Duel Match Stats/Reports - Murray vs Ferrer, Miami 2013 & Shanghai 2011, finals

[Waspsting]

Andy Murray beat David Ferrer 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(1) in the Miami final, 2013 on hard court

It was Murray’s second and to date last title at the event. It would turn out to be Ferrer’s only final at the event

Murray won 106 points, Ferrer 102

Serve Stats
Murray...
- 1st serve percentage (59/110) 54%
- 1st serve points won (36/59) 61%
- 2nd serve points won (20/51) 39%
- Aces 2
- Double Faults 7
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (20/110) 18%

Ferrer...
- 1st serve percentage (56/98) 57%
- 1st serve points won (34/56) 61%
- 2nd serve points won (14/42) 33%
- Aces 4
- Double Faults 4
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (20/98) 20%

Serve Patterns
Murray served...
- to FH 35%
- to BH 61%
- to Body 4%

Ferrer served...
- to FH 39%
- to BH 53%
- to Body 7%

Return Stats
Murray made...
- 74 (31 FH, 43 BH), including 1 runaround FH & 1 return-approach
- 2 Winners (2 FH)
- 16 Errors, comprising...
- 7 Unforced (4 FH, 3 BH)
- 9 Forced (4 FH, 5 BH)
- Return Rate (74/94) 79%

Ferrer made...
- 83 (31 FH, 52 BH), including 4 runaround FHs
- 18 Errors, comprising...
- 10 Unforced (3 FH, 7 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 8 Forced (6 FH, 2 BH)
- Return Rate (83/103) 81%

Break Points
Murray 7/15 (11 games)
Ferrer 8/14 (10 games)

Winners (excluding serves, including returns)
Murray 17 (10 FH, 5 BH, 2 FHV)
Ferrer 9 (4 FH, 1 BH, 1 BHV, 3 OH)

Murray FHs - 3 cc (1 return), 2 cc/inside-in (1 at net), 1 dtl pass, 1 inside-out, 2 inside-in (1 return), 1 drop shot
- BHs - 3 cc, 1 dtl, 1 inside-out pass

- 1 FHV was a non-net swinging inside-out

Ferrer's FHs - 2 dtl, 1 inside-in, 1 longline pass
- BH - 1 inside-out/dtl

- 1 OH was on the bounce and 1 was a non-net shot (on full)

Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Murray 66
- 45 Unforced (17 FH, 26 BH, 1 FHV, 1 BHV)
- 21 Forced (13 FH, 6 BH, 1 BHV, 1 BH1/2V)... with 2 FH running-down-drop-shot at net
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 44.4

Ferrer 65
- 50 Unforced (26 FH, 23 BH, 1 BHV)
- 15 Forced (10 FH, 3 BH, 2 BHV)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 46.8

(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 are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)

Net Points & Serve-Volley
Murray was...
- 9/17 (53%) at net, with...
- 1/1 return-approaching
- 2/3 (67%) forced back/retreated

Ferrer was...
- 13/19 (68%) at net, with...
- 0/1 forced back

Match Report
Poor match though this is, there’s a lesson in it; moving your opponent around has beyond immediate advantages of wearing him down and weakening him for later on. Here, the moving-opponent-around is not even the majority dynamic (that’d be who-blinks-first), but there’s still enough of it going around for both players to be barely able to stand by the end

Murray and Ferrer are two of the fittest guys around. By Miami standards, its not particularly hot. Court is typically slow. The moving-opponent side-to-side isn’t extreme (that is, not corner to corner attacking play, more like side-to-side, pseudo neutral or neutral-edging-towards attacking play) or constant. Its most prominent in early third set and makes up bulk of action at that time. Prior to that, some of it, amidst bulk regulation ground rallies that go on blandly ‘til someone makes the error. Not insignificant amount of who-blinks-first interspersed among majority move-opponent-around in the deciding set either

In short, far from extreme move-opponent-around play
Two of the fittest and quickest guys around
Not the hottest weather
Equal to both players completely out of it by the end
Bit of moving-opponent-around goes a long way

