Andrei Medvedev beat Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the Hamburg final, 1994 on clay
It was Medvedev’s first title at the event and he would defend it the following year. Kafelnikov was unseeded and this would be his only clay Masters final. The two had recently met in Monte Carlo semi-final, with Medvedev winning en route to the tile
Medvedev won 120 points, Kafelnikov 115
(Note: I’m missing 2 points entirely and serve direction for 1 other
Missing points -
- Set 1, Game 2, Points 1-2 - 2 Medvedev service points that he won
- Set 3, Game 2, Point 3 - serve direction and corresponding return data unknown)
Serve Stats
Medvedev...
- 1st serve percentage (85/117) 73%
- 1st serve points won (51/85) 60%
- 2nd serve points won (19/32) 59%
- ?? serve points won (2/2)
- Aces 2
- Double Faults 4
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (19/117) 16%
Kafelnikov...
- 1st serve percentage (60/116) 52%
- 1st serve points won (41/60) 68%
- 2nd serve points won (27/56) 48%
- Aces 1, Service Winners 1
- Double Faults 3
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (14/116) 12%
Serve Patterns
Medvedev served...
- to FH 52%
- to BH 43%
- to Body 5%
Kafelnikov served...
- to FH 27%
- to BH 62%
- to Body 12%
Return Stats
Medvedev made...
- 99 (36 FH, 63 BH), including 4 runaround FHs
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 12 Errors, comprising...
- 6 Unforced (2 FH, 4 BH)
- 6 Forced (4 FH, 2 BH)
- Return Rate (99/113) 88%
Kafelnikov made...
- 94 (51 FH, 42 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 17 Errors, comprising...
- 12 Unforced (6 FH, 6 BH), including 1 return-approach attempt
- 5 Forced (5 FH, 1 BH)
- Return Rate (94/113) 83%
Break Points
Medvedev 6/13 (7 games)
Kafelnikov 4/4
Winners (including returns, excluding serves)
Medvedev 32 (15 FH, 10 BH, 1 FHV, 2 BHV, 4 OH)
Kafelnikov 27 (15 FH, 5 BH, 4 FHV, 2 BHV, 1 OH)
Medvedev's FHs - 6 cc (1 at net, 3 passes), 3 dtl (1 pass), 3 inside-out, 2 inside-in (1 return)
- BHs - 3 cc, 6 dtl (3 passes), 1 inside-out
- the FHV was a pass from no-man's land
Kafelnikov's FHs - 7 cc (1 at net, 3 passes), 1 cc/inside-in, 4 dtl (1 return, 3 passes), 2 inside-out, 1 inside-out/dtl,
- BHs - 4 dtl (1 at net, 1 pass), 1 inside-out/longline
Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Medvedev 70
- 52 Unforced (30 FH, 20 BH, 1 FHV, 1 OH)
- 18 Forced (10 FH, 7 BH, 1 FHV)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 46.0
Kafelnikov 64
- 52 Unforced (26 FH, 25 BH, 1 BHV)
- 12 Forced (7 FH, 5 BH)... with 1 FH running-down-drop-shot at net
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 43.7
(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 are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)
Net Points & Serve-Volley
Medvedev was 15/25 (60%) at net
Kafelnikov was...
- 22/34 (65%) at net, including...
