Match Stats/Report - Hewitt vs Grosjean, Year End Championship final, 2001

[Waspsting]

Lleyton Hewitt beat Sebastien Grosjean 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 in the Year End Championship final, 2001 on indoor hard court in Sydney, Australia

It was Hewitt’s first title at the event and he would defend it the following year. He won the title undefeated, including beating Grosjean in the round robin, and the result secured year end #1 for him for the first time, which he would retain the following year. This was Grosjean’s only final at the event. He had recently won the title in Paris

Hewitt won 91 points, Grosjean 71

Serve Stats
Hewitt...
- 1st serve percentage (49/80) 61%
- 1st serve points won (37/49) 76%
- 2nd serve points won (19/31) 61%
- Aces 3 (1 not clean), Service Winners 1
- Double Faults 1
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (25/80) 31%

Grosjean...
- 1st serve percentage (39/82) 48%
- 1st serve points won (27/39) 69%
- 2nd serve points won (20/43) 47%
- Aces 4
- Double Faults 3
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (15/82) 18%

Serve Pattern
Hewitt served...
- to FH 34%
- to BH 65%
- to Body 1%

Grosjean served...
- to FH 35%
- to BH 61%
- to Body 4%

Return Stats
Hewitt made...
- 64 (26 FH, 38 BH), including 3 runround FHs
- 11 Errors, comprising...
- 6 Unforced (3 FH, 3 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 5 Forced (4 FH, 1 BH)
- Return Rate (64/79) 81%

Grosjean made...
- 54 (30 FH, 24 BH), including 12 runround FHs & 1 return-approach
- 1 Winner (1 FH), a runaround FH
- 21 Errors, comprising...
- 6 Unforced (5 FH, 1 BH), including 4 runaround FHs
- 15 Forced (6 FH, 9 BH)
- Return Rate (54/79) 68%

Break Points
Hewitt 5/11 (6 games)
Grosjean 1/2 (2 games)

Winners (including returns, excluding aces)
Hewitt 9 (3 FH, 4 BH, 1 BHV, 1 OH)
Grosjean 27 (14 FH, 3 BH, 2 FHV, 4 BHV, 3 OH, 1 BHOH)

Hewitt's FHs - 1 dtl, 2 inside-out
- BHs - 3 cc (1 pass, 1 at net), 1 dtl

- the OH was on the bounce

Grosjean's FHs - 2 cc, 1 cc/inside-in, 1 dtl, 5 inside-out, 5 inside-in (1 runaround return)
- BHs - 1 cc, 1 dtl, 1 inside-out

Errors (excluding returns and serves)
Hewitt 28
- 17 Unforced (7 FH, 10 BH)
- 11 Forced (7 FH, 3 BH, 1 BHV)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 47.6

Grosjean 54
- 39 Unforced (19 FH, 18 BH, 1 BHV, 1 OH)
- 15 Forced (5 FH, 9 BH, 1 BHV)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 50

(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
Hewitt was 11/12 (92%) at net

Grosjean was 16/20 (80%) at net, with...
- 0/1 return-approaching

Match Report
Hewitt is solid, with his returning particularly better than his opponent. Grosjean is foolishly aggressive from the back and court is quick-ish

Unreturned serves - Hewitt 31%, Gros 18%

Serving quality is about the same (first serve ace/service winner rates are Hewitt 8%, Gros 10%), Gros probably a bit stronger if anything. Hewitt does serve at substantially higher count (61% to 48%). And Gros does miss a few very aggressive returns

All of the above have a hand in the freebies being what they are, but biggest reason is how much better Hewitt is at returning difficult serves

Return FEs - Hewitt 5, Gros 15

Its not the movement - Gros, if not as good as Hewitt, is very good at getting into position. But nowhere near as good at getting the return back in play. As is Hewitt’s way, he returns the tough serves with decent force much of the time so Gros doesn’t have easy attacking third ball. Gros too for that matter

Winners - Hewitt 9, Gros 27
UEs - Hewitt 17, Gros 39

No question who the aggressor is. Or that Gros playing badly contributes more to the result than Hewitt playing well does. Putting Gros’ 39 UEs in perspective -

Unreturned serves - Hewitt 25, Gros 15
Winners - combined 36
FEs - combined 26

Gros has more UEs off either wing (19 FH, 18 BH) than Hewitt has total UEs at 17
As for the foolish, Gros has 16 winner attempt UEs (Hewitt has 5 - mostly throwaway shots at unimportant times)

2 are his net shots, leaving 14 groundshots. 14 winner attempt groundies for 17 ground winners is poor - and not something Gros can afford trailing as he does on freebies. He seems to trying to break the world record for BH dtl misses

Gros has 1 BH dtl winner. He has 8 misses going for it, including 5 in the first set. Unable to land the standard knock out blow, his only BH winner of the set is an inside-out

He’s not particularly good at dispatching short or/and weak balls for winners from the back. Far from being deterred, he keeps trying to dispatch normal balls, with even worse results

Neutral UEs - Hewitt 9, Gros 16

That does speak to a need for Gros to be the aggressor. Hewitt is consistent and solid in his hitting, more so than Gros. But the almost exhibition carefree way Gros goes about it is poorly thought out and executed

Its not ‘absent thought’ out because he does switch tacks. In first set, keeps going for dtl winners and keeps missing. In second set, comes to net effectively, but falls back to crazy winner attempts from back to lose the set. In third, comes to net more often and sweeps around to take FHs as much as possible, while also going for big returns

The net thing is a good alternative. He’s 16/19 rallying to net, with some gorgeous stop volleying. Room for improvement for Hewitt on the pass. He has normal looks at passes - neither good, nor bad ones - and just as a percentage, would look to get a few winning passes off. He gets 1 and the only volleying error he forces is against a risky return-approach (albeit a well played one and the pass is a not easy one)

If you can go for a winner from the back, you can go for an approach shot more safely - and while doing so well at net (and the opposite from the back), why keep trying to blaze winners?

