A top player hitting zero winners in set?

Moose Malloy · Feb 1, 2015

Thought it was pretty shocking that Djokovic hit no winners vs Wawrinka in the 4th set of their semifinal(and only lost it 6-4), and was trying to recall the last time that happened.

It also happened to Davenport vs Serena in the 1st set of their 2002 USO SF(which is pretty remarkable considering how powerful a player Davenport was)

On Friday, Serena was clinically effective, sending Lindsay Davenport home, 6-3, 7-5 in the second semifinal match in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Williams broke her in the second game and the advantage held up. How one-sided was it? Williams hit 16 winners, while Davenport didn't hit one. Williams did not face a break point until the 14th game of the match.

http://a.espncdn.com/tennis/usopen02/s/2002/0906/1428301.html

Among matches I took stats on, Wilander hit no winners in the 1st set of the '85 Tokyo final vs Lendl(which was a 6-0 set)

any others?

Steady Eddy · Feb 1, 2015

Maybe hitting winners isn't as important as we think it is? I'm surprised Davenport would have done such a thing. Not so much for Wilander, as he used steadiness as his weapon. Maybe he never hit a winner in his career? :shock:

Bartelby · Feb 1, 2015

Zero winners = the court won.

Flash O'Groove · Feb 2, 2015

Forced errors?

Gizo · Feb 2, 2015

In her 1st round match against Julia Goerges at Dubai in 2013, Sara Errani won 6-3 4-6 6-4 despite failing to hit a single winner in both the 1st and 2nd sets. All 7 of her winners during the match came in the 3rd set. Georges hit 49 winners but 68 unforced errors. Hitting just 7 winners in 29 games but still winning is hilarious.

Serena managing to prevent Davenport from hitting a single winner in the 1st set of their 2002 US Open semi-final really was amazing, and showed what an amazing athlete she was in the early 00s. Those US Open courts were pretty fast (they were slowed down the next year I think) and were certainly way faster than any of the hard courts used at big events nowadays. Plus as mentioned Davenport was such an aggressive, powerful player, and was arguably the best female baseliner off both wings during her prime after Serena and Henin.

dominikk1985 · Feb 2, 2015

Flash O'Groove said:
Forced errors?

Forced Errors are often more important than outright winners. they won't Show in the stats but are just as good as a winner or UE.

krosero · Feb 2, 2015

I don’t know of any others, Moose.

Djokovic had no winners of any kind, including service. In the stats I took there are a few cases where a player had aces but no other (clean) winners.

That happened to Lendl a couple of times at the USO, in the first set against Agassi in ’88 and the last set against Connors in ’83.

Also happened to Roddick in the opening set against Kohlschreiber at 2008 AO.

All these players had zero aces and 1 clean winner by my count (most of these were bagels):

Kafelnikov in first set against Sampras in ’95 Davis Cup final
Mecir in third set against Lendl in ’86 USO final
Nystrom in second set against McEnroe in ’85 USO QF
Wilander in second set against Edberg in a 1990 AO SF
Turnbull in second set against Evert in 1977 USO final
Hewitt in each of the two bagel sets against Federer in 2004 USO final

Gizo · Feb 2, 2015

When Bartoli beat Goerges 3-6 6-2 6-4 in their 3rd round match at RG in 2011, she failed to hit any winners in the 2nd set but still won it so comfortably.

And of course when Errani (the world no. 10 at the time and recent RG finalist) failed to win a single point in the 1st set of her 3rd round match against Shvedova at Wimbledon in 2012, she obviously won't have hit any winners as she was victim of a golden set. So that's at least 3 sets for Errani when she was a top 10 player (she was the world no. 7 during that 2013 Dubai match against Goerges) and didn't hit any winners.

Gizo · Feb 2, 2015

Plus the world no. 1 at the time Wozniacki failed to hit a single winner during the 1st of her 2011 US Open semi-final against Serena. Then in the second set she only hit 4 winners, but 3 of them were aces and only 1 was from the back of the court.

Vanhool · Feb 2, 2015

Gizo said:
When Bartoli beat Goerges 3-6 6-2 6-4 in their 3rd round match at RG in 2011, she failed to hit any winners in the 2nd set but still won it so comfortably.

And of course when Errani (the world no. 10 at the time and recent RG finalist) failed to win a single point in the 1st set of her 3rd round match against Shvedova at Wimbledon in 2012, she obviously won't have hit any winners as she was victim of a golden set. So that's at least 3 sets for Errani when she was a top 10 player (she was the world no. 7 during that 2013 Dubai match against Goerges) and didn't hit any winners.

