Match Stats/Report - Lendl vs Becker, Queens 1990

[Waspsting]

Ivan Lendl defeated Boris Becker 6-3 6-2 in the final at the Queens Club 1990 on grass

Lendl won 57 points, Becker 44. Both players serve-volleyed 100% of the time - making differentiating errors into forced and unforced difficult and counting net points superfluous

Service Stats
Lendl -
- First serve percentage (27/53) 51%
- First serve points won (25/27) 93%
- Second serve points won (12/26) 46%
- Aces 12, Service Winners 1 (by my judgment)
- Double Faults 6
- Unreturned serve percentage (27/47) 57%

Becker -
- First serve percentage (28/58) 48%
- First serve points won (18/28) 64%
- Second serve points won (12/30) 40%
- Aces 5, Service Winners 1 (by my judgment)
- Double Faults 5
- Unreturned serve percentage (21/53) 39%


Service Pattern
Lendl served -
- to the forehand 32%
- to the backhand 66%
- to the body 2%

(Note: Lendl's serve placement was about 50-50 until he finished with 13 successive serves to the backhand over three games)

Becker served -
- to the forehand 30%
- to the backhand 53%
- to the body 17%


Return Stats
Lendl returned 32 serves (8 FH, 24 BH... he returned or attempted to return 8/9 body serves with the backhand. He had 13 return of serve winners (3 FH, 10 BH), all passes

He made 15 return errors (5 FH, 10 BH), of which I judged 2 (1 FH, 1 BH) as being unforced

Becker returned 21 serves (7 FH, 14 BH). He had 2 return of serve winners (2 BH), both down the line.

He made 14 return errors (4 FH, 10 BH), of which I judged 1 (1 BH) as unforced


Break Points
Lendl 4/5 (had break points in 4 games)
Becker 0/5 (had break points in 1 game - his first return game, where Lendl fell to 0-40)


Winners (including return of serves, excluding aces)
Lendl 23 (4 FH, 12 BH, 3 FHV, 3 BHV, 1 OH)
Becker 9 (2 FH, 4 BH, 2 FHV, 1 BHV)

- All but 3 of Lendl's groundstroke winners were return of serves. 1 FH was hit from the middle of the court (not a pass), 1 was a BH lob and the third was an exceptionally hard hit non-return BH passing shot.
So Lendl had 15 passing shot winners in total

- Becker's two FH winners were hit at the net. 2 BH's were returns, 2 were not - all were passes
So Becker had 4 passing shot winners in total - all BHs


Errors (excluding double faults and return errors)
(Note: with both players serve-volleying all of the time, differentiating errors into 'forced' and 'unforced' is problematic at best. I seem to have been relatively lenient - the box score at the end of the match was stricter in its judgment)

Lendl made 11 errors
- 8 Forced (2 FH, 1 BH, 4 FHV, 1 BHV)
- 3 Unforced (1 FH, 1 BH, 1 OH)

Becker made 9 errors
- 8 Forced (2 BH, 2 FHV, 3 BHV)
- 1 Unforced (1 BHV)

(The box score at the end of the match had Lendl with 14 unforced errors and Becker 12. Assuming those figures include double faults, that translates to Lendl with 8 and Becker 7

I judged Lendl to have made 2 unforced return errors and Becker 1 - numbers presumably also contained in the box score figures

In short, box score had Lendl with 3 more unforced errors than I've given him and Becker with 6 more)


Other Stats - Faring against the First Serve

Against the first serve,

Returns put back in play on FH - Lendl 6/14 (including 2 winners), Becker 4/11
Returns put back in play on BH - Lendl 8/14 (including 3 winners), Becker 2/16

Key Stats

- Take a look at Lendl's 93% first serve points won the indecent number of 13 return of serve winners

 

[The Green Mile]

I remember Lendl returned the 2nd serve extremely well, seemingly passing at will with those chip backhand returns. Becker struggling on serve all match, sarcastically raising his arms after hitting an ace deep in the 2nd set. Displeased with the amount of cheap points he wasn't getting on serve.

 

[Waspsting]

Match Report

Pete Sampras once said that the key shot on grass was the return of serve, not the serve. I would say that the return is the key, assuming that the serve is first rate, and this match is a great example of that.

What Ivanisevic usually was to "Serve-Volleying", Lendl in this match was to returning. With Goran, the "volleying" component of S/V often wasn't too important and here... the return was all Lendl needed

13 clean return of serve winners, as well as returns that drew/forced most of Becker's 6 volleying errors. For good measure, the Czech did let loose with a knockout backhand passing winner off the ground... almost certainly the hardest hit shot in the match

Some background. Lendl had apparently set aside time to be extra ready for grass (meaning Wimbledon) this year. He skipped the French Open and according to the commentators, had devoted 4 months to his grass court preparation, under the guidance of Tony Roche. And it showed. He won this tournament without dropping serve.

In this final match, he certainly served huge. The first serve was all but untouchable. He didn't hold back much on the second delivery either. His volleying was also top notch... I don't think he made a single, bad volley. They were deep and mostly well placed

Its the return that caught the eye though, especially the backhand

The backhand return is particularly key... you'll notice both players served the bulk of the points on that wing, and I suspect that that's normal, even more so on grass than on other surfaces. Both players had the reputation for taking big cuts on the return but it was Lendl's touch that impressed most.

He hit a number of delicate, sharply angled, glided chips that were falling as Becker tried to reach them. When Becker did, he had to volley up. More often, he didn't and the ball went through for a clean winner.