FH has 14 winners (1 return, no passes) for 6 winner attempt UEs, so his avoiding BH play is a good move in third set, where 7/14 winners come His easier misses though are on the FH, against short, weak balls and such

 

[Waspsting]

And Hewitt? Solid stuff. Steady to get 61% first serves in while doing just enough to force make-able errors. Its more like that his serve strength fits like a glove in exploiting Gros’ return rather than he’s calibrated quality of serve to Gros returning prowess

Fleet movement on the return to reach slightly and more wide serves. Doesn’t return with much authority. At most, not an easy third ball to attack. Calling it neutralizing is a slight exaggeration

Gros’ nutty aggression gives Hewitt chance to showcase his defence. Still quick as rabbit and tends to hit again, not weakly (as opposed to strongly) on the run from defensive position. Good shot resistance to Gros’ set up power hits

Gets better of BH exchanges because of Gros dtl misses (Hewitt rarely strays from beaten cc path), but he’s got more UEs of that side than the FH 7-10. Doesn’t matter much when Gros has 18 and 19 on the same shots

Like Gros, aggressively he’s at his best when hitting shot ball hard and approaching and he wins 11/12 at net. Unlike Gros, he doesn’t attack much from the back. And not too good when he does - 6 winner attempt UEs for just 5 ground-to-ground winners (his other winners are net shots and a pass)

Solid is more than good enough with Gros not up to the mark

Cute coincidence in Gros’ 1st serve points. He wins identical 9/13 in all 3 sets

Gros might not be up to the mark, but some of his shots are gems. The stop volleys are perfection. There’s a nifty BHOH. And wildest of all is blazing FH cc winner on the full run (admittedly, that one’s just low percentage thing that comes off)

Match Progression
Grosjean’s at his trigger happy craziest in first set and keeps on going for and missing dtl winner attempts. Which at least means Hewitt’s hitting wide enough to put him corner

In-counts for the set - Hewitt 9/21, Gros 13/27, so plenty of room for Gros to play a different game or wait for choice ball to go after

Hewitt breaks for 2-1. Couple of third ball FH errors from Gros sets him on his way, but ending is all his own - a FH dtl winner against a wide FH cc that has him stretched out, and superb stretched out return that puts Gros on defensive and leads to wining the point

Its 4-1 next time around, with Gros in full swing. Having missed back to back dtl winner attempts as Hewitt held for 3-1, he adds 2 more in a row to get broken again. Just to be extra sure, double faulting and putting up a bad drop shot for Hewitt to easily run down and smack away at net to set-up so the dtl misses literally get him broken

He snatches a break back in error strewn game and in consolidating, amusingly strikes a BH inside-out winner. Since dtl isn’t working, why not try something even more complicated?

Gros’ broken a third time to end the set. Good game from Hewitt who takes net twice on back of excellent BH inside-out return and strong FHs to take a couple of points, and snatches another with an error forcing wide BH cc. Gros though, puts the period in the exclamation mark to end the set by missing an easy BHV on the last point

Gros switches to attacking by coming in behind strong groundstrokes in the second set, to the kinds of balls he was looking to hit for winner earlier. It’s a huge improvement

Reverts back to the crazy shot-making for a game and its enough to get him broken and lose the set. Opens game 6 with consecutive FH winner attempt misses - 1 a deep return, the other ambitious too. Then double faults

Does manage to get out of 0-40 to deuce, before bungling a routine smash and again missing a BH dtl to give up break

Magnificent, full running, blazed FH cc winner from Gros as Hewitt serves ot to 30

Gros ups his net attacks in third set, along with moving over to play FHs as much as possible. He’s certainly quick enough to do it, and his FH fires with 7 winners
Gros has 15 winners from the set. The drop volleys couldn’t be better. There’s a perfect BH cc from routine position. Many excellent FHs. Misses most of the attempted runaround FH return winner attempts

Hewitt keeps at his own game, failing to break in game 7 after a top class wide return leaves an open court to guide a not-easy BH into on break point

He’s down break point for just second time in the match next game. Can’t blame Gros for missing an adventurous FH inside-in on it and Hewitt goes on to hold
Hewitt breaks for 5-4 via not particularly aggressive ground errors (2 neutrals, 2 attacking, 0 winner attempts), before serving out to love

Summing up, quick and fun, if not particularly good match. Grosjean plays with almost wild abandon for much of it. Produce some breathtaking shots - especially the stop volleys - but misses far too often with crazily aggressive shot choices he’s just not good enough to deliver with, especially BH dtl’s

On positive front, Hewitt’s quickness on the return and his ability to get tough serves back in play stands out, both players are fleet around the court - Hewitt doing a lot of running, Grosjean taking to sweeping about to get into position for his aggressive choices and Hewitt’s shot resistance against power is good

Both players offensively at their best attacking net. Grosjean's choice to seek shot-making winners from the back as an alternative much of the time is a very bad one, while Hewitt doesn't

Solid from Hewitt, with his scope to be more capped by bright and poor showing from Grosjean