Returning at 5-6 in final set, Ferrer has break/match point. 8/11 of the sets games had been breaks. Both players are weary. A rally develops. Murray seizes lead position, mildly attacking. Hits a deep ball that Fer manages to dig off the line softly, leaving Murray a soft mid-court ball he’s lining up for a FH inside-out to open court (probably, he’s more likely than most to go inside-in back close to Fer instead) when Fer challenges

Ball was on the line, and there goes match point. Would very likely have lost the point without challenge anyway. A short while before, he’d tried to challenged a ball a touch late after it’d already gone into the net and was denied because point had been completed. At least he makes the ball here

Murray goes on to hold. He’s in even worse shape than Fer, but guts out to keeping the ball in play and making the returns to swing through the tiebreak 7-1

Gutsy stuff at the end. Not great action (qualitatively, as well as stylistically), but understandable with players in the state they’re in at that stage. Match as a whole is if anything, even worse

Serve & Return
Murray serves quite softly and his returning is a mix of good and bad. Fer makes good use of body and body-ish serves and returns soundly

Murray has capacity to send down whacking powerful first serves. He doesn’t. Lot of routine first serves in swing zone throughout match. At end when he’s tired, he’s serving 2 ‘second’ serves (understandably)

Just 2 aces isn’t necessarily a problem, but the generally (as in, beyond this match) lighter serving Fer with 4 is indicator of Murray not doing much with first serves. And 7 double faults is poor, especially since his second serve is often weak. High number isn’t weighed towards the tiring end phase

He’s a bit off on returning regulation first serves too. Generally, a great strength of his. What he does well on the second shot is step in and smack 2nd returns hard and early. Couple of return winners for him in this way, and other deep, powerful returns. Fer winning just 33% 2nd serve points is influenced by this

Fer’s about his norm on both shots. Steady stuff on the serve, with the ones close to Murray the most interesting thing going on

Just 7% bona fida body serves, but a good lot crampingly close beyond that. It’s a great way to serve to Murray, who generally, is extraordinary in reaching wide serves and bopping them back with fair authority. Does this with both first and second serves, catching Murray out a few times

Conventional force/consistency balance on the return, in accordance with which serve he’s facing. There’s room for improvement in his consistency too

Mur also with low 39% second serve points won has less to do with Fer’s returning than when shoe is on other foot. Healthy neutralizing 2nd returns from Fer, but not initiative grabbing or point ending ones like Murray

Unreturned rate - Mur 18%, Fer 20%
… is a relative win for Fer and down to Murray missing more regulation returns than his habit, but its actually Fer who has more return UEs 10-7

Not too important on such a court

 

[Waspsting]

Play - Baseline (& Net)
At start, they trade orthodox groundies til someone misses. Murray’s a lot more error prone in that early stage, particularly his BH. Hitting is average of force from both players

Around second set, Murray adds in more move-opponent-around to the dynamic, changing longline off both sides, including with nice BH slices. BH longline chang-ups are firmer than the FHs, which are often short. Some good use of BH dtl attacking shots by Murray too

Still, predominant dynamic remains neutral rallying. And both players tend to give up errors on stationary shots more than on the move. Fer doesn’t counter move Murray back, so its Murray that’s leading him around. Error rate shifts in Murray’s favour

In the decider, action is about 50-50 between move-opponent-around stationary rallies. Both players tire as set goes on. The odd point ending shot by Murray - couple good BH cc’s, but overwhelming bulk of action is geared to looking for errors

Mur with near 0 interest in taking net, while Fer does come in a bit. Some of the openings to come in that Murray lets go by are surprising, even for a baseline-stuck player. Fer at least, doesn’t do this and it’s a good move for him to finish up front

In numbers, players combine for 26 winners (Murray with bulk 17 - he’s the one who goes for a few shots to Fer’s near 0), forcing 37 errors (Fer with bulk 21, product of his net play) and small matter of 95 UEs

