Some stats for 1981 Wimbledon SF (Borg-Connors)

[krosero]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

Connors had an injury that almost forced him out of W that year.

This was reported in the Times as a fractured right thumb.

But how can anyone play with that injury? Did the announcers say it was in a cast, or when it happened?

[urban]

Connors turned himself into an enemy with the Wim crowd that year 1977, when he missed the Centenary parade on the first day, to train on another court with Nastase. The thumb injury (not on the racket hand, only problem was the dh) was made a big deal by the press, but it didn't hamper Connors that much. In the final Connors started on the highest gear. Gordon Forbes in his book described it as self destructive. He couldn't hold his form, and surged back only late in the fourth. Borg then ran away with a 4-0 lead,only to have connors climbing back. Borg himself said, that a Connors double at 4 all in the fifth was the last turning point, because Connors gave away the momentum.

[krosero]

The Washington Post:

The Washington Post

July 3, 1981, Friday, Final Edition

Borg Escapes Connors, McEnroe Storms to Final;
Borg Rallies to Beat Connors, McEnroe Easily Gains Final

BYLINE: By Thomas Boswell, Washington Post Staff Writer

SECTION: Sports; D1

LENGTH: 1827 words

DATELINE: LONDON, July 2, 1981



For 104 years, the defending Wimbledon champion has been referred to as the holder.

But there has never been a holder with a grip like Bjorn Borg's.

In what Borg called the greatest comeback of his fabulous career, the Swede won his 41st consecutive match at the championships, arising from the sick bed of a two-set deficit to beat ferocious Jimmy Connors, 0-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, 6-4, today.

That 3-hour-18-minute marathon semifinal gave Borg a chance to win his sixth straight Wimbledon title in Saturday's final. There he will meet John McEnroe, the 22-year-old child of controversy, who stormed and cursed his way to a straight-set victory over Australia's Rod Frawley this afternoon, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4, 7-5.


That Saturday confrontation, which has been awaited for 364 days since last they met, will have a preposterously hard time surpassing the performance of Borg and Connors this evening in the dusk, the half-light and the shadows.

"I was lucky to survive," said Borg, who now has played eight five-set matches in his 41-match streak, but never one where he was in desperate straits for so long or against so valorous an opponent.

"It was a great match," added the normally placid Borg, who now has a 22-4 record in fifth sets. "Against McEnroe in the final last year was perhaps a little more exciting for the fans. But for me, there were better points today, more complete tennis."

Was this the greatest comeback of a career whose trademark has been the incredible come from behind?

"Yeah, for sure," said Borg, glowing with pleasure when others would still be prostrate. Then, he paused for a second. Should he denigrate all those other now-legendary days here? After all, he was two sets down to Mark Edmondson in 1977. And he had gone five harrowing sets with so many men: Connors, McEnroe, Vitas Gerulaitis, Victor Amaya, Roscoe Tanner, Vijay Amritraj. Each, on its day, stopped the tennis world in its tracks. "This was one of the best," said Borg with a mischievous grin. He was teasing. And he knew it. This was the best. This match of nearly 2,000 shots -- nearly 99 percent of them concussive blasts and the other day 1 percent drop shots and lobs of killing delicacy -- was one of distinct crisis points. The last of those sublimely tense junctures was the one that both players remembered most vividly, for it transformed the field of battle for the final time. As the briefest preamble to that instant, let us offer this synopsis. Connors won nine of the first 10 games of the match in 43 minutes: his goal was a three-set blitz. And he nearly got it. Burning energy with no thought of the cost, Connors, who now has lost his last 10 meetings with Borg since 1978, broke in the ninth game of the second set and had two sets in hand in just 82 minutes.

However, Connors wasn't fast enough. "When I was down two sets, I thought it would be very, very difficult to win," said Borg, "because I was not really in the match. Jimmy was putting all the pressure and I was making all the errors."

But Borg turned the tide in the third set with breaks in the second and sixth games while Connors could only answer once with a break back in the fifth game.

"The third set gave me a kick," said Borg. "Suddenly, I was back in the match."

More than that, Borg owned the match. "I was not present in the fourth set," said Connors, who was skunked, 6-0, just as he had done to open the hostilities. Borg, like Connors before him, had run off a streak of nine wins in 10 games.

