What Did The Ball Ever Do To You, Sir?

While I have no way of knowing exactly what was on world No. 44 Nicolas Almagro’s mind, he poured a lot of it onto this unsuspecting tennis ball during yesterday’s match against No. 86 Yuichi Sugita at the Stockholm Open.

This return is one of the most satisfyingly savage groundstrokes I’ve seen in a while, skidding off the baseline before Sugita can even recover from his service motion. Skip to 13:42 below for the barely visible shot and some sumptuous replays:

Sugita is left peering for a ball mark, while Almagro admiringly picks at his racket strings, as if to say, thanks, I needed that.