Dmitri would be 1500-1600 where I play at... Near Bay Area of California. In the Washington DC area, he would be 1700-1800.
Sacramento has a LOT of Russians who migrated here from way back in the day. Almost all of these Russians that I have met (except for the O60 crowd) are more American than me or have more time in America than I have, because I spent almost 2/3 of my adult life away from USA.
There is a pastor named Roman, who plays an almost zero topspin game banging the ball. You give him higher dead ball or a higher medium or less topspin ball and he will crush it FH or BH. You give him a low underspin ball and he will not topspin it... he never spent the time to learn how to BH or FH loop an underspin ball. All his life he opened the blade and pounded the ball. It might be they had bad rubber way back in the day and that was the only way to play - BANG BANG no spin.
Roman would maybe be 1500 Bay Area USATT level. When he plays vs his older brother Nicholi, he looks a LOT better as they get into and maintain those high speed bang it low spin shots forever on either wing.
His Brother Nicholi, would be 1900 USATT Bay Area. Nicholi moves like crazy well, even at mid 50s age. He is never out of position. Nicholi can crush any ball even a little high if it isn't underspin or extreme heavy topspin. Nicholi serves long always, looks like top, but often ball has different spin. You will nearly always be off time, he grip it different, ball comes in slower or shorter than it looks. This will make you look real silly trying to all out attack or even control attack it, ball is always different than it looks and a vid will never show it... except where a known player attacks and misses a lot - that is a sign. Many forum members will not catch that sign.
Nicholi will do a soft roll vs a long underspin. it is SO TEMPTING to try to tee off and crush that return... until you miss it a lot and wonder why. The ball never has what you think it does. You need to give it to him low and dead or low and very heavy under... sometimes that is tough to do. he will be there to pound your mistake. You make a good drive or loop wide, Nicholi retrieves it... you never expect ball to land... then it does, you tap it back and BANG, he came back and plastered it. Drive it by him? Almost nothing gets by him.
This is a small sample of how he plays. If you record a vid of Nicholi serving, you would think his serve is 600 USATT, but since 2000+ players fail to consistently land an attack vs his serve, that serve is actually 2000+ level serve. You record a vid of his non-existent topspin stroke, you would think he is USATT 1000. No problem, everyone can think what they want... but I guarantee you, if you do not play that guy right, he will FH or BH crush you on your mistakes and you will make mistake after mistake trying to attack balls you never really read correctly.
It seems a lot of the players from Dmitri's club play like this.
On a vid, it can be tough to know their true level. It is easier to know if they play vs players you know.