Errani was a blight on the top 10. I don't hate her. She's a decent player but she really screws up a tournament draw. No way that woman should ever be seeded in the top 16 except maybe at the French.

SStrikerR · Feb 2, 2015

Roddick vs Soderling a few years back. Pretty sure it was the final of Brisbane or some other early season tournament. Roddick didn't hit a winner for either a set, or possibly the entire match. I can't remember.

Moose Malloy · Feb 8, 2015

thanks Gizo. interesting that all your examples are women's matches.

who would be the equivalent of Errani in the 80s/90s I wonder.

Roddick vs Soderling a few years back. Pretty sure it was the final of Brisbane or some other early season tournament. Roddick didn't hit a winner for either a set, or possibly the entire match. I can't remember.

Roddick hit aces in both sets(just casually watching some of it on youtube), which count as winners.

Man of steel · Feb 8, 2015

That 6-0, 6-1 drubbing serena gave errani at FO 2013....errani had something like 2 winners in the whole match. Not sure if 1 was in each set.

Moose Malloy · Nov 21, 2015

Djokovic came close to this again. Won the first set vs berdych at wtf, only had 1 winner.

navigator · Nov 21, 2015

I suspect that if you went back to the 70s and prior you'd find that *just about* the only clean (non-ace) winners were volleys and passing shots (so someone being at the net was involved). It was simply too difficult to power groundstrokes by the other guy from the baseline (or deep mid-court) with wood (and other small-faced) racquets on a consistent basis. One day I might sit down and chart the stats on a match from that era - maybe Borg v. Gerulaitis - because I think it would be interesting. I suspect that UEs were a much bigger factor back then.

BTURNER · Nov 22, 2015

navigator said:
I suspect that if you went back to the 70s and prior you'd find that *just about* the only clean (non-ace) winners were volleys and passing shots (so someone being at the net was involved). It was simply too difficult to power groundstrokes by the other guy from the baseline (or deep mid-court) with wood (and other small-faced) racquets on a consistent basis. One day I might sit down and chart the stats on a match from that era - maybe Borg v. Gerulaitis - because I think it would be interesting. I suspect that UEs were a much bigger factor back then.

You will always get the occasional ball that lands short enough in the court that an angle is created. You whack into the corner and charge forward in case something comes back. You can also hit some decent droppers with wood and a short ball.

Shaolin · Nov 22, 2015

Bartelby said:
Zero winners = the court won.

= tennis lost.

Moose Malloy · Mar 31, 2018

Can add Del Potro to the list. No winners during the first set vs Isner in Miami.

AnOctorokForDinner · Apr 1, 2018

Djokovic didn't hit a single winner (by TA's count, which I agree with here) in the 2nd set of the 2011 Dubai final against Federer and still won it - now that's special. Federer was up 3-1, but strangely lost his way and made a lot of UFEs to lose five games in a row and the set 3-6.

BTURNER · Apr 6, 2018

I should think we ought to be looking for high quality pushers/ scramblers ( who meet the standard of 'top player') playing power baseliners . its the best place to start.

Gizo · Apr 8, 2018

The world no. 4 Jankovic failed to hit a single winner during the 1st set of her 2010 RG semi-final drubbing by Stosur.

She finally hit her first winner when she broke to take a 2-0 lead in the 2nd set, but then lost the next 6 games and with it the match.

Shaolin · Apr 8, 2018

Errani probably goes without hitting a winner in an entire match regularly.

Tristanwirtz · Jun 3, 2018

Errani had another match vs Julia Goerges on grass she had 0 winners in atleast 1 set (she lost this match). It seems Goerges is often to play sets vs Errani she shuts her out in winners.

I think in her 3 set win over Lucic at the U.S Open she had atleast 1 set with 0 winners. She ended the match with something like 4 winners to 69 for Lucic, but still won the match.

Stosur had 0 winners in 1 of the sets of her straight sets loss to Petra Kvitova at the Australian Open one year.

BorgCash · Jun 3, 2018

Wozniacki

hoodjem · Jun 3, 2018

Steady Eddy said:
Maybe hitting winners isn't as important as we think it is? I'm surprised Davenport would have done such a thing. Not so much for Wilander, as he used steadiness as his weapon. Maybe he never hit a winner in his career? :shock:

Yes. Wilander did not live or die by winners.