Murray’s FH has the best of it, with ‘just’ 17 UEs (also by far match high 10 winners - 1 more than Fer’s total for all shots). Other 3 groundies are clustered around 25 each (and next highest winner hitter is Murray’s BH with 5)

Neutral UEs - Mur 28, Fer 27 (Mur also has a defensive 1), so equality on the basic front
Near equality on attacking UEs too (Mur 10, Fer 12), which also falls in line with number of errors forced

Fer very poor in point-enders. He’s got 11 winner attempt UEs, to go with his 9 winners (of which only 4 are baseline-to-baseline shots). Misses are from good openings too. He doesn’t take on ambitious winner shot choices. You can see why its not his thing, and also why coming to net is a good idea for him

Fer 13/19 at net or 68% to Murray’s 9/17 at 53%. Fair chunk of Murray’s approaches would be forced. He only looks to come in voluntarily even a little bit right at the end to get out of having to rally on rubber legs

Gist - 26 winners, 95 UEs

Match Progression
Very solid first set from Fer. Rallies are medium length, shots are firm, and Fer can’t seem to miss. Leaving it for Murray to do so. Murray misses a few regulation returns, but also steps in to handsomely strike second returns

Who-blinks-first, with Fer tight eyed

Fer opens up 5-0 lead. Not too easy - he survives break points in 2 deuce games and Murray’s broken twice in 10 point games. Mur snatches a break back to make things 2-5, but plays the only, really terrible game to be broken to love after that (2 double faults at either end, sandwiching a pair of third ball FH UEs) and its 1 love Ferrer

In set 2, consistency advantage shifts to Murray, with Fer descending to poor territory on that front (as opposed to first set when Murray wasn’t as bad, but Fer happened to be particularly solid)
Mur takes the chance to start moving Fer around some, and regularly changes to longline shots. The BHs are particularly good, and Mur comes into credit worthy level of play

Murray’s breaks early for 2-1 and there are competitive games from then on. Just as he’s getting on a roll of playing quite well, he throws it away from 40-15 up with a spate of errors to get broken for 4-4
No matter - he breaks back to 15 at once - another poor game - before serving it out

Best tennis of the match is early in third set, where Murray implements more move-opponent-around play than before, and Fer to a greater extent responds in kind (as opposed to playing ball back down the middle), so that its dual moving-opponent-around play. Still within confines of neutral play, nothing so wide or hard hit as to qualify as aggressive. And with good lot of stationary rallies in between too

The players break serve to stay even 3-3 (that’s not a typo - 6 breaks on the trot). Neither player appears particularly tired at the start of the set, but a few long, side-to-side rallies has both players breathing heavily before long

Fer starts taking treatment (having his thighs massaged) at change-overs. Does so over 3 change-overs which is bending the rules (your allowed 2 for the same injury apparently), so unless he’s counting different legs as different ‘injuries’, he’s one over (leaving aside whatever’s up with him seems more to be ‘loss of conditioning’ rather than injury, but that ship’s long sailed these days)

Murray makes a small protest about it (reasonably), also one about Fer not being ready to receive in time (less reasonably). And whether to remain consistent with those objections or because he’s painted himself into a corner with them, declines to take similar treatment when he reaches same stage of fatigue/cramping shortly after - and it would clearly do him some good

Couple strong points from Murray gets him a break and leaves him serving for the match at 5-4. He spins in his serve for the game, Fer takes net and breaks back. Next Mur starts approaching to get out of rallying. As Mur serves to send match into tiebreak, both players are struggling to walk, much less run

Its there that Fer has a match point, but unsuccessfully challenges a ball that he’d made, albeit softly and in a way that it was likely to be dispatched, as Murray goes on to hold

Tiebreak of the walking dead is a gutsy effort from Murray. He runs about and defends on first point and Fer looks for the finisher FH inside-out. A ball can’t not go over the net by a lesser extent than that one doesn’t - it hits the very top of the tape, bounces up so its unclear which side it’ll land, lands on Fer’s side and then bounces over to the other

