Match Stats/Report - Bruguera vs Federer, Barcelona R64, 2000

[Waspsting]

Sergi Bruguera beat Roger Federer 6-1 6-1 in the first round/round of 64 of Barcelona 2000 on clay

Bruguera was 29 years old, Federer 18

(Note: I'm missing serve direction and return specifics for two points - 1 on each players serve. Both serves were returned, and are included in related totals but excluded from corresponding breakdowns)

Bruguera won 60 points, Federer 36

Service Stats
Bruguera...
- 1st serve percentage (26/47) 55%
- 1st serve points won (18/26) 69%
- 2nd serve points won (14/21) 69%
- Aces 1
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (20/47) 40%

Federer...
- 1st serve percentage (31/49) 63%
- 1st serve points won (15/31) 48%
- 2nd serve points won (6/18) 33%
- Aces 1
- Double faults 2
- Unreturned serve percentage (6/49) 12%

Serve Pattern
Bruguera served...
- to FH 24%
- to BH 76%

Federer served....
- to FH 32%
- to BH 65%
- to Body 2%

Return Stats
Bruguera made...
- 41 returns (13 FH, 27 BH)
- 5 Errors, comprising. ..
- 2 Unforced (1 FH, 1 BH)
- 3 Forced (1 FH, 2 BH)
- Return Rate (41/47) 87%

Federer made...
- 28 returns (8 FH, 19 BH), including 2 runaround FH
- 18 Errors, comprising. ..
- 11 Unforced (5 FH, 6 BH), including 3 runaround FH
- 7 Forced (2 FH, 5 BH)
- Return Rate (28/47) 60%

Break Points
Bruguera 5/7 (5 games)
Federer 0/2 (2 games)

Winners
Bruguera 4 (1 FH, 2 BH, 1 OH)
Federer 15 (6 FH, 3 BH, 1 FHV, 1 BHV, 4 OH)

- Bruguera had 2 passes - both BHs, one crosscourt the other down the line. The dtl was particularly good as he sliced a low ball gracefully over the high part of the net

- the FH was an inside-in

- Federer had 1 pass - a BH dtl

- he stepped into the court to launch 4 of his winners (3 FH, 1 BH). 2 of these FHs were dtl, while 1 shot from either wing was cross court

- 2 FHs were inside-out, 1 was inside-in and 1 BH was dtl

- the FHV was a swinging shot

- one of the OHs was set up with a sharply angeled BH cross court which Bruguera was forced to defensively lob

Errors (excluding returns and serves)
Bruguera 15
- 6 Unforced (6 BH)
- 9 Forced (5 FH, 6 BH)
UE forcefulness index 40

Federer 35
- 32 Unforced (18 FH, 10 BH, 1 FHV, 3 BHV)
- 3 Forced (2 BH, 1 BHV)
UE forcefulness index 50.6

Net Points & Serve-Volley
Bruguera was 2/3 at net, with no serve-volleys

Federer was 14/23 (61%), including 2/6 serve-volleying (2/5 off first serves, 0/1 off second)

He was 12/17 on other approaches

 

[KG1965]

Federer 35
- 32 Unforced (18 FH,

 

[KG1965]

Errors (excluding returns and serves)
Bruguera 15
- 6 Unforced (6 BH)

zero FH ? Alien.

 

[KG1965]

Federer...
- Aces 1

 

[Waspsting]

This isn't a match I would normally select to take stats for

I chose it as an experiment for the Unforced Error Forcefulness Index

This is my own creation, an attempt to derive a number from the unfolding action that helps give a clearer picture of a match. It's a work in progress and I'd like to get feedback on it from you guys

More on that later. First...