Mats tended to win by playing smart, steady, outlasting his opponent, and making the fewest unforced errors.

I wonder how many winners he had against Lendl in the 1988 USO final?

(My recollection [often faulty] of that match is that is was a war of attrition, of wearing Lendl down and getting him frustrated, making sure that Lendl did not get into a power rhythm.)

BorgTheGOAT · Jun 3, 2018

navigator said:
I suspect that if you went back to the 70s and prior you'd find that *just about* the only clean (non-ace) winners were volleys and passing shots (so someone being at the net was involved). It was simply too difficult to power groundstrokes by the other guy from the baseline (or deep mid-court) with wood (and other small-faced) racquets on a consistent basis. One day I might sit down and chart the stats on a match from that era - maybe Borg v. Gerulaitis - because I think it would be interesting. I suspect that UEs were a much bigger factor back then.

I have read a lot of statistics of Borg matches of this era. Usually he hit only two or three ground stroke winners per game that were not passing shots. On clay he sometimes hit zero. Out of these winners some also were netcord dribblers.

li0scc0 · Jun 7, 2018

BorgTheGOAT said:
I have read a lot of statistics of Borg matches of this era. Usually he hit only two or three ground stroke winners per game that were not passing shots. On clay he sometimes hit zero. Out of these winners some also were netcord dribblers.

Borg was an outstanding athlete and an impressive player, but, truth be told, often quite boring to watch. In many matches, he got the ball back until his opponent made an error. Obviously given his resume, it was an effective strategy!

BorgTheGOAT · Jun 7, 2018

li0scc0 said:
Borg was an outstanding athlete and an impressive player, but, truth be told, often quite boring to watch. In many matches, he got the ball back until his opponent made an error. Obviously given his resume, it was an effective strategy!

Absolutely. However it was not Borg specific. During that era baseline winner that weren’t passes were pretty rare.

li0scc0 · Jun 7, 2018

BorgTheGOAT said:
Absolutely. However it was not Borg specific. During that era baseline winner that weren’t passes were pretty rare.

Definitely. Hard for people today to imagine, without seeing tennis from that time.

BTURNER · Jun 15, 2018

krosero said:
I don’t know of any others, Moose.

Djokovic had no winners of any kind, including service. In the stats I took there are a few cases where a player had aces but no other (clean) winners.

That happened to Lendl a couple of times at the USO, in the first set against Agassi in ’88 and the last set against Connors in ’83.

Also happened to Roddick in the opening set against Kohlschreiber at 2008 AO.

All these players had zero aces and 1 clean winner by my count (most of these were bagels):

Kafelnikov in first set against Sampras in ’95 Davis Cup final
Mecir in third set against Lendl in ’86 USO final
Nystrom in second set against McEnroe in ’85 USO QF
Wilander in second set against Edberg in a 1990 AO SF
Turnbull in second set against Evert in 1977 USO final
Hewitt in each of the two bagel sets against Federer in 2004 USO final

Its hard to imagine how a s/ver of Turnbull's caliber manages not to hit a single clean winner volley in a set, even on clay.

AnOctorokForDinner · Jun 22, 2018

Gaudio narrowly avoided this during his double bagel drubbing at the hands of Federer in 05 TMC.

In the first set, he artived to set point against himself without hitting a single winner, but desperately went for broke and made two winners in a row (bh and volley) to get to his first - and only! - game point to hold serve in the entire match, but still failed.

In the second set, Gaudio simply hit only 1 winner, which was an easy pass set up by a cunning dropshot - one of the very few great shots the Argentine made in the match.

3 winners in the entire match - do you know of any worse performances for a male player? Probably another double bagel match, those used to br more common.

Moose Malloy · Jun 24, 2018

AnOctorokForDinner said:
Gaudio narrowly avoided this during his double bagel drubbing at the hands of Federer in 05 TMC.

In the first set, he artived to set point against himself without hitting a single winner, but desperately went for broke and made two winners in a row (bh and volley) to get to his first - and only! - game point to hold serve in the entire match, but still failed.

In the second set, Gaudio simply hit only 1 winner, which was an easy pass set up by a cunning dropshot - one of the very few great shots the Argentine made in the match.

3 winners in the entire match - do you know of any worse performances for a male player? Probably another double bagel match, those used to br more common.

Krosero had Roddick with only 9 winners in the 2007 AO SF. 4 of those winners were aces. I don't know the winners by set, but it's possible he had only 3 in the last 2 sets. Regardless it's one of the more amazing stats I've seen, someone like Roddick with only 5 non service winners over 3 sets.
Maybe Del Porto had less vs Fed at 2009 AO? I recall thinking that was a pretty poor effort at the time.