Adventurous third ball FH inside-in winner from Murray point after. Mur holds the errors down as Fer ends up blinking. After one long rally ends, Fer simply falls over

Murray finishes with a hefty, BH line return that forces a FH error from the barely moving Ferrer

Summing up, gruelling and gruesome stuff. Action is who-blinks-first baseline rallies, ticked up to moving-opponent side-to-side by Murray. Consistency advantage shifts between the players at different times, and Ferrer at times is moved around and later, counter moves Murray around

Amidst all that, Murray more able and capable of stepping in to end points aggressively, somewhat countermanded by Ferrer willing to take net more to finish points
Lots and lots of errors off the ground - not all of it sloppy, but still well beyond what constitutes good play from either player. Some good, long, fluid rallies are the highlight

Nothing in the result, which is decided as much by who can stay standing longer as much as who can hit one more ball and going into the finale, prospects are even with both players half-dead on their feet. Murray it is

 

[nolefam_2024]

I remember this match. It was during Ferrer's incredible feats of physicality days. I hated this match as both players refused to finish the points. Pretty boring match even if scoreline and time spent on court said otherwise.

 

[Mainad]

Actually I did think it was hotter than usual that year. Both players seemed weighed down by the humidity and were sweating like pigs. It drained their energy. Neither could hardly move by the time it ended.
The match was one long gruelling slugfest with each player taking it in turns to seize the initiative and then handing it back. The margins were so thin, either could have won. Ferrer had a match point but foolishly stopped play to query a return from Murray which had actually just caught the line and landed in. He lost the initiative after that and Murray finally stumbled over the finishing line. Sad for Ferrer in that it proved to be his last chance for winning a 2nd Masters. He never came as close as that ever again.

 

[Milanez82]

Ferrer 9 winners 50 ue..

 

[Waspsting]

Murray beat Ferrer 7-5, 6-4 in the Shanghai final, 2011 on hard court

Murray was the defending champion. It would turn out to be Ferrer’s only final at the event

Murray won 77 points, Ferrer 62

Serve Stats
Murray...
- 1st serve percentage (37/59) 63%
- 1st serve points won (32/37) 86%
- 2nd serve points won (9/22) 41%
- Aces 7, Service Winners 1
- Double Faults 4
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (19/59) 32%

Ferrer...
- 1st serve percentage (35/80) 44%
- 1st serve points won (24/35) 69%
- 2nd serve points won (20/45) 44%
- Aces 1
- Double Faults 4
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (12/80) 15%

Serve Patterns
Murray served...
- to FH 45%
- to BH 49%
- to Body 5%

Ferrer served...
- to FH 33%
- to BH 53%
- to Body 14%

Return Stats
Murray made...
- 64 (28 FH, 36 BH), including 1 runaround FH & 1 return-approach
- 1 Winner (1 BH)
- 11 Errors, comprising...
- 4 Unforced (1 FH, 3 BH)
- 7 Forced (3 FH, 4 BH)
- Return Rate (64/76) 84%

Ferrer made...
- 36 (16 FH, 20 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 11 Errors, comprising...
- 3 Unforced (2 FH, 1 BH)
- 8 Forced (7 FH, 1 BH)
- Return Rate (36/55) 65%

Break Points
Murray 4/9 (6 games)
Ferrer 2/5 (2 games)

Winners (excluding serves, including returns)
Murray 14 (6 FH, 6 BH, 1 FHV, 1 OH)
Ferrer 10 (4 FH, 2 BH, 3 FHV, 1 OH)

Murray FHs - 2 dtl, 1 dtl/inside-out, 2 inside-out, 1 lob
- BHs - 4 cc (1 return, 1 pass), 1 inside-out

Ferrer's FHs - 2 cc (1 return, 1 at net that can reasonably be called a running-down-drop-shot at net), 1 inside-out, 1 inside-in
- BH - 1 cc pass, 1 dtl

- 2 swinging volleys from just behind service line - 1 inside-out, 1 inside-in (both have been marked net points)

Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Murray 36
- 27 Unforced (9 FH, 18 BH)
- 9 Forced (2 FH, 6 BH, 1 BH1/2V)... with 1 BH running-down-drop-shot at net
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 45.2

Ferrer 40
- 30 Unforced (16 FH, 11 BH, 1 FH1/2V, 2 OH)
- 10 Forced (2 FH, 6 BH, 2 BHV)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 47

(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 are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)

Net Points & Serve-Volley
Murray was...
- 8/11 (73%) at net, with...
- 0/1 return-approaching

Ferrer was 7/14 (50%) at net

Match Report
A better match than the Miami one (it would be difficult for it not to be), on a much quicker court. Murray has better of things in just about all areas, with his much higher first serve percentage leading the way

1st serve percentage - Murray 63%, Ferrer 44%

Given quick court, strength of each players serve (Murray’s firsts strong, Fer’s average) and quality of each players defensive returning (i.e. ability to make challenging returns), that most basic of all stats would tell you who won. Its how they win that has points of interest to it

Unreturned serves - Murray 32%, Fer 15%
… most direct product of the in-counts and respective strengths of serves and returning ability. Would be quite a handicap for Fer to overcome at best of times

Once rally starts, the usually settle into who-blinks-first rallies across both diagonals. Murray gets better of FHs, Fer of BHs

FH-FH is unusual in that such rallies generally aren’t or don’t stay ‘who-blinks-first’ for long among most players, particularly on a quick court. Lots of players around with ability to smack a take-charge strong shot, or a powerful enough stock shot to sooner rather than later draw a short ball to attack or even swat a point-endingly strong shot from standard FH-FH rally

Murray and Ferrer though, stick to neutral stuff. The exchanges are similar to what you’d usually see when players trade BHs - just firmly hit balls being traded ‘til someone coughs up an error. The hitting is good, but shy of pressuring - again, similar to typical BH-BH rallies, but a little unusual for FHs

Murray has better of the FHs because Fer’s shot is looser and more apt to give up UE. Beyond that, as rallies go on, its Fer’s shots that grow weaker

FH UEs - Mur 9, Fer 16

Murray either waits for the error, or if he gets a sufficiently weak ball, attacks it to the tune of moving Fer side-to-side. Again, relatively mild attacking play for a FH, but as Miami match highlights, prolonging a point in this way has long term benefits

Danger is that the player on defensive might come away with a counter-attacking ploy or eventually neutralize dynamics again. There are dangers to everything though - guys who go for FH winners into corners miss them every day of the week too

Here, Murray keeps his foot on the accelerator, and almost ends up seeing points where he’s got Fer running around to successful end. Job well done

BH UEs - Mur 18, Fer 11

On this side of things, its Murray who blinks more often. Hitting is equal here, unlike the FHs where Murray has advantage, so it comes off as poor looseness from Murray here (as opposed to Murray just having stronger FH on the other side). And while Fer is steadier, Murray does damage with dtl shots. His BH dtl is the start attacking shot of the match. This hasn’t come out in stats at all. No winners, not many errors forced (Fer has just 2 FH FEs), but the shot gets Fer moving, puts him on defensive (situation from which Murray’s adept at seeing through to winning points) or flips rally to FH, where Murray’s better off

Both players are smart enough to implement the rally that suits them better, but neither are overly particular in doing so or reluctant to be in the others preferred domain

 

[Waspsting]

Neutral UEs - 17 each

Neutral UEs can either be product of sloppiness (regulation misses in short rallies) or just persistence (someone has to miss eventually, so if they miss in long rallies, not necessarily bad play)

Some combo of the two here - there is healthy amount of sloppiness in there. Hitting is good, nothing wrong there

Other thing that stands out is Murray’s defence and movement. When Fer’s got him on the run, he handles it. Zips about retrieving balls and wins his minority share when Fer misses kill-shot. Or Fer eases off and they go back to neutral

8 winner attempt UEs for Fer (for just 10 winners). Mur’s got just 4. Fer’s strained to go for them a bit because moderate attacks often don’t get the job done against Murray’s excellent scrambling defence