Match Report
This was a bad match overall, though studded with a few moments of stylish stroke play. It's interesting to see the 18 year old, baseball cap wearing Roger Federer in action... and key in on how he changed. Not to mention suss out an aging Sergi Bruguera, who I remember as being a wall

Federer's service action is smooth but different from what it became. The serve itself is nothing out of the ordinary and Bruguera handles it comfortably

The Swiss slides on the clay more than he was to do in the future. Here, he slides into quite a few shots he would come to step into

And apparently, he used to sweat once upon a time. His shirt is drenched by the second set (can't rule out he just spilled water over himself at a change over, I suppose)

And he's clueless, with no idea how to play on clay, especially against a maestro of the dirt like 2 time former French champion Sergi Bruguera

The story of the match isn't even of Bruguera giving his opponent enough rope. It's more like the Spaniard waiting for Fed to get his own rope out to hang himself with - and he doesn't have to wait long

Federer sprays errors all over the court - returns, forehands, backhands, volleys you name it. He doesn't even rally much, most of the errors come in short rallies.

Bruguera for his part is solid. He plays from significantly behind the baseline and just gets the ball back, efficiently and without much heat. He does seem to quickly figure out that serving to the BH is the smart play - and does so heavily

Nonetheless, the highlights reel for the match would virtually be all Federer.

When he gets it right, he gets it very right, and it looks sublime. There are two glorious down the line backhand winners, a beautiful BH cross court that leaves Sergi befuddled and a number of powerfully struck forehands of all varieties

What he's missing is consistency and sound clay court judgement - for every winner of a particular type, it seems he's making 2 errors with the same shot

-------

Now, onto forcefulness index...

 

[Waspsting]

I've done stats for a few matches now and like to look at it as "painting a picture with numbers"

Now a picture is never as authentic as the real thing... but there are a couple of areas where the pictures that were emerging were more black & white than I'd like them to be in a world of colour

Unforced errors is one such area

Take a typical Roger Federer vs Novak Djokovic encounter and imagine they finish with similar number of UEs

If you know the players in question, you can probably make a reasonable picture of the play; Federer attacking probably and Djokovic counter-punching

If you don't know the players though... you're probably not getting an accurate picture of the play

To remedy this, I came up with this index

Unforced errors can be attacking shots, neutral rallying shots or even mildly defensive shots (too defensive and it'll tend to go into 'Forced Error' territory)

I classified each unforced error into one of these 3 categories and gave each category a numerical value

- 6 Attacking
- 4 Neutral
- 2 Defensive

To get the Index score, we multiply all attacking UEs by 6, all neutral UEs by 4, all defensive UEs by 2 and add them together

Then divide by total # of UEs

The result is an indicator of -

how forceful the Unforced errors a player made were

In this match, Bruguera had 6 UEs - 2 attacking, 2 neutral, 2 defensive

So we have [(2 × 6) + (2 × 4) + (2 × 2)] ÷ 6 = 4

Federer had 32 UEs - 18 attacking, 13 neutral, 1 defensive

Index is [(18 × 6) + (13 × 4) + (1 × 2)] ÷ 32 = 5.06

(To make the picture easier to see, I've multiplied by 10 to give the final answer)

So Bruguera 40, Federer 50.6

---

20 is the minimum possible score, 40 is neutral, 60 the maximum

The more aggresive the player, the higher we'd expect their Index to be. Realistically, we wouldn't expect to see many scores below 40

Guys like Djokovic who hit up and down the middle a lot you'd expect to be a bit above 40.
Guys like Federer who go for winners, you'd expect to up above 50

Borg would typically score low, Connors higher

---

This can be expanded to any area if one wants. McEnroe's returning would probably score very high or Sampras' serving for example. A a pilot, I chose to start with UEs in play only (serves and returns excluded)

I'm looking to tweak this here and there for optimal results and foresee problems with serve-volleyers (who confound UEs naturally)... feedback is welcome

 

[Moose Malloy]

Unforced error forcefulness. Interesting. I imagine Connors will do pretty well in this stat. And Mac would be ridiculously high in 1984 if you counted returns. Maybe I will give it a try.

Have you seen the threads about 'aggressive margins' by krosero? Sort of in the same vein.

 

[The Green Mile]

I wish there was some sort of match scoring program you could download, which would make it easier to do such stats. Like how do you guys do it? I wouldn't mind doing stats, though for years and years now I just take my own subjective notes on the match, and maybe right a little summary on it. I'll add stats if they are shown.

I appreciate the stats/report nonetheless, always a great read.