FRIDAY THE 13th GOLDEN SWING SPECIAL

Camilo Ugo Carabelli (+120) def Mariano Navone (-154) 6-2 7-5

ATP Buenos Aires Second Round

Camilo Ugo Carabelli is ranked 47, yet I’m guessing very few tennis fans outside of Argentina have really watched him or even heard of him. Navone is slightly more known among tennis fans especially in the US, partly thanks to Reilly Opelka’s comment about him last year during a servebot interview.

John Isner was interviewing Opelka about the upcoming Roland Garros tournament and asked him:

Isner: “What do you think are your chances of winning?”
Opelka: “Oh god. Like a real guess? … Zero.”
Isner: “lololol”
Opelka: “Im playing NavonEH, a guy you’ve never heard of, you know, that you don’t really even know. And I’m the underdog. I’m definitely the underdog there. It’s not a good sign.”
Isner: “No it’s not a good sign. So let’s call it less than 1%”
Opelka: “WELL under 1%”
Isner: “So you’re saying there’s a chance.”
Opelka: “I said zero. I stand by none.”

One of the reasons for this match report is this is the first time I’ve really properly sat down and watched an entire Ugo Carabelli match. I’ve watched quite a lot of Navone matches, so I have a pretty good idea of what Navone brings to the table. And watching this match, I was quite shocked to see how helpless Navone looked against Ugo Carabelli for 90% of the match. I think it is fair to say Ugo Carabelli looked to be in a higher weight class; he was just playing his normal game, while Navone was scrambling for answers. And in the end, Ugo Carabelli improved to 3-1 vs Navone.

There were 3 phases to this match.

Phase 1: Ugo Carabelli domination as he goes up 6-2, 5-2

One thing I noticed after watching a full Ugo Carabelli match is he draws a lot of errors on the opponent’s backhand. Navone has one of the best backhands of all of the clay dogs, and it did not hold up well. Ugo Carabelli has a massive forehand, but he hits it to safe targets with high RPMs and plenty of net clearance, and on clay courts his ball gets lots of action, making it difficult for the opponent to control and redirect.

Navone knew that Ugo Carabelli can hurt him with his forehand, so he tried to avoid it by trying to exclusively hit to his backhand side. What ended up happening was Ugo Carabelli started cheating more and more to his backhand side, giving Navone a smaller and smaller target. If Navone didn’t get enough angle on his ball, Ugo Carabelli would unleash an inside-out or inside-in forehand and take control of the point. When Navone did get it to the backhand side, Ugo Carabelli does just enough with his cross court backhand to not allow Navone to comfortably redirect his backhand down the line.

It should also be noted Ugo Carabelli’s slice backhand was extremely effective in this match; while his standard crosscourt backhand was regularly hit with depth, his slices landed shorter in the court and stay very low, making it impossible for Navone to redirect it down the line with any sort of pace. Navone repeatedly got stuck in these backhand to backhand exchanges and Ugo Carabelli would eventually get a forehand almost every point. The few times Navone did try to redirect his backhand down the line, he missed wildly.

While I would rate Navone’s backhand as stronger than Ugo Carabelli’s, Ugo Carabelli’s forehand was the most powerful weapon on the court, and the presence of this weapon dictated how the rallies went. Neither guy has a particularly strong serve, so this match was mostly determined by rallies, which Ugo Carabelli was dominating.

Phase 2: Navone comeback? 6-2, 5-5

Ugo Carabelli served for the match at 6-2 5-2, and at this point Navone changed his tactics a bit. He started swinging more freely with his forehand and attacked Ugo Carabelli’s forehand more, which opened up the court and allowed Navone to start dictating rallies. With Navone’s forehand holding up against Ugo Carabelli’s forehand, he was force Ugo Carabelli to move more side to side and opened up the court. Navone is someone who doesn’t really like to play risky tennis, but with his back against the wall he started being more assertive, and it worked. He broke Ugo Carabelli twice and held once, and none of the games were really in doubt. This is where Ugo Carabelli’s lack of powerful serve became evident.

Phase 3: The comeback stalls

Once the second set got back to 5-5, Navone probably started believing he could actually win the match. And as soon as this thought crept into his mind, he started misfiring on his forehands. Once he lost the slightest bit of confidence in his forehand, it was over. Ugo Carabelli retook control of the rallies for the next two games and closed out the match quite comfortably.

Analysis

As you can see, the phase of the match that Navone dominated was very short. Ugo Carabelli has a simple but effective gameplan built exclusively for success on clay… hit as many forehands as possible, and hit them big. The action on his forehand balls immediately puts opponents on the defensive and can turn the tide of any rally. In order to beat him on clay, I suspect you need a good serve and/or strong forehand where you can attack his forehand side and open up the court. If he is allowed to camp out on his backhand wing and hit forehand invertido all day, you are cooked. He kind of reminds me of Ruud on clay, albeit without as good a serve. And we shouldn’t overlook some of the other things he does well: his backhand slice is a great neutralizing shot, and he utilizes the drop shot very well in combination with his big forehand, which led to Navone having an atrocious percentage of net points won.

Credit to Navone for figuring out a way to claw his way back into the match when he realized his original strategy wasn’t working. But only partial credit, because he made the adjustment way too late. I give more credit to Comesaña in the last round, who was similarly being bullied by Ugo Carabelli in the same way and made adjustments way earlier in their second set. Comesaña actually got to triple set point (but then he blinked, three times).

Since Ugo Carabelli doesn’t do much with his serve, and given how spinny his forehand is, it’s no surprise that he hasn’t had success on hard courts or grass courts. Navone’s lack of serve and lack of forehand weapon also hurts him on other surfaces, but he does have some interesting wins. His best wins on hard court last year are Learner Tien at Indian Wells (Tien beat him in 3 later in the year), and he Shapovalov on grass at Wimbledon. What is the common theme here? Both of these guys are lefties.

On clay, Ugo Carabelli is clearly a step above Navone in this particular head to head matchup. I wouldn’t necessarily say Ugo Carabelli is the better clay court player, just that this matchup definitely favors him. Looking at the losses Ugo Carabelli took on clay last year, it’s been guys like Baez, Etcheverry, and Darderi beating him. All of these guys are much stronger than Navone on their forehand wing (interestingly Ugo Carabelli beat Etcheverry on hard courts).

In conclusion, Carabelli is good.