I had Wilander with 5 winners(1 was an ace) in a 6/0,6/4 loss to Lendl at 1985 Tokyo.

Red Rick · Jun 24, 2018

Don't know how many winners Nadal hit vs Murray in the final set of their 2011 Tokyo final, but he won like 4 points in the entire set.

krosero · Jun 24, 2018

Moose Malloy said:
Krosero had Roddick with only 9 winners in the 2007 AO SF. 4 of those winners were aces. I don't know the winners by set, but it's possible he had only 3 in the last 2 sets. Regardless it's one of the more amazing stats I've seen, someone like Roddick with only 5 non service winners over 3 sets.

Clean winners, apart from service, Roddick had 2 in the first set, 1 in the second, 2 in the third.

krosero · Jun 24, 2018

Red Rick said:
Don't know how many winners Nadal hit vs Murray in the final set of their 2011 Tokyo final, but he won like 4 points in the entire set.

That also happened to Borg in a straight-set loss to Connors in Philadelphia (1976): 6-0 in the third set, won only 4 points.

Later that year, Borg won only 7 points in the first round at the French, in his opening set against Dominique Bedel, but won the match 0-6, 6-0, 6-4, 7-5.

li0scc0 · Jun 25, 2018

Sometimes it seemed liked Wilander went an entire career without hitting a winner.

jaggy · Jun 25, 2018

Have to assume Tomic has managed this

Moose Malloy · Aug 30, 2019

Capriati had no winners in the first set of her 6-0 loss to Dementieva at 2004 USO. And She only had 5 in the 2nd set, which she won. There was a big difference in winners overall. Seemed like dementieva had more power.

Phoenix1983 · Aug 30, 2019

Moose Malloy said:
Capriati had no winners in the first set of her 6-0 loss to Dementieva at 2004 USO. And She only had 5 in the 2nd set, which she won. There was a big difference in winners overall. Seemed like dementieva had more power.

That's weird - I would've thought Capriati was much more of a power player than Dementieva.

krosero · Sep 4, 2019

Saw this one in person last night, Serena hit 25 winners of every kind in her 6-1, 6-0 win over Qiang Wang, who hit zero.

https://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/stats/2504.html

They played 65 points in 13 games, just 5.0 per game, the lowest average I know of in all the OE matches we're tracked or studied.

tylerbrisco · Sep 4, 2019

Errani has played many matches with 0 winner sets and some matches against Gorges with 0 winners. An utterly useless top player.

NonP · Sep 5, 2019

krosero said:
Saw this one in person last night, Serena hit 25 winners of every kind in her 6-1, 6-0 win over Qiang Wang, who hit zero.

https://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/stats/2504.html

They played 65 points in 13 games, just 5.0 per game, the lowest average I know of in all the OE matches we're tracked or studied.

You're not turning into one of those annoying I-saw-it-live-and-Imma-use-this-as-an-excuse-to-tell-you-about-it New Yorkers, kros?

And yeah I missed most of it except the very end but it must've been a brutal experience for Wang. Definitely one of the most dominant performances by anyone.

tylerbrisco · Sep 5, 2019

Phoenix1983 said:
That's weird - I would've thought Capriati was much more of a power player than Dementieva.

Capriati was already getting old and past her prime by that point. She only beat Serena due to some bogus line calls. She also played a super tenative match that day.

Dementieva was on fire, hitting her forehand even bigger than usual, and her backhand stronger than normal. And Dementieva did have very powerful groundstrokes, just a weak serve.

krosero · Sep 5, 2019

NonP said:
You're not turning into one of those annoying I-saw-it-live-and-Imma-use-this-as-an-excuse-to-tell-you-about-it New Yorkers, kros?

Indeed. Busted!

I'm also an I-told-you-so and a know-it-all, but hey who's keeping track

NonP said:
And yeah I missed most of it except the very end but it must've been a brutal experience for Wang. Definitely one of the most dominant performances by anyone.

I had not seen Serena in person before, and yeah she had power, but what impressed me the most was her accuracy.

At 2013 RG, Serena had 40 winners against Errani's 2, and led 52-16 in total points. So she won 76.4% of all the points played (still shy of Graf's 79% mark against poor Natasha Zvereva). Here against Wang, Serena won 50 of 65 total points, or 76.9%.

