Match Stats/Report - Safin vs Sampras, Final US Open 2000

Marat Safin beat Pete Sampras 6-4 6-4 6-3 on hard court to lift his first Slam title and deny Sampras a record extending 14th.

Safin won 89 points, Sampras 72

Sampras serve-volleyed on all his service points - 1st and 2nd

(Note: I'm missing two points - one on each players serve - both won by Sampras. A small number of times, it isn't clear if the first point in a game was a 1st or 2nd serve and I've used my judgement to fill in the uncertain data)

Service Stats
Safin...
- 1st serve percentage (40/81) 49%
- 1st serve points won (34/40) 85%
- 2nd serve points won (26/41) 63%
- Aces 12
- Double Faults 1
- Unreturned serve percentage (25/81) 31%

Sampras...
- 1st serve percentage (49/78) 63%
- 1st serve points won (37/49) 76%
- 2nd serve points won (12/29) 41%
- Aces 7, Service Winners 2
- Double Faults 4
- Unreturned serve percentage (32/78) 41%


Serve Pattern
Safin served...
to FH 25%
to BH 68%
to Body 8%

Sampras served...
to FH 47%
to BH 45%
to Body 8%


Return Stats
Safin made 42 returns (21 FH, 21 BH) and had 4 return winners (2 FH, 2 BH), all passes

He made 22 errors - 21 Forced (10 FH 11 BH) and 1 Unforced (BH) and was aced/service winner-ed 9 (4 FH, 5 BH)

Return Percentage (Returns made/non double fault serves faced) was (42/73) 58%

Sampras made 55 returns (12 FH, 43 BH)

He made 13 errors - 7 Forced (4 FH, 3 BH) and 6 Unforced (4 FH, 2 BH) and was aced 12 (3 FH, 9 BH)

Return percentage (55/80) 69%


Break Points
Safin 4/9 (6 separate games)
Sampras 0/2 (1 game - the last of the match)


Winners (including returns)
Safin 25 (11 FH, 11 BH, 2 FHV, 1 BHV)
Sampras 21 (6 FH, 1 BH, 4 FHV, 1 FH1/2V, 5 BHV, 1 BH1/2V, 2 OH, 1 BHOH)

- 21/22 of Safin's groundstroke winners were passes, including the previously mentioned 4 return winners

- 1 of the passes was a BH at net where he ran down a Sampras drop volley

- 1 was a BH lob

- the sole non-pass was a FH drop shot

- 1 of the FHV was a swinging volley

- the BHV was a non-net shot, hit from just inside the court, closer to the baseline than the service line

- Sampras had 1 passing shot, a FH

- 2 of his FH winners were inside-in shots from the BH corner of the court

- the BH was a dtl strike, also from the BH corner

- the 2 half-volley winners were net points (I would have just included baseline half-volley winners under regular groundstrokes, without specifying the half-volley element of the shot)


Errors(excluding returns and serves)
Safin made 16 errors - 9 Unforced (6 FH, 3 BH) and 7 Forced (4 FH, 3 BH)

Sampras made 35 errors - 18 Unforced (7 FH, 10 BH, 1 FHV) and 17 Forced (1 FH, 1 BH, 5 FHV, 6 BHV, 4 BH1/2V)


Net Points & Serve-Volley
Safin was 6/12 (50%). He had no S/V

Sampras was 45/84 (54%), including 40/65 (62%) S/V

The rest of his approaches comprise 4/14 (29%) chip-charge return points and 1/5 (20%) rallying his way to net

Waspsting said:

Marat Safin beat Pete Sampras 6-4 6-4 6-3 on hard court to lift his first Slam title and deny Sampras a record extending 14th.

