At the beginning of the 2019 season, it seemed as if Jaume Munar would breakth rough into the top 50 and stay there. By the second half of May, he was up to a career high of World No. 52. Yet, until a great week in Montevideo, Munar was dangerously close to slipping out of the top 100.
Jaume Munar in 2019
Munar started the season with a quarterfinals appearance in Pune, a good result, considering his best surface is clay. Early losses in Sydney and the Australian Open was followed by three straight ATP main tour quarterfinals appearances during the clay court Golden Swing. During the three-tournament stretch of Cordoba, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro, Munar beat accomplished clay courters such as Marco Cecchinato, Fabio Fognini, and Leonardo Mayer.
Yet, it felt as if the gas tank was emptying following the last tournament of the Golden Swing, Sao Paolo, where Munar lost in a tight three set match to Cristian Garin in the second round.
The Spaniard plays a very defensive style of tennis. He often stands well behind the baseline and engages in long rallies. There is very little power in Munar’s tennis, so he has to grind through match after match. This clearly took a toll on him, as he played some very physical matches during that Golden Swing.
Munar would only reach one more quarterfinal above the Challenger Tour for the rest of the season. He would beat Alexander Zverev on his way to the quarterfinals of the clay court tournament in Marrakech. However, besides that, he largely struggled for the rest of the season.
Mid-season slump and very late recovery
From the Barcelona Round of 16 in April to the Gstaad 1st round in July, Munar lost nine matches in a row. This included first round losses at both the French Open and Wimbledon. Following a first round loss at the US Open, Munar would drop down to mainly Challengers. While Munar did have much more success at these Challengers, he still didn’t win a title during these Challenger tournaments.
However, in the Montevideo Challenger, the form that saw Munar have success during the Golden Swing returned. Munar had a string of impressive victories, which included beating Jozef Kovalik, Thiago Seyboth Wild, and Federico Delbonis. This was a great turnover from what had been a really tough time for the Spaniard.
For a player with so much momentum early in the season, Munar’s physical style struggled for a while to keep up with players who had more weapons than him. For the Spaniard to succeed in 2020, he will need to bulk up his upper body strength and focus less on heavy topspin and more on getting his groundstrokes to cut through the court more. That way he can sustain himself physically throughout the season.
Main Photo from Getty.