- 3/3 (100%) serve-volleying, all 1st serves
---
- 1/1 forced back
Match Report
Winds mold this match into a who-blinks-first affair that looks 10 years behind its time, with two players trading routine groundies until someone misses. Medvedev has slightly better BH and wins, but there’s barely anything between the two players
Despite Med winning full 4 games more, he only wins 5 more points
Another way of looking at it is he wins 1 more point than he serves, Kaf 1 less
Break points - Med 6/13 (7 games), Kaf 4/4
That looks more convincing from Med’s point of view. Its also a bit strange. Med having so many more break points and having them in almost twice the number of games speaks to Kaf having a harder time holding. But he hasn’t really - points served in match read Med 119, Kaf 116
Its more like a game here, a game there - a game Med holds to 30, a game Med breaks to 30 amidst both players holding to 30 regularly, with Kaf having a few more holds to 15 than Med. Something like that. The point is, there isn’t a definitive trend that would promise one player or other coming out ahead
Breakdown of points looks even closer. Med’s +5 unreturned serves (in percentage, he has 16% unreturned serves, Kaf 12%) accounts for his 5 point overall lead (I’m also missing 2 points Med wins)
With action being fairly passive (to be clear, its not as passive as 1984 type stuff - but it is closer to it than typical 1994 stuff, which was generally considerably more harder hitting and attacking), UEs are good place to start looking for differences between the players
UEs - both players 52
Neutral UEs is usually the backbone of matches like this
Neutral UEs - Med 30 (+1 defensive UE), Kaf 35
Slim advantage for Med, again, like the freebies, fitting right into the overall difference slot
UEs by groundstrokes
- Med BH 20
- Kaf BH 25, Kaf FH 26
- Med FH 30
If Med has better BH (he also leads winners on that side by a good 10-5 margin), his FH is as far behind Kaf’s as Kaf’s BH is from his
Both players with 15 FH winners and 7 volley/OH winners - so Med leading BH winners by 5 makes up full difference in total winners (Med 32, Kaf 27)
So, Med winning 5 more points in the match, while having…
- 5 more BH winners
- 5 fewer neutral UEs
- 5 more unreturned serves
(with 2 of the points he wins unaccounted for)
Slim margins for 4 good length sets of tennis on clay, and 3 different ways of looking at how he has better of things, however slightly. The differences are so minor over such length of a match as to seem almost a coin flip deal. Flip a coin 4 times, its not odd for it to land 3 times on 1 side, once on the other
Med generally plays more maturely in his shot choices. He also has a few more minor fluctuations, when he goes off and gets loose with errors. That’s about it - match is even, Med just happens to win it
Serve & Return
In counts - Med 73%, Kaf 52%
Is what it looks like. Med rolling in serves to keep high in count, Kaf trying to get them down with some force. Breeze makes effective serving tricky, leaving aside surface not suiting it
Amidst rolled in serving, Med occasionally biffs one down. Surprise element tends to make these effective in drawing error or soft return. Kaf serves conventional - powerful firsts (not too troublesome for Med to handle), toned down seconds, but even his first serve points tend to peter down to who-blinks-first rallies
First serve won - Med 60%, Kaf 68%
Second serve won - Med 59%, Kaf 48%
Those figures are in line with Med’s 2 serves being equally strong (or weak), Kaf with bigger first serve than second. Taking Med serving to be a 2 ‘second’ serves showing, his court superiority also comes seems to come through
That’d be most logical interpretation. Its not quite accurate. There’s a lot of shades of grey in the actual picture
Med does serve slightly stronger first serves with occasional powerful one. So Med has either under-performed on first serve points or over-performed on seconds to keep the two virtually equal. And while Kaf does serve bigger firsts - you’d be able to confidently guess what type of serve he’s sent down on a blind test, whereas it wouldn’t be easy for Med - its not to extent of his winning rates. Kaf’s either over-performed on first serves or under-performed on seconds
To be clear, there are differences across service points. Its not a Borg-Vilas match where all 4 types of points are interchangeable - the serve just a rolled in point starter, the return readily made and then 50-50 rallies. The point is, the difference across service points is (no variation for Med across his 2, big one for Kaf) is surprising and not in keeping with different type of action
Med’s way of not going for much with the serve and keeping high in count seems smarter way of going about things, but Kaf’s been success going his route too
On the return, both players are smartly conventional. Med’s able to get a few good, deep thumped returns off. In line with differences in Kaf’s serve, more are against second serves, which is one reason for discrepancy in Kaf’s success across his 2 serves. He’s not particularly troubled by first serves, but gives up the odd soft return
Kaf is more pointed in looking to return bossily, taking second return from a pace in the court. Realistically, he could look to do the same against firsts, but usually doesn’t
Taking above 2 points together, biggest surprise is Med winning evenly across his two serves, while differences in returning quality somewhat explains Kaf’s. Stress on ‘somewhat’. Med’s not blasting second serves all the time or fending back firsts either. Subtly and over a good number of points does differences in his return emerge. And its not big enough difference that you’d think Kaf would win full 20% more first serve points than seconds
Ultimately, what matters is Med with 16% to 12% advantage in freebies, Med with 6 return UEs to Kaf's 12. Its not much, but every little bit helps
It was Medvedev’s first title at the event and he would defend it the following year. Kafelnikov was unseeded and this would be his only clay Masters final. The two had recently met in Monte Carlo semi-final, with Medvedev winning en route to the tile
Medvedev won 120 points, Kafelnikov 115
(Note: I’m missing 2 points entirely and serve direction for 1 other
Missing points -
- Set 1, Game 2, Points 1-2 - 2 Medvedev service points that he won
- Set 3, Game 2, Point 3 - serve direction and corresponding return data unknown)
Serve Stats
Medvedev...
