Duel Match Stats/Reports - Kuerten vs Rios, Monte Carlo final, 1999 & Rome semi-final, 1998

[Waspsting]

Gustavo Kuerten beat Marcelo Rios 6-4, 2-1 retired in the Monte Carlo final, 1999 on clay

It was Kuerten's first Masters title and he'd follow up by winning Rome soon after. Rios had won the event in 1997 and shortly after, would win Hamburg to complete his collection of Masters titles on clay

Kuerten 47 won points, Rios 36

Serve Stats
Kuerten...
- 1st serve percentage (18/31) 58%
- 1st serve points won (15/18) 83%
- 2nd serve points won (9/13) 69%
- Aces 2
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (8/31) 26%

Rios...
- 1st serve percentage (27/52) 52%
- 1st serve points won (17/27) 63%
- 2nd serve points won (12/25) 48%
- Aces 2
- Double Faults 2
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (10/52) 19%

Serve Patterns
Kuerten served...
- to FH 19%
- to BH 81%

Rios served...
- to FH 24%
- to BH 74%
- to Body 2%

Return Stats
Kuerten made...
- 40 (9 FH, 31 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 8 Errors, comprising...
- 6 Unforced (2 FH, 4 BH)
- 2 Forced (2 BH)
- Return Rate (40/50) 80%

Rios made...
- 23 (5 FH, 18 BH), including 1 runaround FH & 2 return-approaches
- 1 Winner (1 BH)
- 6 Errors, comprising...
- 2 Unforced (2 BH)
- 4 Forced (4 BH)
- Return Rate (23/31) 74%

Break Points
Kuerten 2/4 (3 games)
Rios 0

Winners (excluding serves, including returns)
Kuerten 9 (6 FH, 3 BH)
Rios 14 (7 FH, 2 BH, 2 FHV, 1 BHV, 2 OH)

Kuerten's FHs - 3 dtl passes, 1 inside-out, 1 inside-in/cc and 1 running-down-drop-shot longline/cc pass at net (with Rios on the floor)
- BHs - 2 cc (1 pass) and 1 drop shot

Rios' FHs - 2 dtl, 2 dtl/inside-out and 2 inside-out
- BHs - 2 cc (1 return, 1 pass)

- 1 from a serve-volley point, a first 'volley' FH at net
- 1 from a return-approach point, a swinging BHV
- 1 OH was on the bounce

Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Kuerten 12
- 6 Unforced (5 BH, 1 OH)
- 6 Forced (2 FH, 4 BH)... with 1 BH running-down-drop-shot at net
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 48.3

Rios 28
- 21 Unforced (14 FH, 7 BH)
- 7 Forced (6 FH, 1 FH1/2V)... with 1 FH at net
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 47.1

(Note 1: all half-volleys refer to such shots played at net. Half -volleys played from other parts of the court are included within relevant groundstroke counts)

(Note 2: the Unforced Error Forcefulness Index is an indicator of how aggressive the average UE was. The numbers presented for these two matches are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)

Net Points & Serve-Volley
Kuerten was...
- 6/9 (67%) at net, including...
- 1/1 serve-volleying, a 1st serve

Rios was...
- 10/17 (59%) at net, including...
- 1/2 serve-volleying, comprising...
- 1/1 off 1st serve and...
- 0/1 off 2nd serve
---
- 2/2 return-approaching

Match Report
Rios is the more proactive, attacking player, striking first to put Kuerten in reactive position. From there, its simply a question of who plays better in their different roles. It turns out to be Kuerten, who's more consistent of the ground and able to keep ball in play counter-punching better than Rios is attacking, with some fabulous passing shots being the icing on the cake

One of Rios' thighs is bandaged up at start of match. He takes the straps himself at a changeover mid-way through first set. Takes a medical time out as its strapped on again a couple of games later. Is broken at 4-4, before Kuerten serves out the set. And retires after going down a break in the second. There isn't anything overtly wrong with his play or movements. He's a bit harried in play, but that's probably normal for him: He's not one to let the grass grow under his feet on a tennis court - injured, healthy or anything in between

Kuerten has much better of play and holds serve very comfortably. Doesn't face break point and his service games last 5.17 points on average (i.e. losing about a point per game). Rios' 8 holds last 6.8 points by contrast - and he's broken twice in longer games (8 points and 10 points)

It doesn't matter much as long as match is on serve, which it is to 4-4 in first set. Some cavilar stuff from Rios to lose points on return games, but he shows enough fine play on his service games that its not hard to see him break at any time (even though he ends up not doing so). Still, Guga does look the more likely to snatch the breaks, as he ends up doing

Poor game from Rios to get broken in 1st set. There's a double fault, a third ball BH dtl winner attempt miss, a wild BH miss and on break point, a regulation BH miss.

