Only 9 times in Federer's career...

...has he been aced 20 or more times in a match. And only ONE time over 30. In over 1000 matches. And he played tons of matches against players who routinely hit 20+ aces against others, but he shrinks them to Coria numbers sometimes. The latest victim, Isner, 4 aces?! This guy is insanely hard to ace.

Here, the list of the lucky ones who did it, except for that one who had 31 aces against him, let's see if anyone knows who it was:)


sampras in 01 wimbledon 26 aces

ljubičić in 03 basel 27 aces

verkerk in 03 paris 24 aces

ljubičić in 06 miami 21 aces

karlović in 08 cincinnati 22 aces

karlović in 09 wimbledon 23 aces

roddick in 09 wimbledon 27 aces

f.lopez in 11 madrid (clay) 23 aces

and the guy with the weird ball toss 31 aces
 

Jonny S&V

Hall of Fame
Of course he's hard to ace, he has probably the best stab-return of all time. Most guys like to go the Agassi-route (get aced but also be aggressive on the balls they do get ahold of).
 

Jonny S&V

Hall of Fame
Are there any stats for Agassi, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray?

The only one I have off the top of my head is Agassi, who I believe has a 50+ ace match (Johansson), and was aced semi-regularly (although when he got his racquet on the ball, he was very successful).
 
Are there any stats for Agassi, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray?


it would be interesting to know for murray, hewitt, and edberg ( if i recall correctly, he was hard to ace)

on top of my head, roddick had once 31 aces against hewitt, and karlović 55
goran aced edberg 30+ atleast twice
can't remember for murray or djoko
 

Carsomyr

Legend
Nadal was aced over 30 times in Queen's by Karlovic, and over 30 times in Madrid against Ljubicic off the top of my head.
 
stats for murray - he has been aced 20 or more only 4 times, 30 or more, never:shock:
he played 447 matches

roddick, 06 wimbledon, 21 aces
karlović, 07 san jose, 26 aces
almagro, 08 roland garros, 21 aces
roddick, 09 wimbledon, 21 aces


stats for djokovic - 20 or more 9 times, 1 time over 30, in 521 matches
5 times at the us open, interesting


monfils, 05 us open, 22 aces
stepanek, 06 rotterdam, 20 aces
ančić, 06 wimbledon, 31 aces
fish, 06 us open, 21 aces
čilić, 08 us open, 20 aces
federer, 08 us open, 20 aces
karlović, 08 madrid, 20 aces
troicki, 10 us open, 23 aces
isner, 12 indian wells, 20 aces
 
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Mustard

Bionic Poster
Federer is lucky he never faced prime Goran. Even Agassi got aced 37 times in the 1992 Wimbledon final.
 

akv89

Hall of Fame
Federer is lucky he never faced prime Goran. Even Agassi got aced 37 times in the 1992 Wimbledon final.

Agassi was a great returner but at the same time had plenty of matches where he was aced quite often due to his aggressive return stance near the baseline.

I would think Monfils would have pretty impressive numbers in this category. As far as I know, he's the only person to play a full match against Karlovic and not get aced.
 

dudeski

Hall of Fame
Agassi was a great returner but at the same time had plenty of matches where he was aced quite often due to his aggressive return stance near the baseline.

I would think Monfils would have pretty impressive numbers in this category. As far as I know, he's the only person to play a full match against Karlovic and not get aced.

Yeah he got aced more than 50 times in a 4 set match at relatively slow AO by Pim Pim.
 

NamRanger

G.O.A.T.
Would {aces} + {Service winners} + [optionally, winner hit on Return of serve] against the returner be a better indication of success on ROS/as a returner? Of course, no such stats are probably available :(
 

Mustard

Bionic Poster
http://www.atpworldtour.com/Players/Head-To-Head.aspx?pId=F324&oId=I034


Baby Federer owned a veteran Goran on indoor carpet and on HC.


Please. And Agassi is notorious for getting aced alot; that's because his aggressive positioning and guessing gets him aced alot; however he makes it up by breaking alot when he gets his racquet on the ball.

Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.
 