When Connors seemed extinguished, he lifted himself to his highest level in the fifth set. The first seven games were life and death. Try this on for size: In the third game of the set, Borg had four break points against Connors; Connors fought them all off and won.

In the next game, Connors had two break points. Both times, Borg reached back and hit service aces perfectly in the back corner to the ad court against Connors' backhand.

Borg reached love-40 on Connors' serve for the second straight game. Again, Connors responded with incredible base line fury, winning five straight points and the game.

"The first time he came back from love-40, I thought, 'That can happen easily,'" said Borg. "The second time he did it, I started to think about it more."

Borg's thinking had just begun. On Connors' next service game -- the set still precarious on serve -- Borg completed his hat trick, getting Connors down love-40 with a succession of brilliant service return winners at Connors' feet as he came to the net. Again, it was triple break point in the set.

That made 10 break points in the set.

And here came Connors again. Borg hit a backhand passing shot long. An eighth breaker denied. Then Connors whistled a cross court backhand pass. That made nine break points escaped.

"I knew it was nine," said Connors. "I was countin' 'em."

And so was Borg. "The third time," said Borg, both his lips and his voice narrowing, "it was very important for Jimmy not to do it a third time."

Important, indeed. Borg's mystique is that on "the big points," as he says, he is ice-water calm and nearly infallible. Those two earlier aces were an example of Borg reaching an eerie, tingle-along-the-spine level of perfection when other athletes get the yips and the chokes. Borg is the only man on earth without nerves.

However, if Borg had let 10 straight break points slip from his grasp in the semifinals at Wimbledon, it might well have been a mental turning point in his career. No comparable disaster has ever befallen him here. And he was just one point from defiling his own tennis persona. So, this, as it proved, was to be the moment of fate. h

Connors served his southpaw spinner into the ad court, jerking Borg off the court as he tried to return the excellent first serve. As he had so often all afternoon, Borg cracked back a two-fisted backhand that was far more than adequate -- a deep ball that landed well back in Connors' forehand corner.

For the thousandth time in the match, Connors had to make an instantaneous mental choice. And there,in the depths of the mind, is where Borg's edge lies.

"I never feel tired, except in the mind," he said after the match. "The biggest strain in tennis is keeping your concentration through all those shots."

For a millisecond, Connors' concentration cracked.

Connors later grasped, remembering the shot. "For a second, I couldn't decide."

"I was hesitant," confessed Connors. "Three-quarters of me wanted to come over the ball (with topspin), drive it deep, and come flying in behind it. But the other part of me knew he'd hit too good a return for that and maybe I should just put it back in play."

So, Connors did neither. His deep forehand drive to Borg's forehand corner didn't have enough topspin to dive into the court because Connors had not hit the shot with complete conviction. The shot -- the momentous disaster which sank Connors -- was over the baseline. By all of three inches.

That was the difference between these men today.

"He had to play his best stuff to beat me," said Connors. "I wasn't missing by much," he said, holding up his fingers a half-inch apart. "But sometimes that's as bas as being off by a yard."

That break of Connors' serve put Borg ahead, 5-3. The 25-year-old, who, on Saturday, can match Willie Renshaw as the only man to win Wimbledon six straight times (1881-1886), then allowed Connors to win a serve at love while he summoned his energy.

With customary dispatch, Borg served out the match at 15, finishing with a simple backhand volley into an open court as Connors madly dashed toward the grandstand to retrieve one last Borg bullet.

The holder had held, again.

[krosero]

continued.....

In the greatest matches between players of the most thoroughly tested championship quality, only particulars give a proper sense of the players' ability to rise to crisis, rather than shrink before it. A few examples:

Borg was being smashed as Connors served at 6-0, 4-3, in the second. Borg made a spectacular stand, breaking Connors for the first time in a 19-minute game that saw six game points for Connors and five breakers for Borg. Connors had 26 first serves in the game and missed only three. Yet Borg broke. What did Connors do? He broke back in the next game, finishing with a hail of cross-court service return blasts that landed at Borg's feet like pistol fire throughout the match. Connors then arrogantly served out the set at love.

Borg, of course, wouldn't stand for such humiliation and broke Connors' first serve of the third set, forcing four errors in brutally long base line rallies. That 3-0 lead should have iced the set, but Connors, naturally, broke back at 15, helped by two of the diving forehand volleys that he seemed to be able to angle down the line while suspended in midair.