With typical flair, he launches counter-attack as Guga serves for set - whacking a BH cc return winner and return-approaching to slap away a FHV winner to move ahead 15-30. Guga's no shrinking violet, though he's been the reactive player due to Rios striking first, and aggressively finishes next 2 points to move to 40-30. On set point, Rios takes net off a strong, deep shot but Guga's upto making the stretched, on the slide FH dtl pass

Rios is broken in third game of 2nd set, losing the last 3 points to regulation errors, and then calls it quits.

Standout number is Guga with 0 FH UEs. Even for a set and a half, that's rare for a baseline encounter on clay. As he has 6 winners, its not that the shot isn't used (admittedly, 4 of the winners are 'forced winners' or passes, where he has no scope to make a UE). He does play more off the BH because Rios leads with slapping FHs, but perfect steadiness on the FH by Guga

Rios with 14 FH UEs to 7 BHs reinforces that he leads with slapping FHs, thus giving Guga a lot more BHs to play

Rios leads play, with slapping hard shots (especially off FH) and Guga drops well behind baseline to punch balls back in play. Once he's got his man pushed back, Rios goes for the winner, often with amibtious shot choices off the FH. No beat-down persistent stuff from Rios, more like push back + kill shot tennis

He's got his 14 winners to show for it, to with 7 winner attempt UEs. He's forced 6 errors and made just 1 attacking UE. Given the amibitiousness of his aggressive shot choices, its a very good job to come out so far in the positives attacking. His problems lie elsewhere

Neutral UEs read - Guga 3, Rios 13. Rios' 'neutral shot' is hard hit, edging towards attacking in line with his appraoch to play, but that's main area where he falters: missing routine shots, not attacking.

Guga with 9 winners, 6 UEs and forcing 7 errors are fantastic figures in every way. With Rios' play taking the eye, Guga somewhat recedes into background, but he plays a first rate match in uncustomary role he's been put in.

- Barely misses a ball (low UEs)

- Stout defending - even better than the low FEs indicate... from well back position, it'd be easy to dish out short, weak balls that Rios could easily attack, but he gets them back with a thump. Rios is usually upto finishing point with not easy final shots

- And excellent passing. 5/9 of his winners are passes and 2/7 errors he forces are with Rios at net. Rios comes in behind strong approach shots and Guga's winning passes are from stretched out and/or sliding positions behind the baseline. Top notch on the pass from Guga

- He's not allowed to be aggressive from the back because Rios takes up the role quickly as possible. High 48.3 UEFI is deceptive here. With just 6 UEs, the number is apt to be deceptive. His UEs comprise 3 neutral, 1 attacking and 2 winner attempt - essentially, too small a total for a picture of his play to emerge

Behind all this is serve-return dynamics. Rios' serve isn't pacey, but he's able to swing them wide. Guga returns at high 80% close to 'neutralizingly', only Rios doesn't feel like being neutralized, so attacks third balls anyway. Guga swishes the odd return attackingly wide too

Guga's serve is more powerful and tough to handle. Rios is on look out for attacking returns, even against first serves. It doesn't pay. Couple of excellent return-approach points (hard, slapped shots, not chips) plus another 'delayed' approach behind the return that he finishes with a swinging BHV winner. 74% return rate is healhty enough to be getting on with, but he's not quite good enough to attack from defensive positions. He also doesn't seem to be trying too hard in return games at times, with errors of both caviliar and sloppy type aplenty

Summing up, decent match and entertaining, despite its shortness. Rios actively snatches initiative (or tries to), leaving Kuerten to counter-punch. Good job by both in their roles - Rios with some spectacular shots from balls not obviously there to be attacked, Kuerten keeping ball in court against hard-slapping shots and resisting giving up errors. Kuerten's passing stands out for quality, Rios doesn't appear to be all there mentally and is more sloppy than he can afford to be

 

[Waspsting]

Rios beat Kuerten 6-0, 7-5 in the Rome semi-final, 1998 on clay

Rios, who had won the first two Masters of the year at Indian Wells and Miami, would go onto win his only title at the event when Albert Costa withdrew before the final. The following year, Rios would win Hamburg to complete winning full set of clay Masters titles. Kuerten would win Rome the following year and complete his set of clay Masters title in 2000 also at Hamburg

Rios won 61 points, Kuerten 43

Serve Stats
Rios...
- 1st serve percentage (24/47) 51%
- 1st serve points won (22/24) 92%
- 2nd serve points won (14/23) 60%
- Aces 4
- Double Faults 1
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (14/47) 30%