Safin won 89 points, Sampras 72

Sampras serve-volleyed on all his service points - 1st and 2nd

(Note: I'm missing two points - one on each players serve - both won by Sampras. A small number of times, it isn't clear if the first point in a game was a 1st or 2nd serve and I've used my judgement to fill in the uncertain data)

Service Stats
Safin...
- 1st serve percentage (40/81) 49%
- 1st serve points won (34/40) 85%
- 2nd serve points won (26/41) 63%
- Aces 12
- Double Faults 1
- Unreturned serve percentage (25/81) 31%

Sampras...
- 1st serve percentage (49/78) 63%
- 1st serve points won (37/49) 76%
- 2nd serve points won (12/29) 41%
- Aces 7, Service Winners 2
- Double Faults 4
- Unreturned serve percentage (32/78) 41%


Serve Pattern
Safin served...
to FH 25%
to BH 68%
to Body 8%

Sampras served...
to FH 47%
to BH 45%
to Body 8%


Return Stats
Safin made 42 returns (21 FH, 21 BH) and had 4 return winners (2 FH, 2 BH), all passes

He made 31 errors - 30 Forced (14 FH 16 BH) and 1 Unforced (BH)

Return Percentage (Returns made/non double fault serves faced) was (42/73) 58%

Sampras made 55 returns (12 FH, 43 BH)

He made 25 errors - 19 Forced (7 FH, 12 BH) and 6 Unforced (4 FH, 2 BH)

Return percentage (55/80) 69%


Break Points
Safin 4/9 (6 separate games)
Sampras 0/2 (1 game - the last of the match)


Winners (including returns)
Safin 25 (11 FH, 11 BH, 2 FHV, 1 BHV)
Sampras 21 (6 FH, 1 BH, 4 FHV, 1 FH1/2V, 5 BHV, 1 BH1/2V, 2 OH, 1 BHOH)

- 21/22 of Safin's groundstroke winners were passes, including the previously mentioned 4 return winners

- 1 of the passes was a BH at net where he ran down a Sampras drop volley

- 1 was a BH lob

- the sole non-pass was a FH drop shot

- 1 of the FHV was a swinging volley

- the BHV was a non-net shot, hit from just inside the court, closer to the baseline than the service line

- Sampras had 1 passing shot, a FH

- 2 of his FH winners were inside-in shots from the BH corner of the court

- the BH was a dtl strike, also from the BH corner

- the 2 half-volley winners were net points (I would have just included baseline half-volley winners under regular groundstrokes, without specifying the half-volley element of the shot)


Errors(excluding returns and serves)
Safin made 16 errors - 9 Unforced (6 FH, 3 BH) and 7 Forced (4 FH, 3 BH)

Sampras made 35 errors - 18 Unforced (7 FH, 10 BH, 1 FHV) and 17 Forced (1 FH, 1 BH, 5 FHV, 6 BHV, 4 BH1/2V)


Net Points & Serve-Volley
Safin was 6/12 (50%). He had no S/V

Sampras was 45/84 (54%), including 40/65 (62%) S/V

The rest of his approaches comprise 4/14 (29%) chip-charge return points and 1/5 (20%) rallying his way to net

Click to expand...

Nice work man.

Are you going to include some comments on the match as well?

Also...taking requests?

Match Report

This is one of the finest performances I've seen on a tennis court. Safin obliterated a Sampras who was playing very well

The meat of the match is basic: the super quality of Safin's return game - particularly the return itself and the passing shots. It looked like a match between a baseliner and a "service liner" because that no-man's land region was where the great Pete was forced to hit many a third ball.

That he made so many of them is testament to how well he was playing. A lesser player would have given up many more volley and half-volley errors, but not Sampras. Unfortunately for him, the next act was the Safin passing shot - powerful and precise

In some ways, Safin did to Sampras what Sampras did to so many others. For the most part, Sampras held serve in his typical, cruise control way... but suddenly Safin would raise the bar one fine game to snatch the break.