TMF

Talk Tennis Guru
Agassi was aced 51 times by Johansson and 46 times by Philippoussis.

Karlovic would have a field day against Agassi.
 

Mustard

Bionic Poster
The most aces Goran ever handed Federer was 11.

And that was Goran playing badly, with his overall confidence in the gutter. By that point, his days of being in the top 10 for 6 years were long gone and he was in a terrible slump.
 
Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

LOL, this guy has every excuse in the book lined up
 

Andres

G.O.A.T.
Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.
Needless to say, he needed shoulder surgery for that entire period. He played Wimbledon 2001 while his shoulder was literally falling off, and he had to take painkillers before and after every match. And yet, he managed to average 30 aces a match during the entire tournament.
 

TMF

Talk Tennis Guru
And that was Goran playing badly, with his overall confidence in the gutter. By that point, his days of being in the top 10 for 6 years were long gone and he was in a terrible slump.

Karlovic is an ACE master, and yet, he met Federer 11 times to only delivered 22 aces at best. I cannot see Goran would do any better than Karlovic.

Anyway, this is pointless since no one agree that Roger is susceptable to get aced as much as Agassi.
 

Mustard

Bionic Poster
Karlovic is an ACE master, and yet, he met Federer 11 times to only delivered 22 aces at best. I cannot see Goran would do any better than Karlovic.

That's because you're not looking closely enough. Goran has twice broken the 200 aces barrier during a Wimbledon tournament (206 in 1992 and a record 213 in 2001). He also served 1,477 aces on the tour in 1996, and had the most aces of any player on tour in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2001.
 

Mustard

Bionic Poster
Needless to say, he needed shoulder surgery for that entire period. He played Wimbledon 2001 while his shoulder was literally falling off, and he had to take painkillers before and after every match. And yet, he managed to average 30 aces a match during the entire tournament.

And he still held off the surgery after winning Wimbledon, which in hindsight, was a mistake.
 

NamRanger

G.O.A.T.
Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.


Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.


Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.
 
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Andres

G.O.A.T.
Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.


Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.
2001? He was in the top20s only because of his dreamy Wimby run. He was #125 before Wimby for a reason.
 

Mustard

Bionic Poster
Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.

At the 2000 London Indoors, Goran (ranked 61) beat Wayne Black (ranked 142) before losing to Federer (ranked 66).

Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.

At 2001 Milan, Goran was ranked 123 in the world when he lost to Federer (ranked 27). Goran had beaten 33rd ranked Nicolas Kiefer in the first round, a good win, and got a walkover in the next round.
 

pc1

G.O.A.T.
One of Federer's great strength is getting the return in play so I'm not surprised by the stat. People are comparing Agassi to Federer in this way and pointing out that Agassi is inferior to Federer in this way, which is true. However the key stat to me is how often a player can break serve and while Agassi could be aced more than Federer he did break serve more often by percentage than Federer. That being written it is a very impression feat by Federer.

I would tend to think a Ken Rosewall in the past was very hard to ace also. Rosewall could get a lot of seemingly unreturnable serves into play.
 

roysid

Hall of Fame
I thought that acing Nadal would be more tough. He stands 20 feet behind baseline whereas Federer stands close to baseline while returning.
 
M

monfed

Guest
And the worst at converting BPs. :lol:
1/17 in BP conversions against Nadal at FO 2007
1/12 in BP conversions against Nadal at Wimby 2008

That is indeed appalling but hardly surprising,isn't it. Ralph's sliders/kickers give absolute FITS to Fed's BH on the AD side(where the BPs are usually played), always have. That's one thing he's improved on in their recent encounters.

Goran's flat, fast serves would be easier compared to Nadal's sliders for Fed on the BH side. Fed's extremely good at absorbing pace/redirecting.
 
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Bobby Jr

G.O.A.T.
Goran's flat, fast serves would be easier compared to Nadal's sliders for Fed on the BH side. Fed's extremely good at absorbing pace/redirecting.
With today's strings every serve a peak Goran hit in a match would be better than any Nadal could hit. Goran's down the T serve had massive swing on it - imagine it with modern strings.
 
M

monfed

Guest
With today's strings every serve a peak Goran hit in a match would be better than any Nadal could hit. Goran's down the T serve had massive swing on it - imagine it with modern strings.