Kuerten...
- 1st serve percentage (33/57) 58%
- 1st serve points won (22/33) 67%
- 2nd serve points won (10/24) 42%
- Aces 9
- Double Faults 1
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (17/57) 30%

Serve Patterns
Rios served...
- to FH 26%
- to BH 72%
- to Body 2%

Kuerten served...
- to FH 39%
- to BH 55%
- to Body 5%

Return Stats
Rios made...
- 39 (16 FH, 23 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 8 Errors, comprising...
- 1 Unforced (1 FH)
- 7 Forced (2 FH, 5 BH)
- Return Rate (39/56) 70%

Kuerten made...
- 32 (8 FH, 24 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 10 Errors, comprising...
- 5 Unforced (2 FH, 3 BH)
- 5 Forced (2 FH, 3 BH)
- Return Rate (32/46) 70%

Break Points
Rios 4/8 (4 games)
Kuerten 0

Winners (including returns, excluding serves)
Rios 16 (11 FH, 1 BH, 2 FHV, 2 BHV)
Kuerten 8 (3 FH, 4 BH, 1 OH)

Rios' FHs - 3 dtl (1 pass), 1 dtl/inside-out, 5 inside-out (1 return), 1 inside-in and 1 longline pass at net
- BH - 1 drop shot

- 1 from a serve-volley point, a first volley BHV

- 1 FHV was a swinging cc, non-net shot

Kuerten's FHs - 1 inside-out and 2 drop shots
- BHs - 2 cc, 1 longline and 1 drop shot

- the OH was on the bounce

Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Rios 17
- 12 Unforced (7 FH, 5 BH)
- 5 Forced (3 FH, 2 BH)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 50

Kuerten 30
- 22 Unforced (7 FH, 13 BH, 2 FHV)
- 8 Forced (5 FH, 3 BH)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 50.9

(Note 1: All 1/2 volleys refer to such shots played at net. 1/2 volleys played from other parts of the court are included within relevant groundstroke numbers)

(Note 2: the Unforced Error Forcefulness Index is an indicator of how aggressive the average UE was. The numbers presented for this match are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)

Net Points & Serve-Volley
Rios was...
- 5/5 (100%) at net, including...
- 1/1 serve-volleying, a 1st serve

Kuerten was 3/9 (33%) at net

Match Report
Fun match, between two of the most dashing shot attacking players in the game. Rios is on song in his ‘magician’ point construction + shot making, Kuerten not so good at the point construction, leaving him to look for shot-making winners from less favourable positions - and he fails at it

Great serving (particularly from Kuerten) and aggressive, wide returning (particularly from Rios) complete picture of play

Match is two part, as indicated by scoreline. First set, a blow out in Rios’ favour, the second highly competitive. Just the one break point in the second set - and it turns out to be the last point of the match

Big serving is there to see in high 30% unreturned rates for both. Guga’s yield includes high 9 aces and 7/8 Rios return errors have been marked forced. Plenty of similar, damaging wide serves beside that that leave Guga in control on third ball

Rios darts his serves in too, randomly serving the more damaging wide ones. The randomness extends to second serves, and he throws in first serve calibre wide, challenging second serves without any pattern. He doesn’t face break point, so is never in particular trouble, but doesn’t save the more fiery serves for when he is close to trouble. Just a pot-pourri of serves from Rios that keeps Guga guessing. Guga’s got 5 return UEs to Rios’ 1 and Rios has 4 aces to Guga’s 9

Guga then with considerably more powerful first serve, Rios the more varied and damaging seconds. With Guga serving at 58% to Rios’ humble 51%, that favours Guga

Equal return rates of 70%, given Guga with more potent serve speaks to Rios returning better of consistency. Its not limited to consistency; Rios is apt to send the return at a sharp angle to open the court and potentially end the point randomly too in a way Guga, who largely sticks to deep, thumped returns does not. For that matter, Rios is better at smacking the return right to the baseline - and those are sometimes wide too. Like his serve, no rhyme or patterns in when he goes for particularly damaging return. Whenever he does, he makes it (as the 1 UE indicates)

Serve-return complex in nutshell - Guga with stronger serve, strong enough that there’s nothing Rios can do about the best ones, while Rios also serves well, mixing up his dangerous wide serves (1st or 2nd) with normal ones. Rios returning more consistently and more damagingly. Match long (and in first set), advantage Rios on basis of the wide returning. Just the second set, Guga who wins a heap of freebies with the serve