There were 3 standout games. Safin broke to 30 in game 7 of the 1st set with 4 stunning winners. The last of these was the best - an immaculate FH inside-out return winner. Sampras also struck a beautiful backhand smash in this game

Game 2 of the second set, Safin countered a rampaging Pete assault to hold to 15. Chip-charging his way to the first point, the American took the net 4/5 points. He was rejected though by a trio of winners - a FH dtl pass, a BH running down a drop shot and an ever so casual looking FH drop shot

Game 7 of the same set saw Safin break for the second time in the match. 2 BH winning passes - one down the line, one crosscourt - and a forced volleying error highlighted this game.

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Safin concentrated his serve to Sampras' backhand, directing 54 serves there (as opposed to 20 on the FH). Pete could not return with any authority and they usually settled into a backhand-to-backhand rally after... which Safin commanded

The weakness of Pete's BH was noticeable. In addition to bleeding errors, he just couldn't pack a punch from that wing. Offensively, he was left to chip-charge... and that of course, was met with blazing passing shots

Nor did Safin deviate from the plan. Having orchestrated the BH-BH exchanges, not once did he grow impatient and try to finish the point down the line... no scope for Sampras to take a shot with the running forehand that so often did for Andre Agassi in similar situations

Safin did not have a single power baseline-to-baseline winner. Sampras had 6. Safin stuck to his guns... wear down Pete with consistency and power. And pass him if he gets cute with the approach.

I thought Sampras could have countered by running round the backhand. With the serve coming to his backhand so predictably and his backhand approaches falling flat... Perhaps he could have tried running round the return to strike with the FH

He didn't go this route at all. Nor did he try to run around the backhand during rallies. On the few FH-FH rallies, he held his own and was the more aggresive. Safin dropped the odd FH short. Sampras was quick to step up to these with his FH but mostly, Safin went long line - clearly preferring the smothering BH-BH exchanges more

The second break in the second set broke Pete. He just went through the motions in the third. Had he maintained his intensity he might have prospered there as Safin's 1st serve percentage dropped alarmingly to 33% for the set

As it turned out, that was quite enough for a resigned Pete. It wasn't til a seemingly nervous Safin served for the match that Pete looked alive... gaining his only break points of the match

Safin snuffed them out with 2 1st serve points - the only 2 he made in the 10 point game - and fittingly, sealed the match with yet another crashing backhand passing shot winner

Several independent sources doing the stats for the same matches normally ends up in unnecessary duplication, but the way you give specific stats (esp. on winners, nice specifics), backed up with general match comments, makes yours useful in their own right as well - great job, you should eventually make a collection thread to crunch the data you get. Lines up well with tennisabstract's description, too - I've been perusing that site a lot for the informative detailed point-by-point description (in fact, I'll have you know I've started doing charts for them myself, just not advertising that in general messages yet - it's a lot of fun, indeed); of course, an actual verbal description laid out alongside with the stats is a great bonus. Hope you continue to have great fun doing the stats and comments for whatever catches your fancy.

As for the match, it is easily summed up: peak Safin return & passing shot clinic + strong serving (until 2-0 in the 3rd, by then it was too late as you've pointed out) + keeping Sampras pinned to the BH corner in groundstroke exchanges = destruction for poor old past-it Pete. That Safin against peak Sampras could've resulted in an epic match like the fabled AO 05 semi.

Waspsting said:

Sampras made 55 returns (12 FH, 43 BH)

He made 25 errors - 19 Forced (7 FH, 12 BH) and 6 Unforced (4 FH, 2 BH)

Return percentage (55/80) 69%

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what about aces and DFs ?

aces go into the unreturned serves.
also DFs go into the total when counting total number of serves usually (although you could possibly argue that it should not be the case)

NatF said:

Nice work man.
Also...taking requests?

Click to expand...