- 1st serve percentage (85/117) 73%
- 1st serve points won (51/85) 60%
- 2nd serve points won (19/32) 59%
- ?? serve points won (2/2)
- Aces 2
- Double Faults 4
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (19/117) 16%
Kafelnikov...
- 1st serve percentage (60/116) 52%
- 1st serve points won (41/60) 68%
- 2nd serve points won (27/56) 48%
- Aces 1, Service Winners 1
- Double Faults 3
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (14/116) 12%
Serve Patterns
Medvedev served...
- to FH 52%
- to BH 43%
- to Body 5%
Kafelnikov served...
- to FH 27%
- to BH 62%
- to Body 12%
Return Stats
Medvedev made...
- 99 (36 FH, 63 BH), including 4 runaround FHs
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 12 Errors, comprising...
- 6 Unforced (2 FH, 4 BH)
- 6 Forced (4 FH, 2 BH)
- Return Rate (99/113) 88%
Kafelnikov made...
- 94 (51 FH, 42 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 17 Errors, comprising...
- 12 Unforced (6 FH, 6 BH), including 1 return-approach attempt
- 5 Forced (5 FH, 1 BH)
- Return Rate (94/113) 83%
Break Points
Medvedev 6/13 (7 games)
Kafelnikov 4/4
Winners (including returns, excluding serves)
Medvedev 32 (15 FH, 10 BH, 1 FHV, 2 BHV, 4 OH)
Kafelnikov 27 (15 FH, 5 BH, 4 FHV, 2 BHV, 1 OH)
Medvedev's FHs - 6 cc (1 at net, 3 passes), 3 dtl (1 pass), 3 inside-out, 2 inside-in (1 return)
- BHs - 3 cc, 6 dtl (3 passes), 1 inside-out
- the FHV was a pass from no-man's land
Kafelnikov's FHs - 7 cc (1 at net, 3 passes), 1 cc/inside-in, 4 dtl (1 return, 3 passes), 2 inside-out, 1 inside-out/dtl,
- BHs - 4 dtl (1 at net, 1 pass), 1 inside-out/longline
Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Medvedev 70
- 52 Unforced (30 FH, 20 BH, 1 FHV, 1 OH)
- 18 Forced (10 FH, 7 BH, 1 FHV)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 46.0
Kafelnikov 64
- 52 Unforced (26 FH, 25 BH, 1 BHV)
- 12 Forced (7 FH, 5 BH)... with 1 FH running-down-drop-shot at net
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 43.7
(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 are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)
Net Points & Serve-Volley
Medvedev was 15/25 (60%) at net
Kafelnikov was...
- 22/34 (65%) at net, including...