As if you couldn't guess, Borg broke Connors back at 15. That shattering answer broke Connors' will for nearly a set and a half as he won only one of 10 games and seemed lost in the wilderness against Borg's topspin ground strokes and high percentage of first serves.

The final set was, quite simply, as good as tennis can get. Perhaps the most memorable shots of the day by Borg came then, in the fourth game, when he faced Connors' only two break points of the set -- two points that could have ended what may now be considered the greatest streak in the history of individual sports.

Both times, Borg served in the direction of the royal box, a perch from which Lady Diana Spencer, future queen of England, had departed four hours earlier. Both times Connors, the finest return-of-serve animal of his era, crouched for the kill he has wanted here against Borg for years.

And both times, Borg served a 120-mph missile that landed in the extreme corner of the service box within one or two inches of the perfect place.

Connors, whose reflexes are second to none, never moved, never even tried for a return on either. He was frozen with admiration and merely shook his head.

By contrast, McEnroe's perfunctory victory over a game but grossly overmatched Frawley, the 112th-ranked player in the world, was almost beneath notice.

McEnroe allowed Frawley breathing space by getting only 54.2 percent of his first serves in -- not the figure he will need against Borg. Frawley managed only 52 percent.

Were it not for McEnroe's tantrums during and after the match, plus a warning and a penalty point, the affair might only be remembered for its tedious pace as two of the game's slowest players outdawdled each other, playing three sets in 3:01.

Unfortunately, Lady Diana departed after two abysmal sets, perhaps swearing off tennis indefinitely. In the long run, that may be a blessing for England. Had she stayed for the second match, this island might one day have had a queen who was hopelessly addicted to tennis.

ETA: So again a small disrepancy. The Post has Connors serving 26 times in that long game. Sports Illustrated wrote that the game lasted 24 points. I also got 24, though I won't be sure of my number until I get the service percentages, which I think is the best way to count points.

[krosero]

I've gone back to get more stats; and I've made some minor corrections to my original work in the first two posts.


Borg won 142 points overall, Connors 138.

That’s a total of 280 points – exactly the same as their ’76 USO final, and just six points short of their ’77 W final.


SERVICE

Borg won 82 of 138 points on serve (59%). He won 47 of 68 on first serve (69%) and 35 of 70 on second (50%).

Connors won 82 of 142 points on serve (58%). He won 71 of 119 on first serve (60%) and 11 of 23 on second (48%).


Borg served at 49%, making 68 of 138 first serves.
Connors served at 84%, making 119 of 142 first serves.

Borg’s service percentage by set:
10/23 (43%)
13/30 (43%)
13/25 (52%)
10/18 (56%)
22/42 (52%)

Connors’ service percentage by set:
16/18 (89%)
41/48 (85%)
19/22 (86%)
15/20 (75%)
28/34 (82%)

I have Connors making 22 of 24 first serves in the marathon game in the second set, when he was broken for the first time (so SI got that one right, not the Post).


Borg converted 7 of 22 break points, Connors 6 of 12.

Borg got his first serve into play on 5 of 12 break points, or 42%. He was broken twice on first serve and four times on second.

Connors got his first serve into play on 20 of 22 break points, or 91%. Every time he was broken it was on first serve.


Borg drew 17 return errors, Connors 14. Out of all those serves I judged just one (by Borg) a service winner.


ERRORS (forced and unforced)

Subtracting the winners and aces from the total points won:

Borg made 89 total errors. Of those I counted 14 return errors and 4 double-faults. That leaves him making 71 errors in exchanges with at least a successful return, ie, in rallies.

Connors made 96 total errors. Of those I counted 17 return errors and 2 double-faults. That leaves him making 77 errors in rallies.


