Erik at Miami final season
Posted on September 9, 2025 at 11:51:03 PM by Craig G
Kind of amazing to see independent thought that doesn't go along with the group think. Wonder who you are to develop that considered view point. Obviously take it seriously
As I see it, the Erik situation requires going beyond the superficial. For one thing, doubles requires an elite back to keep you competitive. Dania did not have the equiv of Lopez and Irastorza in the later years.
Also, hard to win an NAJF tournament or Citrus if they don't exist.
As a bizarre analogy, if you type 'New York 1924' into a search engine, one the top returns will be one of the biggest chess tournaments ever held in the US. Eleven of the world's top players squared off in a double round robin format. Each player played 2 games against every other player, once with white, and once with black. Could not come up with a fairer format to determine the best.
Compare that to jai-alai where one point goes against you, and you may not return to the court. Or an elimination tournament where you are gone after one loss. Point being, it's not all that accurate a system for determining superiority.
Now, you say that Erik played just as good , if not better , as Aritz in Miami singles play.
Well, suspecting that that last Miami season might be the end, I went all out to compile head-to-head stats for the top players. Based on reviewing the video replays.
Key = Goiko
Aritz All: 306 - 198 64.7 S: 150 - 100 66.7 R: 156 - 98 62.8
Erik All: 257 - 148 57.6 S: 142 - 88 62.0 R: 115 - 60 52.2
Foronda All: 187 - 143 76.5 S: 117 - 94 80.3 R: 70 - 49 70.0
Jairo All: 113 - 89 78.8 S: 70 - 59 84.3 R: 43 - 30 69.8
Amigorena All: 192 - 136 70.8 S: 128 - 95 74.2 R: 64 - 41 64.1
Cisneros All: 161 - 115 71.4 S: 98 - 72 73.5 R: 63 - 43 68.3
Ladutxe All: 211 - 144 68.2 S: 123 - 89 72.4 R: 88 - 55 62.5
Lopez All: 343 - 183 53.4 S: 194 - 103 53.1 R: 149 - 80 53.7
Key = Lopez
Aritz All: 308 - 162 52.6 S: 174 - 107 61.5 R: 134 - 55 41.0
Erik All: 232 - 132 56.9 S: 105 - 70 66.7 R: 127 - 62 48.8
Foronda All: 178 - 124 69.7 S: 115 - 85 73.9 R: 63 - 39 61.9
Goiko All: 343 - 160 46.6 S: 149 - 69 46.3 R: 194 - 91 46.9
Jairo All: 126 - 88 69.8 S: 83 - 59 71.1 R: 43 - 29 67.4
Amigorena All: 202 - 134 66.3 S: 140 - 93 66.4 R: 62 - 41 66.1
Cisneros All: 161 - 106 65.8 S: 87 - 61 70.1 R: 74 - 45 60.8
Ladutxe All: 185 - 129 69.7 S: 111 - 83 74.8 R: 74 - 46 62.2
Key = Aritz
Erik All: 220 - 93 42.3 S: 98 - 44 44.9 R: 122 - 49 40.2
Foronda All: 170 - 112 65.9 S: 91 - 65 71.4 R: 79 - 47 59.5
Goiko All: 306 - 108 35.3 S: 156 - 58 37.2 R: 150 - 50 33.3
Jairo All: 111 - 69 62.2 S: 66 - 43 65.2 R: 45 - 26 57.8
Amigorena All: 169 - 110 65.1 S: 87 - 60 69.0 R: 82 - 50 61.0
Cisneros All: 157 - 98 62.4 S: 83 - 59 71.1 R: 74 - 39 52.7
Ladutxe All: 168 - 83 49.4 S: 86 - 38 44.2 R: 82 - 45 54.9
Lopez All: 308 - 146 47.4 S: 134 - 79 59.0 R: 174 - 67 38.5
Key = Erik
Aritz All: 220 - 127 57.7 S: 122 - 73 59.8 R: 98 - 54 55.1
Foronda All: 187 - 129 69.0 S: 123 - 87 70.7 R: 64 - 42 65.6
Goiko All: 257 - 109 42.4 S: 115 - 55 47.8 R: 142 - 54 38.0
Jairo All: 128 - 85 66.4 S: 75 - 51 68.0 R: 53 - 34 64.2
Amigorena All: 169 - 125 74.0 S: 102 - 83 81.4 R: 67 - 42 62.7
Cisneros All: 134 - 88 65.7 S: 79 - 53 67.1 R: 55 - 35 63.6
Ladutxe All: 173 - 103 59.5 S: 100 - 62 62.0 R: 73 - 41 56.2
Lopez All: 232 - 100 43.1 S: 127 - 65 51.2 R: 105 - 35 33.3
Basically,
1 Goiko
2 Lopez
3 Erik
4 Aritz
As for the 'Aritz played hurt' argument, unless it was something like the heartbreak of psoriasis, you would think that playing hurt might risk career-ending injury-aggravation. But you know what, if anybody really cared, they could go back to previous seasons at Miami and examine the head-to-head match-ups of Aritz with Goiko, Lopez and any others. If you find that he did much better against them in prev seasons, then argument supported. But if the figs are similar, then the injury argument looks like an excuse.
One thing I find very striking is that Erik, going into Miami as a visitor, where his top opponents had many years of familiarity and training on that court, managed to win 47.8% of his serving points against Goiko, and 51.2% against Lopez.
My take on this - after watching so many of those points - is that the height and power of the 2 big guys gave them a monster advantage in serving, and also any time they could get a right-side shot from anywhere but very deep. In serving they would often be able to put it away right after the return. A screaming, low trajectory right-side passing shot would either win outright or initiate a rapid rinse-and-repeat death spiral. The prrof of that could be found by examining the elapsed time on their serving points. Where I'm going with this is that the data suggests that whenever a point reached neutrality - no advantage off the serve - Erik was about a 48% chance of winning the point. You can imagine that when Erik served to them he did everything in his power to keep it away from their right sides. At 5'9", I doubt that he blew them away on the serve. Instead, he won 48% of the points with his all-court play. That's amazing. And compare that with the public perception.
IMO, if we borrowed Brainiac's Shrinking Ray, and repurposed it to bring Goiko and Lopez down to 5'9", Erik would destroy them. But as things stand, their power would dominate, especially the lethal right side passers.
I could say a lot more, AND back it up, but what's the point?
Tiger's Jai-Alai Chalk Talk
