Great article!
Just a quick question. Is there a way to distinguish forced errors/mistakes from unforced errors/mistakes?
Well you have to know the players really well to do that accurately. That's why sometimes forced errors seem unforced, which explains the large amount of "unforced errors" by zoomtt
For example, FZD serves ML banana flicks and FZD hits the ball with the edge of his paddle. To us spectators it will probably seem as unforced but there are so many reasons of why this could happen
1. FZD judged correctly but rushed his shot (unforced error)
2.the same as 1 but this time FZD wanted to make sure the ball stays low with lots of spin, overdoes the shot so it hits the edge = unforced error again
3. ma long changes the spin/tempo/length/arc/placement of his banana at the last fraction before contact fooling FZD = forced error so no 3 could be 5-6 reasons. no3 was always a deceptive way of fooling the opponent ZJK or WH style
Now if you are coach of ML FZD or themselves or the CNT statistics team, you cant possibly know for sure what is the reason of FZD missing a shot, so you cant judge for sure if the error was forced or unforced
Also, decision making through experience plays a huge role, FZD pivoted to use a strong FH many times and got outplayed, so for me this counts as many forced errors, which will evolve into less unforced when FZD handles these balls better, you could see that at game 5 and 6 he was more patient, kept himself into the rally and gradually increased the pressure, instead of killing the ball like he did in the past 3 sets