And SI's report:

Meanwhile, out on Centre Court, Connors, having rallied from two sets behind against Amritraj in the quarters, was roaring about the greensward and belting the daylights out of the ball and Borg, too. Soon it was 6-0, 4-2 Connors. In Set 2, Game 8 the old adversaries played some of the more amazing tennis in Wimbledon memory, rivaling last year's Borg-McEnroe tiebreak. The game lasted 24 points and 19 minutes, Connors wasting six points to hold serve for 5-3, Borg needing five break points to hurtle back into the match at 4-all. Though Connors took the set 6-4, he was hardly the same player thereafter. Borg swept the next two sets 3 and love and kept serving aces (16 altogether) before he and Connors put on the best theater of the tournament in the fifth. "It was great," said an interested third party, McEnroe. "Clay-court tennis on grass." Connors, still the most exciting player in the game, has never played better before in defeat. He seldom has played as well in victory.

Game 3: Connors held from 0-40. Game 4: Connors had two break points for 3-1, but Borg boomed two aces to Jumbo's forehand corner in the ad court. Game 5: Connors held from 0-40 once more. Game 7: Connors, at 0-40 yet again, saved once, twice. Then Borg knifed a medium-pace backhand return cross-court. Connors prepared to come over the ball for a forehand kill, but he changed his mind in mid-swing, let up and sailed the ball deep: 4-3 for Borg. He then held twice to take the set 6-4.

"Pride in extending him? That's crap," said Connors. "You win or you don't." But Connors also said, "He had to play his best stuff to beat me." Borg was to admit later, "Me and Jimmy had an unbelievable match."

[Borgforever]

Great work krosero and Moose! Fascinating. And I always studiously read all your stat-breakdowns no matter who the match-up includes -- although you always pick cherries IMO. Now, if someone could break down the Wimby 76 F cause that would be bliss...

[Borgforever]

And check-out Connors first-serve percentage! "Weak serve", yeah, I wish I was so weak in the serve...

[krosero]

Some interesting differences between '77 and '81.

I think I enjoyed '77 better. In '81 there are two sets in which someone is playing poorly enough to get bageled.

In '77 Connors had 62 winners, 14 more than in '81.

Borg had 30 winners both years, though on top of that in '81 he also had 16 aces, twice his number from '77. But his service percentage was down by 8 points.

His aces helped him hold in '81 but he might have had faced fewer break points with a higher percentage. You gain something, you lose something: overall he was broken 6 times in both matches (though he served two more games in '77).

I was looking for the wide serve to Connors' BH that Borg hit so well in '78 and also in '77, but I thought in '81 he was hitting it less often and less effectively.

Connors' service percentage was 14 points higher in '81 than 'in 77 -- because he was spinning his first serve in so much. As with Borg his overall success is about the same. He got broken 7 times out of 20 service games, compared to 9 out of 23 in '77.

Still, '77 has more winners (from Connors, whose strength was winners) and more consistency from Borg (the Swede's strength). In '81, even in the sets he won, Borg is occasionally making relatively simple errors. On a break point he earned early in the fifth set, he dumped a short ball into the tape with his FH, a stroke that misfired a few other times.

Overall I'd rank their '77 final as their greatest match at W. It's tough for me to rank it above their '76 USO final, but that's a question for another day.

[Borgforever]

I really like the 81 SF better than the 77 final -- actually because of the bagels. When did it ever happen that two players of their stature produced two bagels -- let alone that level of play especially in the fifth with such supreme quality play? I don't think neither of them played mediocre in the bagel sets either. I think (maybe completely subjective on my part?) Jimbo was little off late in the second and third set in 77 while in the 81 SF the level of play didn't dip below the very good level.

And throw into the mix that Borg came back from 0-2 it has some major drama to it. And I love how Jimbo comes out directly in the first set knocking five-time winner Borg out of the ring like a Lee Marvin hitman. And then Borg puts on his own Lee Marvin hitman hat and the sparks fly for three hours plus. It saddened me (and I'm a Borg guy!) that Connors lost in the end after such a stunning display of grass-court mastery (albeit mostly from the baseline). Jimbo's loss here actually hurt me so much that when Connors won Wimby in 82 both my dad and I jumped up cheering from our chairs in unison with Jimbo on the TV after match-point...

Tennis is cruel but sometimes get it right...

[lambielspins]

Didnt Connors always dictate play in their matches. Make more winners but also more errors.

[Borgforever]

Originally Posted by lambielspins

Didnt Connors always dictate play in their matches. Make more winners but also more errors.