Thanks

Can't hurt to request, go for it... I'm looking mostly towards older matches. This match was about as late as it'll get - I noticed it was missing from the fabulous collection of Slam finals put together by others

AnOctorokForDinner said:

I've been perusing that site a lot for the informative detailed point-by-point description (in fact, I'll have you know I've started doing charts for them myself, just not advertising that in general messages yet - it's a lot of fun, indeed

Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement. What your doing sounds awesome too. Pursuing this and writing it down seems to solidify one's impressions. a bit of analysis probably deepens understanding of the game itself and the players involved

Nothing can replace following the game in real-time IMO, but this is the next best thing

abmk said:

aces go into the unreturned serves.
also DFs go into the total when counting total number of serves usually (although you could possibly argue that it should not be the case)

Click to expand...

Aces are included in "unreturned serves"

Double faults are included in total serve count for "Unreturned serve percentage" but excluded from "Return percentage"

I figure the "Unreturned serve percentage" is primarily an indicator of how a guys serving and to exclude poor serves would taint that - and make the server look better. This could lead to a misleading picture when there are a lot of doubles - like 1995 Wimbledon final

But "Return percentage" is primarily indicative of how well a guys returning and to add doubles to the denominator without any scope for the numerator going up too... would bias the stat against the returner

I think this works best to give as accurate a picture of the situation as possible

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Few other thoughts from watching the match

1) I really want to know whose bright idea it was to have a lime green coloured court... nuts

2) Safin's year of 2000 would make for a pretty good movie. The commentators talked about it and I followed up checked the records.

He was 19-20 years old, and had a horror start to the year. 1-5 to begin with and later, 5-11. Was fined for lack of effort in a first round exit from Australian Open. According to the commentators (Enberg, McEnroe and Carillo), he was contemplating retirement.

A conversation with Andrei Chesnekov seems to have turned it around for him and he won a couple of clay titles and was the form player in the North American hard court season - culminating with this big win

There's anecdotal evidence of his charmingly casual attitude even in success. At this event, when asked about how he hadn't broken any raquets during the fortnight, he apparently replied he was too tired. And apparently, all he could talk about before the final was getting on a plane after it to visit his girlfriend in Europe

3) John McEnroe gave an amusing insight to the way he thought. When Sampras was down 2 sets, Mac was asked how he'd handle the situation. He replied (paraphrased) -

"I would slow things down. I would... show my emotions. I would try to get the crowd involved"

given everything I know and have seen of Mac, I can't help but interpret this as his admitting he used to throw tantrums to throw his opponents off their game

@BringBackWood might find this interesting

Waspsting said:

Aces are included in "unreturned serves"

Double faults are included in total serve count for "Unreturned serve percentage" but excluded from "Return percentage"

I figure the "Unreturned serve percentage" is primarily an indicator of how a guys serving and to exclude poor serves would taint that - and make the server look better. This could lead to a misleading picture when there are a lot of doubles - like 1995 Wimbledon final

But "Return percentage" is primarily indicative of how well a guys returning and to add doubles to the denominator without any scope for the numerator going up too... would bias the stat against the returner

I think this works best to give as accurate a picture of the situation as possible

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Click to expand...

ok, got the difference b/w how you are considering unreturned serves and returned serves.

But
unreturned serve percentage ...

For Safin , you have :

Unreturned serve percentage (25/81) 31%

then you wrote :

Sampras made 55 returns (12 FH, 43 BH)

He made 25 errors - 19 Forced (7 FH, 12 BH) and 6 Unforced (4 FH, 2 BH)

Return percentage (55/80) 69%


so that means Sampras had 25 serves unreturned (excluding aces and service winners).
Safin had 12 aces.

You dont seem to have counted service winners separately.

so overall serves unreturned (including aces) for Safin = (25+12)/81 = 37/81 = 45.67% , no ?


Similarly for Sampras, All unreturned serves = 31+8 = 39/79 = 49.37%, no ?

Both %s look to be on the higher side.
Am I missing something ?

I think I have stats on the 01 USO SF somewhere. Good payback for Pete. Their match at 02 AO was a classic.