The cross court backhand chip was the highlight and twice Lendl put it away for a winner. There was one equally elegant inside-out backhand chip winner, as well as a number of more commonplace backhand down the lines. On the forehand side, he was just as steady if not nearly as pretty

One could see that Ivan had paid particular attention to the backhand return. Becker hit nine serves to the body and Lendl returned (or tried to return) 8 of them with backhands. At least once, he backhanded a return that was slightly to the right of him. This is in contrast to other matches I've seen of him, where he tends to run around the backhand to hit forehand returns on occasion

He seems to have foreseen that his backhand would come under attack... and prepared the shot so consummately that he actually preferred to return from the naturally weaker wing

Watching this match, I knew of course that Lendl would go on to lose in straight sets to Stefan Edberg a couple of weeks later at Wimbledon and kept an eye on why that might have happened.

In this match, Lendl was making the most of Becker's power. Such is the power of Becker's serve that the chip return was passing by before the German was in place at the net, forcing him to volley up if he could reach it. With Edberg's slower serve, that probably wouldn't work as well. Under the microscope as well came the Becker volley, which I never felt was all that terrific.

He didn't exactly miss easy volleys, but struggled with the low ones. Netting a couple in a row - one of which he just had to put in court to get a winner -cost him the first break and he was otherwise not impressive at the net. Edberg probably coped with such situations better.

In this match, Lendl was fairly clearly the better volleyer

Towards the end of the match, Becker charmed with his trademark diving volley. Lendl, spoilsport that he is, ran back get a racket on the ball and deny the clean winner

Final verdict - a classy performance from Ivan Lendl, which must've given him a good shot in the arm for Wimbledon. Anyone ever says Lendl couldn't play on grass... show them this match

I remember Lendl returned the 2nd serve extremely well, seemingly passing at will with those chip backhand returns. Becker struggling on serve all match, sarcastically raising his arms after hitting an ace deep in the 2nd set. Displeased with the amount of cheap points he wasn't getting on serve.

Yeah, he did that. Same gesture as when he won Wimbledon - hands held aloft. It was good naturedly done too



Bit odd about the serving. Both guys painted the lines with their aces, but otherwise, had very few unreturn-able looking serves (just one service winner for each)

All the other serves were return-able... almost none of the aces from either guy were

 

[KG1965]

Ivan did an extraordinary tournament, in semi beat McEnroe.
Then Edberg overwhelmed him at Wimbledon.

He won Queen's even two years ago but without top players (because Wilander and Edberg lost in previous rounds).

Perhaps Ivan improved the volley with the passage of time.

 

[TimeToPlaySets]

@Waspsting are you rewatching these matches, and compiling these stats yourself? That is amazing dedication. What is your motivation for this work?

For a fee, would you ever consider doing this analysis for a rec players home video?

 

[Moose Malloy]

Just noticed you don't include double faults in you unreturned serve counts. You are free to compile stats anyway you want, but just letting you know that in the hundreds of matches where we've tracked that stat, we interpret unreturned serves % to mean total unreturned serves divided by total service points, which of course include double faults.

As far as your analysis, I watched 1990 Wimbledon beginning to end, Lendl was not in great form throughout, I think that was a bigger factor than any differences between Becker and Edberg. I have stats on Lendl's win over Edberg in 1987(a match many were predicting him to lose) and his level was much higher than in 1990.

 

[IowaGuy]

Both players serve-volleyed 100% of the time

Is this just for 1st serves, or did they S&V 100% on 2nd serves as well?

 

[Gizo]

At the time, the legendary British commentator Dan Maskell labelled Lendl's display in this match as the finest grass court performance he had ever seen

Of course that is subjective and everyone has their own equally valid opinions there, but unlike people like Mac in the commentary booth nowadays, Maskell wasn't prone to hyping up everything.

 

[Waspsting]

Is this just for 1st serves, or did they S&V 100% on 2nd serves as well?

1st and 2nd

Just noticed you don't include double faults in you unreturned serve counts. You are free to compile stats anyway you want, but just letting you know that in the hundreds of matches where we've tracked that stat, we interpret unreturned serves % to mean total unreturned serves divided by total service points, which of course include double faults.

Ok. Will do in future - and add a "Return of Serve" percentage which excludes doubles (which would be 1 - the stat I've been giving)

Technically, a double is an "unreturned serve", but that's silly. Realistically, its a "non-serve". I see your point though - from the servers point of view, the figure should go down for having made doubles. From the returners POV, the situation is a bit different

How do you guys handle "unforced errors" in serve-volley situations?

@Waspsting are you rewatching these matches, and compiling these stats yourself? That is amazing dedication. What is your motivation for this work?

For a fee, would you ever consider doing this analysis for a rec players home video?

I haven't seen most of the matches I've done so far before

Highlights are one thing, full matches are another... I wanted to get a real idea of some of these players I've seen very little off (and at a young age). Plus, these matches are fun and different from what we see today... not much credit to my dedication for that!

For the stat taking - I did want to share the experience of my viewings with those who are interested in stuff like this. Probably not too many around here, but that makes it more not less worthwhile to me

I was also influenced by going through the huge list of matches that have been 'statisti-fied' here on the forum. They make for good reading... painting a picture with numbers

And I had some free time, which won't last . Don't think I have the time for home videos right now, but I'll let you know if that changes (if the fee is millions, ignore everything I just said and send me the cheque and video - in that order - right away)

 

[TimeToPlaySets]

I applaud your interest in taking a deeper look at history.
A true scholar.