Serena’s Aggressive Margin against Errani was 54.4%, which might still be the highest I've ever calculated. Her AM against Wang is 41.5%.

I'm still struck by the 5.0 average points per game, in Serena-Wang. Next lowest I've seen (in OE women's matches), is Graf-Zvereva with 5.17, then Serena-Errani with 5.23.

Moose Malloy · Sep 6, 2019

krosero said:
Saw this one in person last night, Serena hit 25 winners of every kind in her 6-1, 6-0 win over Qiang Wang, who hit zero.

https://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/stats/2504.html

They played 65 points in 13 games, just 5.0 per game, the lowest average I know of in all the OE matches we're tracked or studied.

So you saw Fed Dmitrov as well?

krosero · Sep 6, 2019

Moose Malloy said:
So you saw Fed Dmitrov as well?

I saw it, was lucky to know someone with free tickets, seats very close. I never like seeing Fed lose, but I was too busy enjoying the match to care much about that in the end. Got such a kick out of watching those five sets. And was very happy to see Grigor get a big win at a major. I like the Big Three rivalries as much as anyone but seriously it's time for some breakthroughs.

NonP · Sep 9, 2019

krosero said:
Indeed. Busted!

I'm also an I-told-you-so and a know-it-all, but hey who's keeping track

You've still got a long way to go if you had to score free tix! The braggarts have some kind of a subscription in place, I'm sure.

I had not seen Serena in person before, and yeah she had power, but what impressed me the most was her accuracy.

At 2013 RG, Serena had 40 winners against Errani's 2, and led 52-16 in total points. So she won 76.4% of all the points played (still shy of Graf's 79% mark against poor Natasha Zvereva). Here against Wang, Serena won 50 of 65 total points, or 76.9%.

Serena’s Aggressive Margin against Errani was 54.4%, which might still be the highest I've ever calculated. Her AM against Wang is 41.5%.

I'm still struck by the 5.0 average points per game, in Serena-Wang. Next lowest I've seen (in OE women's matches), is Graf-Zvereva with 5.17, then Serena-Errani with 5.23.

I think you already know I'm not a fan of these fancy stats which strike me as more of those "analytics" that are supposed to help us understand the game better but end up doing the opposite. But yeah, you can't dispatch your opponent 6-1, 6-0 without being pretty damn accurate.

Not so accurate against Bianca, though.

I found it interesting that when she succumbed to Townsend's tricky S&V in the 2nd of 4R she responded not by hitting harder but by junkballing and varying the pace of play. That's when I sensed we might be looking at the next phenom, maybe even better than Osaka, and I think she'll indeed continue to rack up more Slams. Who knows, maybe she'll even make our resident Hoad cheerleader cut down on his ridiculous appropriation of non-Canucks!

Dan Lobb · Sep 9, 2019

NonP said:
You've still got a long way to go if you had to score free tix! The braggarts have some kind of a subscription in place, I'm sure.

I think you already know I'm not a fan of these fancy stats which strike me as more of those "analytics" that are supposed to help us understand the game better but end up doing the opposite. But yeah, you can't dispatch your opponent 6-1, 6-0 without being pretty damn accurate.

Not so accurate against Bianca, though. I found it interesting that when she succumbed to Townsend's tricky S&V in the 2nd of 4R she responded not by hitting harder but by junkballing and varying the pace of play. That's when I sensed we might be looking at the next phenom, maybe even better than Osaka, and I think she'll indeed continue to rack up more Slams. Who knows, maybe she'll even make our resident Hoad cheerleader cut down on his ridiculous appropriation of non-Canucks!

This is certainly the golden age of Canadian women athletes, with Andreescu near or maybe at the top in tennis, and Henderson winning the ESPY award as top women golfer. Never had anything close to this before.

NonP · Sep 9, 2019

Dan Lobb said:
This is certainly the golden age of Canadian women athletes, with Andreescu near or maybe at the top in tennis, and Henderson winning the ESPY award as top women golfer. Never had anything close to this before.

Doesn't matter, Kwahi dumped your ar$e the moment he could cuz Toronto is a dump. NBA >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> WTA/LPGA.

Dan Lobb · Sep 10, 2019

NonP said:
Doesn't matter, Kwahi dumped your ar$e the moment he could cuz Toronto is a dump. NBA >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> WTA/LPGA.

Kawai very nearly signed a new contract with Toronto, he wanted the team to trade for George, they wouldn't.

A top player hitting zero winners in set?

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