Borg imo played better by far in 1976 at Wimbledon than in 1980 because he wasn't injured. Borg didn't lose a set in 1976 and clearly served much better than in 1980 again because of the injury in 1980.
Borg had the same injury in both years so I think it's very problematic to say that one year he was injured while the other year he wasn't. He had pulled stomach muscles both years.
The severity of the injury in each of those years can certainly be debated (though it's probably unknowable with any precision), but he had the very same issue both years.
'76, when he won the tournament without dropping a set, shows that Borg could have stomach muscle pulls and yet still play better than he had ever done before. More to the point, he served, in '76, according to universal agreement, better than he ever had before.
I don't know how serious the muscle injury was in '80 compared to '76, but we know this: abdominal muscle pulls might have been an issue for him but they did not necessarily result in his level of play falling to any significant degree. He really proved that emphatically in '76, sweeping through the entire tournament without dropping a set.
The 1980 Wimbledon final is known mainly for the incredibly exciting tiebreaker but I felt the quality of the match left something to be desired. Borg was hurt during that Wimbledon and frankly didn't play that well. He lost the first set 6-1 and I didn't think he played that well in the second which he pulled out. That's two sets of mediocre play by Borg! Notice that Borg didn't seem to serve at full power. I believe that was because of his injury.
Though it is very difficult to tell such a thing on DVD recordings, I have to say that I don't notice Borg's serving at less than full power in 1980. Do you really notice that when watching the matches?
To the contrary, if I had to pick between the two matches, just doing an eyeball test, Borg's serves seem harder in 1980. I don't know if the average speed was harder, but there were several times in the 1980 final that he served with impressive power.
As you know, his serve improved after '76. In '78 was when it really reached its full power. Neil Amdur said after the '78 Wimbledon final that in the past two years his serve had gone from a rifle to a cannon. He overpowered Connors in the '78 final to a degree that he had not been able to do in the previous year's final. One of the big improvements in '78 was his wide serve in the deuce court, which he hit with incredible and surprising power (Bud said he'd never seen Borg hit that serve so well before).
So that's one additional reason to be skeptical about a claim that he served better in the '76 final than in '80. In '76 his serve, in pace and particularly on the wide serve, was not as imposing as it would become later.
Borg felt he had served with great force in the '80 Wimbledon final. When he blew Connors away with his serve at Flushing in '81, he said that was the hardest he had served since the fifth set of the Wimby final.
And the thing is, all the stats confirm this. You don't need to just go with the eyeball test. Borg, as you know, won 19 straight service points in that fifth set -- and I still cannot find another streak that long in a fifth set, in any men's match before or since.
Moreover, Borg held 15 straight times against McEnroe, which was his best such streak in all his Wimbledon finals.
Put all of Borg's Wimbledon finals together, and also include the great five-setter against Gerulaitis, and the straight-set semifinal over Connors in '79. Taking all those matches together, the 1980 Wimbledon final has the best service numbers in three categories: most service holds in a row (15), longest streak of service points won (19), and best % of first serves made on break points (12 of 13).
That last one still has to count as one of the greatest service stats in Wimbledon history. It's extremely rare to find something like that. Against Gerulaitis, for example, Borg made his first serve on only 7 of 11 break points: a decent but fairly typical performance.
So again, I'm sure he had stomach muscle pulls in 1980, but his serve, besides remaining powerful, was also
reliably powerful, as the break-point stat shows. He saved three consecutive break points in the second set with three massive first serves, all of them unreturned.
Against Gerulaitis, 23% of Borg's serves were unreturned.
Against McEnroe, who needless to say was a much better returner, 29% of Borg's serves were unreturned.
That's better even than Borg's rate against Connors in '78 when he was serving bombs.
For what its worth, there were the same amount of unforced errors(per NBC) in 5 sets of the '80 W Final as there were in the first 4 sets of the '84 RG Final.
An even better comparison would be between the '80 and '81 Wimby finals: same players, same statisticians, same conditions, no change in racquets, etc.
The 1980 final was a higher quality match, in terms of UE's, than the first half of the '81 final (unfortunately NBC did not provide UE's for the whole '81 match).
Not sure how anyone only making 13 ue's in the first 2 sets like Borg in '80 can be said to have 'played quite poorly.' I think Mac only had like 2 ue's in the opening set, maybe he had something to do with the 6-1 score.
I agree, McEnroe was more than capable of beating a healthy Borg by a 6-1 score. He did it at New Orleans in '79 (and again at Flushing in '80).
So I don't think there's any need to appeal to the injury. Borg was probably nervous when he came out for the '80 final. And he had not yet faced tough competition in the tournament so he wasn't grooved, while McEnroe had been given the toughest test possible by Connors. So McEnroe came out for the final razor-sharp, inspired, and essentially in the zone; he kept a nervous Borg from finding his rhythm.
That's how I interpret Borg's relatively low # of UE's: most of his errors were forced by his opponent.
Moose,
Sometime unforced errors as you well know don't tell the entire story. Rallies can be great and both players can make incredible returns of seeming winners and have the rally end in an unforced error to use that as an example. Perhaps a player isn't making unforced errors but is hitting very short allowing his opponent to push him or her around.
I check and analyze stats as much as the next guy but we also have to observe why the stats are what they are. For example players hit fewer winners against Serena Williams. Is it because they don't play as well or less aggressive or is it because Serena moves so well she doesn't allow the winners? I think the latter generally speaking.
I agree emphatically, stats can't be read literally. They have to be interpreted, and often there's more than one interpretation.
But this case of the '80 Wimbledon final is one in which many different kinds of stats all point toward a high-quality match: the UE's from both men, Borg's record-breaking service stats; and McEnroe's service stats were stellar as well.
And there is no stat that is subpar: not Borg's first-serve percentage (it was actually 62%, the highest he ever achieved against McEnroe in a Slam), not his success on 1st serve, or his success on 2nd serve. None of them stand out as subpar.
A very different case would be the '78 USO final, when Borg had an infected thumb on his blister: that was a serious injury that genuinely limited/hobbled his play. You can see it just by watching, and it's borne out in the stats: Borg made more UE's than Connors, which you would never expect, given their respective styles.
Borg himself called the '80 Wimbledon final the best match he had ever played at Wimbledon.