- 3/3 (100%) serve-volleying, all 1st serves
---
- 1/1 forced back
Match Report
Winds mold this match into a who-blinks-first affair that looks 10 years behind its time, with two players trading routine groundies until someone misses. Medvedev has slightly better BH and wins, but there’s barely anything between the two players
Despite Med winning full 4 games more, he only wins 5 more points
Another way of looking at it is he wins 1 more point than he serves, Kaf 1 less
Break points - Med 6/13 (7 games), Kaf 4/4
That looks more convincing from Med’s point of view. Its also a bit strange. Med having so many more break points and having them in almost twice the number of games speaks to Kaf having a harder time holding. But he hasn’t really - points served in match read Med 119, Kaf 116
Its more like a game here, a game there - a game Med holds to 30, a game Med breaks to 30 amidst both players holding to 30 regularly, with Kaf having a few more holds to 15 than Med. Something like that. The point is, there isn’t a definitive trend that would promise one player or other coming out ahead
Breakdown of points looks even closer. Med’s +5 unreturned serves (in percentage, he has 16% unreturned serves, Kaf 12%) accounts for his 5 point overall lead (I’m also missing 2 points Med wins)
With action being fairly passive (to be clear, its not as passive as 1984 type stuff - but it is closer to it than typical 1994 stuff, which was generally considerably more harder hitting and attacking), UEs are good place to start looking for differences between the players
UEs - both players 52
Neutral UEs is usually the backbone of matches like this
Neutral UEs - Med 30 (+1 defensive UE), Kaf 35
Slim advantage for Med, again, like the freebies, fitting right into the overall difference slot
UEs by groundstrokes
- Med BH 20
- Kaf BH 25, Kaf FH 26
- Med FH 30
If Med has better BH (he also leads winners on that side by a good 10-5 margin), his FH is as far behind Kaf’s as Kaf’s BH is from his
Both players with 15 FH winners and 7 volley/OH winners - so Med leading BH winners by 5 makes up full difference in total winners (Med 32, Kaf 27)
So, Med winning 5 more points in the match, while having…
- 5 more BH winners
- 5 fewer neutral UEs
- 5 more unreturned serves
(with 2 of the points he wins unaccounted for)
Slim margins for 4 good length sets of tennis on clay, and 3 different ways of looking at how he has better of things, however slightly. The differences are so minor over such length of a match as to seem almost a coin flip deal. Flip a coin 4 times, its not odd for it to land 3 times on 1 side, once on the other
Med generally plays more maturely in his shot choices. He also has a few more minor fluctuations, when he goes off and gets loose with errors. That’s about it - match is even, Med just happens to win it
Serve & Return
In counts - Med 73%, Kaf 52%
Is what it looks like. Med rolling in serves to keep high in count, Kaf trying to get them down with some force. Breeze makes effective serving tricky, leaving aside surface not suiting it
Amidst rolled in serving, Med occasionally biffs one down. Surprise element tends to make these effective in drawing error or soft return. Kaf serves conventional - powerful firsts (not too troublesome for Med to handle), toned down seconds, but even his first serve points tend to peter down to who-blinks-first rallies
First serve won - Med 60%, Kaf 68%
Second serve won - Med 59%, Kaf 48%
Those figures are in line with Med’s 2 serves being equally strong (or weak), Kaf with bigger first serve than second. Taking Med serving to be a 2 ‘second’ serves showing, his court superiority also comes seems to come through
That’d be most logical interpretation. Its not quite accurate. There’s a lot of shades of grey in the actual picture
Med does serve slightly stronger first serves with occasional powerful one. So Med has either under-performed on first serve points or over-performed on seconds to keep the two virtually equal. And while Kaf does serve bigger firsts - you’d be able to confidently guess what type of serve he’s sent down on a blind test, whereas it wouldn’t be easy for Med - its not to extent of his winning rates. Kaf’s either over-performed on first serves or under-performed on seconds
To be clear, there are differences across service points. Its not a Borg-Vilas match where all 4 types of points are interchangeable - the serve just a rolled in point starter, the return readily made and then 50-50 rallies. The point is, the difference across service points is (no variation for Med across his 2, big one for Kaf) is surprising and not in keeping with different type of action
Med’s way of not going for much with the serve and keeping high in count seems smarter way of going about things, but Kaf’s been success going his route too
On the return, both players are smartly conventional. Med’s able to get a few good, deep thumped returns off. In line with differences in Kaf’s serve, more are against second serves, which is one reason for discrepancy in Kaf’s success across his 2 serves. He’s not particularly troubled by first serves, but gives up the odd soft return
Kaf is more pointed in looking to return bossily, taking second return from a pace in the court. Realistically, he could look to do the same against firsts, but usually doesn’t
Taking above 2 points together, biggest surprise is Med winning evenly across his two serves, while differences in returning quality somewhat explains Kaf’s. Stress on ‘somewhat’. Med’s not blasting second serves all the time or fending back firsts either. Subtly and over a good number of points does differences in his return emerge. And its not big enough difference that you’d think Kaf would win full 20% more first serve points than seconds
Ultimately, what matters is Med with 16% to 12% advantage in freebies, Med with 6 return UEs to Kaf's 12. Its not much, but every little bit helps