1993 Wimbledon Sampras vs Becker (SF) and Courier (F) stats

[slice serve ace]

Originally Posted by Laurie

one more thing - becker said before the match that sampras serves big, but not as big as stich, whom he played in qf...agassi basically said the same before their qf match, comparing sampras to krajicek (agassi beat krajicek round earlier)

Thanks for the interesting stats. Well to me that statement show two things:


2. Even with Sampras' shoulder trouble, he outplayed Agassi for most of the match, winning the 1st two sets 6-2 6-2, and despite Agassi rallying won the 5th set 6-4 after 3 successive breaks. Then he really took care of Becker. So it shows that serving hard is not enough to beat the best players in the world, Sampras backed up his serve with good movement, good net play and good groundstrokes, that's why he won a lot more tournaments than other attacking players with big serves. That is often overlooked because a lot of people can only focus on one thing, his serve, and not acknowledge his other attributes. Not everyone but enough people to cause lots of discussions and arguments on internet forums!

that's it, yes. sampras name has become synonym for the serve, not without the reason, but he had many other qualities. i often borrow my friends my dvds with his matches, and they are usually stunned how well he plays off the ground and how potent his return game is. serve, volley, they expect that. the usual comment is "wow, he plays so much like federer".

i remember even my picture of him was distorted before i started getting lots of his matches, from all parts of his career. for example, i was stunned to see that he doesn't S&V on his 2nd serve almost at all, despite the quallity of it, even on a fast indoor carpets (before he changed style in his last years). also, that he rarely chip&charges, and doesn't really press the net as much as i remembered etc, etc

[krosero]

Originally Posted by slice serve ace

i have around 10 or so goran's matches that i did the stats for, but that was few years back and i didn't pay much attention to anything other than my standard stats. i will check these matches again, maybe there are some big streaks. for example, in 1996 hannover match against sampras he was 54/57 on first serve points.
but that doesn't guarantee uninterrupted streak. last match of his i did few months ago, vs martin in grand slam cup, he was 54/58, but the streaks would end after 15-20 points, and start again

I wouldn't be surprised if Goran topped this category. However Sampras did have the better overall game and this stat is not just about the serve, but also about how well you back it up.

Another one: Becker/Sampras '96 Hannover final, I got Becker's service stats for the first two sets. He had a streak of 22 in there, and had lost only 2 points on 1st serve after two sets were played.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by slice serve ace

sampras won at one point 32 1st serve points in a row. that is the second longest streak that i know of.

Another: Lendl won 26 straight against McEnroe during the 1985 USO final.

These you may have seen in other threads:

27 by Borg (1979 Wimbledon, Connors)
26 by Agassi (1995 AO, Rafter)

[krosero]

Originally Posted by slice serve ace

1st serve pts won %

sampras 84 ( 96, 77, 78 )
becker...92 ( 88, 100, 94)

2nd serve pts won %

sampras 60 ( 57, 50, 80 )
becker...45 ( 47, 48, 33 )

Originally Posted by slice serve ace

1st serve pts won %

sampras 82 ( 85, 100, 62, 78 )
courier...77 ( 72, 78, 80, 77 )

2nd serve pts won %

sampras 67 ( 64, 76, 56, 67 )
courier...58 ( 74, 57, 45, 44 )

I was wondering if you could give the numbers behind these percentages, for these two matches, ie, Sampras won x of y points on first serve, etc. It would be great to have a look at the totals and do more analysis.

I don't mean broken down by set, just looking for the full-match totals. Thanks.

[Moose Malloy]

my stats

Sampras
74-120(61%)
1st serve pts 62-74(84%)
2nd serve pts 31-46(67%)

Courier
74-136(54%)
1st serve pts 60-74(81%)
2nd serve pts 31-62(50%)

[krosero]

Originally Posted by slice serve ace

sampras won at one point 32 1st serve points in a row. that is the second longest streak that i know of. it ended with the 1st point on sampras serve in the 3rd set

I was checking out the end of the '96 USO final, and Mary Carillo was saying that Chang had not lost a point on first serve throughout the whole third set (which ended 7-6). So I did a quick check of Chang's games and it came out to 19 straight points, including one at the end of the second set. It was an unbroken streak; he won his last 19 points on first serve.

It's not the longest streak but perhaps a little surprising coming from Chang.

His overall success on first serve was actually higher than Pete's: 86% to 85%, according to a boxscore for the match. Again perhaps a little surprising.

(The ATP has Chang way up at 89%, but that's incorrect because they've counted the aces twice in that category.)

BTW thanks Moose for your numbers on Sampras-Courier; looking forward to more numbers on Pete's semi.

[Tagg]

becker just could not seem to get the better of sampras

only time i remember him doing it on a major scale was the year end championships at hamburg in 1996

from the matches that i remember at the time, and re-watching most of their matches on youtube...

sampras moves better, no doubt

he volleys better, his first serve % is higher, the 2nd serve % is higher, 2nd is also faster

forehand is better on the run, slice is better

becker has (had?) the better backhand i think

basically, he does everything slightly better than becker. that's why their matches turned out the way they did

i believe becker and sampras both alluded to this themselves