Interesting serve % for Safin. These are the only lower serve percentages for winners of major finals that I've come across.

Orantes 75 USO - 44%
Tanner 77 AO - 44%
Kriek 81 AO - 48%
Becker 89 W - 46%
Stich 91 W - 46%

abmk said:

But
unreturned serve percentage ...

For Safin , you have :

Unreturned serve percentage (25/81) 31%

then you wrote :

Sampras made 55 returns (12 FH, 43 BH)

He made 25 errors - 19 Forced (7 FH, 12 BH) and 6 Unforced (4 FH, 2 BH)

Return percentage (55/80) 69%


so that means Sampras had 25 serves unreturned (excluding aces and service winners).
Safin had 12 aces.

You dont seem to have counted service winners separately.

so overall serves unreturned (including aces) for Safin = (25+12)/81 = 37/81 = 45.67% , no ?

Click to expand...

Aces and Service Winners from Player X were included in Player Y's "Return Errors" under "Forced Errors"

I see what you mean... Aces and SWs are winners and so shouldn't be called "errors" of any kind

Fixing it now and will record it this way in future - thanks

@Moose Malloy - so this is the lowest you've seen on a hard court

Where does 63% 2nd points won stand on your lists?

Waspsting said:

Sampras...
- 2nd serve points won (12/29) 41%

Click to expand...

This seems low for Sampras.

He seemed to usually bring his best game to the USO final.

How does this compare to some of his other USO final victories, and defeats (1992, 2001) ?

Waspsting said:

Aces and Service Winners from Player X were included in Player Y's "Return Errors" under "Forced Errors"

I see what you mean... Aces and SWs are winners and so shouldn't be called "errors" of any kind

Fixing it now and will record it this way in future - thanks

@Moose Malloy - so this is the lowest you've seen on a hard court

Where does 63% 2nd points won stand on your lists?

Click to expand...

I don't have all my stats in excel or something, so I can't easily see a list with all the numbers(but I'm sure krosero does)

But I do remember how low Lendl's 1st serve % was in 2 USO finals - 46% in 83 and 42.47% in 88.

As far as Safin with 63% on 2nd, it's good but no where near the top of the list, I imagine. Sampras winning 92% of his 2nd serve points vs Rafter at the 97 GS Cup is hard to top.

Moose Malloy said:

But I do remember how low Lendl's 1st serve % was in 2 USO finals - 46% in 83 and 42.47% in 88.

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TA says Lendl made 6/25=24% 1st serves in the deciding set of the '88 USO final, while Wilander made 38/41 = 92.7% in that set. Biggest ever single set difference (for a Slam final, at any rate)?

IowaGuy said:

This seems low for Sampras.

He seemed to usually bring his best game to the USO final.

How does this compare to some of his other USO final victories, and defeats (1992, 2001)?

Click to expand...

Check on tennisabstract: http://www.tennisabstract.com/cgi-bin/player.cgi?p=PeteSampras&f=ACareerqqC0E0
However, the official ATP percentage stats that tennisabstract player pages quote are often off (probably due to double fault counting issues), so click on the (ch) buttons to see the figures given in the charts (usually correct, and rarely off by more than 1-2%).
It seems Sampras scored above 50% (if slightly) on 2nd serves in all 14 Slam finals he won, and between 40% and 50% in all 4 he lost.

AnOctorokForDinner said:

TA says Lendl made 6/25=24% 1st serves in the deciding set of the '88 USO final, while Wilander made 38/41 = 92.7% in that set. Biggest ever single set difference (for a Slam final, at any rate)?

Click to expand...

I know Borg served at 100% vs Pecci in the 4th set of the 1979 RG final, but I don't know what Pecci's % was.

one of the greatest grand slam performances in tennis history. this safin was better than even the 2005 safin that beat federer at the australian open. If safin had played consistently like this and not got injured, he would be the player of this era and possibly be considered GOAT instead of federer