True, but my point was Fed returns fast serves better compared to kickers which Ralph's dishes out but it wasn't something Goran used to do iirc. What do you feel?
 

Andres

G.O.A.T.
True, but my point was Fed returns fast serves better compared to kickers which Ralph's dishes out but it wasn't something Goran used to do iirc. What do you feel?
Goran used the lefty wide serve more than Nadal. You all knew it was coming, yet there was nothing you could do about it. Imagine that thing coming at you at 120 mph, instead of 100 mph.
 
M

monfed

Guest
Goran used the lefty wide serve more than Nadal. You all knew it was coming, yet there was nothing you could do about it. Imagine that thing coming at you at 120 mph, instead of 100 mph.

Speed doesn't hurt Roger's BH return, it's the vicious kick that Ralph generates,which as far as I remember, Goran didn't(Goran was a flat server, given the conditions this is understandable). The interesting thing is that Fed performs better on Ralph's FS than second serve,that sums it up.
 

Andres

G.O.A.T.
Speed doesn't hurt Roger's BH return, it's the vicious kick that Ralph generates,which as far as I remember, Goran didn't(Goran was a flat server, given the conditions this is understandable). The interesting thing is that Fed performs better on Ralph's FS than second serve,that sums it up.
The only flat serves that Goran served were wide on the deuce sides (being a lefty, this caught everyone off guard). Everywhere else, his first serve was a topspin-slice. A extremely fast one, though, but very spinny. And his slice serve was a killer.
 

Benhur

Hall of Fame
One of Federer's great strength is getting the return in play so I'm not surprised by the stat. People are comparing Agassi to Federer in this way and pointing out that Agassi is inferior to Federer in this way, which is true. However the key stat to me is how often a player can break serve and while Agassi could be aced more than Federer he did break serve more often by percentage than Federer. That being written it is a very impression feat by Federer.

A much more useful stat would be aces received per match (or better yet, per point) not maximum number of aces in one match.

In general, I think most of these absolute stats are rather useless. For example, you look at the ranking by number of aces (career) and you see Roddick at number 3, and Karlovic at number 8. What does that tell you about acing ability? It tells you nothing because Roddick has played many more matches than Karlovic. But Karlovic hits about 18 aces per match on average, while Roddick hits about 11. That’s a HUGE difference. So of course Karlovic would have to be on top of any meaningful list about acing ability, instead of number 8. Such lists are very misleading.

I agree with you that the most relevant statistic for return has to be the percentage of return games won. The main mission of the returner is to neutralize the advantage of the server as soon as possible. If you can accomplish this by systematically hitting return winners or extremely aggressive returns, then so much better: You are not only neutralizing the server’s advantage, but turning it around to yourself. However, if you mix this up with enough errors that you end up winning a much lower percentage of return games than another player, then you may be better off cutting down on your attempts to hit winners off the return, and concentrating on just trying to put the ball back in play well enought so that it doesn’t allow the server to retain the initiative. it may sound less ambitious, but it would be a more effective way of returning if it brings up your perecentage of return games won. Agassi is near the top in percentage of return games won (5 full points higher than Federer, which is a lot) because he was a very effective returner in the sense I’ve just described (though of course he could also hit a good number of return winners). But I believe most returners would willingly give up their ability to hit winners off the return, in exchange for the ability to just put the point in neutral mode right after the return, and do it often enough to win a higher ratio of return games.
 
The only flat serves that Goran served were wide on the deuce sides (being a lefty, this caught everyone off guard). Everywhere else, his first serve was a topspin-slice. A extremely fast one, though, but very spinny. And his slice serve was a killer.


exactly, nice description
 
A much more useful stat would be aces received per match (or better yet, per point) not maximum number of aces in one match.


absolutely
aces recieved per match stat could have been done from the atp, but for that kind of work someone should be payed:)
and 0 aces + 20 unret. serves is better for the server than 19 aces + 0 unret. serves

In general, I think most of these absolute stats are rather useless.


they are, but sometimes they are fun
most (and only) important stat is who won the match:)
 
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