Not much net play. Murray doesn’t come in because he doesn’t need to; he has the big advantage off freebies, he wins his share of the who-blinks-firsts and he’s excellent at coming out on top when he has Fer on back foot (he wins huge 86% first serve points). Still, some of the chances he foregoes just seems like bad tennis and probably have nothing to do with wanting to keep Fer running awhile longer

Coming in might be good idea from Fer though, given his troubles finishing Murray off, but he doesn’t much either. Whether it would have done him any good remains to be seen. He’s just 7/14 at net - that includes 2 swinging volley winners from just behind the service line that are more akin to dispatching very soft half-trackers than they are genuine net points. He has 2 OH UEs - which is bad at best of times, disastrous given all the other troubles he has. And Murray’s scrambling defense extends to excellent passing on the run too. He’s got 3 passing winners, all of them from not good looks

What else? Ferrer leading second serve points won 44% to 41% is a little surprising, and sign that he's not too far behind Murray in terms of court game (regardless of whether the players are playing well or not). Not much aggressive returning going on, despite Fer having such a low in count and Murray's second serve being weak. Firm neutralizing second returns from Murray mostly, a little less than that from Fer, which makes the 2nd serve points won a bit more odd

Match Progression
Couple of long breaks to start things off. Fer’s broken in 16 point game, and breaks right back in an 8 pointer. Both error strewn games

Relatively comfy holds from thereon though. Fer has a tough time returning not overly strong serves, but its not an easy court to return on. Murray’s more secure - not least because of sub-par 19/44 first serves in

Murray defend very well when needed. Covers the court with such grace that he doesn’t even look under attack - just runs balls down and blocks or pushes them back in play, and pinches a few points from such situations. Most rallies are BH-BH and Fer gets better of them, with Murray blinking to a discredit worthy extent

It’s a choke game that decides the set. Serving at 5-5 and up 30-0, Fer breaks himself - missing 2 regulation third ball BH cc’s, a FH dtl winner attempt and double faulting. Murray serves it out to 15, finishing with consecutive aces

Like the Miami decider, they start second set with 3 breaks on the trot to leave Murray 2-1 up. Bad errors are main cause

Amusing point in opening game where Murray pops a string and immediately manufactures an approach. He wins the point by drawing a passing error. Such an easy way to win points, yet he so rarely engages it. Rest of the points he wins to break are a double fault and 2 FH UEs - its second time in a row Fer’s been broken from 30-0 up

Generously, Mur hands back the break with 2 double faults to go down 0-40. Misses an easy up-court FH approach shot to get broken after a smart BH dtl had given him control of point to get to deuce

Third break isn’t so bad. Fer pulls trigger on long rally with FH inside-in but misses but then has a horror OH miss to go down 15-40. Excellent running FH lob winner by Murray seals the break

Murray plays very well for rest of match, holding serve easily and twice taking Fer to 10 point holds (2 break points in each of those games). Couple of wonderful BH cc winners - 1 out of routine position almost out of blue, 1 stepping in decisively. An even better and rare BH inside-out win to back up a FH inside-out winner previous point. Couple of dashing FH dtl winners too. This is the only really dominant part of match for Murray, though he’s had better of thing throughout and none of it actually gets him a break

He holds with ease though, and serves out to 30 when time comes

Summing up, comfortable win for Murray who has better of almost everything. Serves much better both in terms of landing first serves and how strong they are. Returns with typical matter-of-fact ease. And gets better of attacker/defender dynamics - when he attacks, he keeps Ferrer running about until he’s ready to finish him off, and when he defends, he’s able to run around and defend with grace, pinching a few points when Ferrer over-strains or gets back to neutral when Ferrer eases back

Room for improvement in Murray’s consistency, and he’s only truly dominant in last part of the match, despite which, he’s not able to break

Ferrer plays steady game, but isn’t too steady, dishes out low in-count and doesn’t have the attacking vigour to finish opponent off. Chokes some too at crucial times. Not a very good match from him, but he seems more out-matched - just up against a better player - than anything else