Serve-return gist - dead equal unreturned rates of 30%. And then they rally

Winners - Rios 16, Guga 8
Errors Forced - Rios 8, Guga 5
UEs - Rios 12, Guga 22

And UE breakdowns -
- Neutral - Rios 3, Guga 7
- Attacking - both 6
- Winner Attempts - Rios 3, Guga 9

Clear enough. Rios leading substantially in all areas. And Guga’s UEs being both higher than his winners + errors forced by high 9 and just 2 short of Rios’ winners + errors forced

That looks like one player playing very well and the other playing terribly. First part is accurate enough, but Guga plays better than his numbers would suggest

 

[Waspsting]

Three things Rios has going that Guga doesn’t.
- The angled and/or deep returning that gets him into attacking position at once
- Attacking point construction, especially off the BH (as opposed to Guga’s failed shot-making attempts of that side)
- and much better finishing

First, Rios doesn’t go for winners out of the blue. He sets up his kill shots by hitting wide or/and deep, moving Guga to the sides with combinations of shots (not just 1-2s) before going for them. Does so off both wings, but particularly the BH. And when he goes for them, nails them

11 FH winners to 1 BH (a drop shot) speaks to his using 1 side in particular for finishing, but BH does plenty of court opening and set-up work too

Guga by contrast doesn’t build up to attacks. To be more accurate, his would be wide set ups come back counter-attackingly wider, leaving him back to square 1, so he turns to going for winners from softer neutral balls. To poor result of 8 winners, 9 winner attempt UEs (and about half the winners are putaways). And as match high 13 BH UEs indicate, more often its the BH that errs, in both direction. Hitting BH winners from routine positions is not a high percentage game, Rios' way is more likely to succeed

Rios with neutral consistency advantage of 3-7 puts Guga in particularly bad position, essentially making him have to attack. Not that there is a lot of ‘neutral’ play to begin with from either player. Most of it is Rios FH cc to Guga BH, and Rios has hitting advantage there. Doesn’t take long for one or the other to go go close to lines and open court. Rios is apt to to do so in parts, Guga all at once

3/7 Guga’s ground winner are drop shots from well inside-court and the only non-ground winner is a putaway OH on the bounce. Going or his power shots from the back are a huge fail for him. It doesn’t look as bad as it is because he seems to miss by inches every time - but missing is the only important part

What to say about Rios’ play? Its an art gallery of dual winged combinations of shots to open up the court, with impeccable FH finishing. Absolutely no telling which way he’ll go with the kill shots as he holds it to the last instant. Guga goes cc and dtl to what by a normal standard would be a troublesome proposition for opponent to cope with (if he made the shots) but Rios is on another level of being unreadable (and he does make the shots)

Match Progression
First set is more poor from Guga then it is great from Rios but there's elements of both there. Rios loses 4 service points in 3 holds. First break takes a 14 point game to get, but next 2 come in 6 point games

Play is as described earlier - Rios finding ways to build up to attack, Guga going for winners from normal position - and failing at it badly

Stats for set -
Winners - Rios 4, Guga 3
Errors forced - Rios 4, Guga 2
UEs - Rios 3, Guga 13... with 7 of Guga's being winner attempts

Second set though is a great set of tennis from both players. Guga serves better, raises in-count from 54% in first set to 61%. His unreturned count jumps up from 23% to 35% with 6 aces in there

He needs that edge because Rios continues to get better of play

Stats for set -
- Winners - Rios 12, Guga 5
- Errors forced - Rios 4, Guga 3
- UEs - both 9... with just 2 winner attempts for Guga

So Guga dialing down the ambitious shot making and relying on points won with the serve. His unreturned rate is 35%, Rios' 26%... a fair indicator of quality of serve. Once rally starts, Rios continues to excel just as he had in first set but with Guga being more solid, has more scope to showcase. Some top notch, glorious attacking point construction and finishing from Rios, with both serve and return having hand in getting that ball rolling

Its an even set - both players serve 31 points in it and the only break point is the last point of the match

Nice game fro Rios to break, helped by Guga making just 1/6 first serves. Rios' only BH winner, an exquisite drop shot, another Rios drop shot play leading to a net-to-net BHV winner - and Guga throwing in a BH cc winner attempt UE bring up break/set/match point

On it, Rios hits a FH cc return very wide (though not particularly hard) and Guga's well in the doubles alley, close to outside it to play his BH, that he nets. A typical Rios shot for the match

Summing up, an exquisite showing from Rios - well placed serves and returns set him up and from neutral positions, he's able to outmanuver his opponent off both wings to set up pinpoint precise finshing shots off the FH. Kuerten serves well and returns with solid orthodoxy but is outplayed and takes to going for winners from regulation positions. He fails badly at it, made to look not so bad because he invariably misses by small margins