940s, was not just downright dull, but a surefire way to stunt an ambitious player’s growth. Decades later, Tilden might have felt the same way about metronomic baseline rallies. “The viewpoint on tennis that stamps a tennis player is that the game is a science and an art,” he wrote. “It can reach its highest expression only if a player is willing to study and practice in an attempt to master the game in all its varied facets.”

But if you brought Tilden to Wimbledon 2021, even he might be pleased by the array of tools deployed by this year’s quartet of women’s semifinalists. Ashleigh Barty, Angelique Kerber, Karolina Pliskova and Aryna Sabalenka each showcase the many ways a player builds and brings a distinct playing style to life. “You look at what’s in play now and you see it’s not as simple as just being an aggressive baseliner or a counterpuncher,” says Emma Doyle, a performance coach based in Colorado.

“They’re all really good athletes,” says Lynne Rolley, former head of women’s tennis for the USTA and currently director of tennis at Meadow Swim & Tennis Club in Orinda, California. “They’re able to move well on the grass and still hit the ball well. They’re able to get the ball back when they’re out of position. There’s plenty of great bending, balance, and footwork.”

Start with how each deploys the game’s most important shot, the serve. Three of the women’s semifinalists have serves that are among the best in tennis. According to Doyle, “Barty has a great throwing action. She gets her shoulder and hips well-turned.” Such excellent technique allows the 5’ 5” Australian to generate tremendous pace and accuracy. “It’s reminiscent of John McEnroe and Roger Federer,” says Tina Samara, who, over the course of her coaching career, has piloted four college teams. “While Barty hits plenty of aces, what she does best of all is use her serve to construct the point in ways that work to her advantage.”

The 6’ 1” Pliskova and 5’ 11” Sabalenka maximize their height to generate significant power. “Each of these two have tremendous leg drive,” says Doyle.

Kerber’s left-handed delivery is nowhere as powerful as the others. A likely reason for Kerber’s serving woes is that she is a natural right-hander. But just like that other righty-turned-lefty, Rafael Nadal, Kerber is extremely effective at running a sequence that opponents know is coming but are often helpless defending. She will serve wide in the ad court, knowing that the natural return is to bring the ball back into the thick middle of the court. From there, Kerber takes command with her forehand. “She can either roll it off the court crosscourt or hit the off-forehand down-the-line either dead flat or with sidespin,” says Craig O’Shannessy, a prominent strategist for many pros who runs Brain Game Tennis.

While Kerber enjoys planting seeds of doubt about the direction of her forehand, Pliskova and Sabalenka favor advanced knowledge. Given the tools each has, why not? And even more, the circumstances surrounding Wimbledon this year also play a major role. “The grass is playing faster this year,” says Rolley. “These players have got to really take the ball early, out in front, hit it off the court and get their opponents moving as much as they can. You commit quickly and hit the ball into the open court.”

Pliskova and Sabalenka are exceptionally aggressive, striking hard, flat groundstrokes off both sides. Says Doyle, “Even on the move, these two like to go for broke.” Rolley admires the simplicity of Pliskova’s technique. “There is no unnecessary motion in it,” she says. “Pliskova just lines up the ball and times it wonderfully.”

In the groundstroke department, Kerber does not hit as hard as Pliskova or Sabalenka, but is much more adept at calibrating her shot choices. “She’s representative of players who don’t mind running and can sneak in the offense,” says O’Shannessy. Kerber’s also aided by the bounces that come off the grass. As Rolley adds, “Kerber is not afraid to get down low and get her weight into the ball.” This strength at handling low balls is a major reason why Kerber is now in the semis of Wimbledon for the third time. It also explains why the only major she has not won is Roland Garros, where higher bounces often compromise her contact point.

Barty offers her own distinct blend, an approach that was built in her formative years, under the tutelage of a coach named Jim Joyce. As a fellow Australian, Doyle closely studied Joyce’s methods. “The emphasis wasn’t just on stroke production but on problem-solving,” says Doyle. “Rather than tell her what to do, he enhanced what she wanted to do, to set up activities that help players learn things like the volley, the slice, the drop shot. In Australia, we respect the tradition of the entire game. We encourage a lot of doubles, so our players work more to build all-court games.”

It will be fascinating to see how all this plays out. “It's going to be big match because she goes for big, big shots, big game, big serve,” said Pliskova. “I think there's not going to be much time to think about, like, what should I do, what should I not do. Just, like, quick decisions. But I believe I have also a game which can bother her a bit. Big serve. I need to play fast, just put pressure on her.”

Samara believes that the difference in the Pliskova-Sabalenka match is that, “Sabalenka has more willingness to give more margin to the ball with her mindset and swing shape.” O’Shannessy concurs. “Pliskova has no desire to play defense, particularly off the forehand,” he says. “She goes down the line too often on defense.”

Barty-Kerber is more complicated, a match likely to see a back-and-forth flow of moves and adjustments. “The all-court game is alive and well with Barty,” says O’Shannessy. Will Kerber’s weak second serve hurt her? Then again, will the Barty slice, effective versus many other players, feed into Kerber’s strength for dispatching low balls?

“It's a match that I know that I need to play my very best tennis to compete with her,” Barty said following her quarterfinal win over fellow Aussie Ajla Tomljanovic, “particularly on this surface, one that I look forward to as really challenging myself against someone who is really comfortable on these courts, like I said, has won this tournament, knows how to win tough matches, has been playing really well on this surface recently, not just this fortnight. It's a great challenge.”