Yes, he did! The only exception to this is their 1979 SF fight when Jimbo was very uneven -- though occasionally exceptional. One can also argue that Borg maybe played his best game ever against Connors in that semifinal. Borg was even more impressive against Connors in 1979 than the previous year and that added pressure might have stifled Jimbo's flow.

Also very important to remember regarding their later rivalry match-ups was the fact that Borg was even faster than in their earlier confrontations. This meant that Connors, who was a groundie-winner King, had to produce a lot more winning shots since Björn would often chase down an ordinarily successful Connors winner-stroke and give it back with interest. This pressured Jimbo to hit another stunning winner. Only Borg could catch Connors' bullet-groundies so often.

One can see a similarity here between Fed and Rafa -- El Reloj Suizo (that's what the Spanish call Fed: "The Swiss Watch" -- because of his remarkable precision and consistency) hits missiles that usually against any other player on the planet would be instant winners -- but Rafa is faster than anyone so he chases them down forcing Fed to come up with another zinger -- and another zinger -- until he makes an error. No-one can hit 10 normal super-winners in a row.

So Borg forced Connors to miss -- with his cheetah speed. Or he would smoke a winner himself...

[krosero]

Originally Posted by lambielspins

Didnt Connors always dictate play in their matches. Make more winners but also more errors.

Connors usually did lead in non-service winners, except in that '79 SF (among the 7 meetings we have stats for).

But if you count aces as winners then Connors' lead in this '81 match shrinks to 49-46.

If you include aces at the '81 USO, Borg leads 30-22.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by krosero

Borg won 82 of 138 points on serve (59%). He won 47 of 68 on first serve (69%) and 35 of 70 on second (50%).

Connors won 82 of 142 points on serve (58%). He won 71 of 119 on first serve (60%) and 11 of 23 on second (48%).

Success on serve in rallies of 2 or more good shots (the serve being the first shot):

Borg 50% on first serve (21/42) and 47% on second (28/59).
Connors 55% on first serve (58/106) and 47% on second (9/19).

Borg is winning exactly half of the time when his 1st serve is returned, but less than half when his second serve is returned. Altogether, then, he's winning just 49% of the time when his serve is returned (49 of 101 points). Connors' overall figure is a little higher, at 54% (winning 67 of 125 points).

Clearly what pulled Borg ahead of Connors was his service, which gave him 33 “free points” compared to 15 for Connors.

[krosero]

This match obviously had wild swings from set to set. Looking at totals for the whole match doesn't tell any individual piece of the story. So let's just have a look at the last set.

Success on serve in the fifth set (all points):

Borg 68% on first serve (15/22) and 60% on second (12/20).
Connors 64% on first serve (18/28 ) and 67% on second (4/6).

And now the fifth set, counting only rallies of 2 or more good shots (the serve being the first shot):

Borg 50% on first serve (7/14) and 61% on second (11/18 ).
Connors 60% on first serve (15/25) and 60% on second (3/5).

None of the figures on first serve are that much different in the fifth set, compared to the figures on 1st serve for the match as a whole.

But the figures on second serve are pretty good, in the fifth set. It's really a little surprising, especially when the second serves were returned: both players are above 60%.

If you think about it, neither player had an imposing second serve. They had sometimes long rallies, and yet their second serve seems to have retained its effectiveness in determining the outcome of points. And both of them were great returners. You can understand if a first serve, even returned, can throw the receiver off balance just enough for the server to end up winning the rally. But a second serve? Against a good returner? Even in rallies of some length? You would expect after 3 or 4 hits in a rally, the effectiveness of the second serve would no longer be there.

Granted, the number of second serves in the fifth set was not that large. Connors in particular started just 5 rallies with his second serve, and he won 3, so he's up at 60%. But Borg winning 11 of 18 rallies started with his second serve seems more significant.

[krosero]

Here's a study I found some weeks ago at Jeff Sackmann's blog, Heavy Topspin. He used data from the first 3 Slams of 2011. He found that while serves, obviously, confer an advantage upon the server, the advantage dissipates in long rallies. The exception he found was on grass. At Wimbledon, the server of a rally is still more likely to win the point than the receiver even when up to 14 shots have been made in the rally.

This is the study: http://heavytopspin.com/2011/08/17/h...dvantage-last/

And the follow-up, dividing the data into 1st and 2nd serve: http://heavytopspin.com/2011/10/14/s...second-serves/