Match Stats/Report - Lendl vs Mecir, Antwerp Invitational final, 1987

[Waspsting]

Ivan Lendl beat Miloslav Mecir 5-7, 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 in the Antwerp Invitational final, 1987 on indoor hard court

It was Lendl’s 5th and final title at the event. Mecir had been runner-up previous year also and would go onto meet Lendl in the final again in 1989, with same result

Lendl won 137 points, Mecir 113

Serve Stats
Lendl...
- 1st serve percentage (66/128) 52%
- 1st serve points won (51/66) 77%
- 2nd serve points won (29/62) 47%
- Aces 9
- Double Faults 1
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (24/128) 19%

Mecir...
- 1st serve percentage (88/122) 72%
- 1st serve points won (47/88) 53%
- 2nd serve points won (18/34) 53%
- Aces 1 (a second serve), Service Winners 1
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (16/122) 13%

Serve Patterns
Lendl served...
- to FH 35%
- to BH 57%
- to Body 9%

Mecir served...
- to FH 30%
- to BH 67%
- to Body 2%

Return Stats
Lendl made...
- 106 (30 FH, 76 BH), including 1 runaround FH & 1 return-approach
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 14 Errors, comprising...
- 8 Unforced (5 FH, 3 BH), including 1 runaround FH
- 6 Forced (4 FH, 2 BH)
- Return Rate (106/122) 87%

Mecir made...
- 103 (40 FH, 63 BH), including 3 runaround FHs & 1 return-approach
- 1 Winner (1 FH)
- 15 Errors, comprising...
- 6 Unforced (6 FH)
- 9 Forced (3 FH, 6 BH)
- Return Rate (103/127) 81%

Break Points
Lendl 8/13 (10 games)
Mecir 4/11 (7 games)

Winners (including returns, excluding serves)
Lendl 30 (9 FH, 12 BH, 5 FHV, 3 BHV, 1 BHOH)
Mecir 34 (10 FH, 20 BH, 3 FHV, 1 FH1/2V)

Lendl's FHs - 2 cc, 2 dtl (1 return, 1 at net), 3 inside-out, 1 inside-in/cc pass, 1 net chord dribbler
- BHs - 4 cc (3 passes), 7 dtl (2 passes, 2 at net - 1 slice)

- 1 from a serve-volley point, a first 'volley' BH at net (drop shot)
- 1 other FHV was a swinging inside-in from near service line

Mecir's FHs - 4 cc (1 pass), 1 dtl, 2 inside-out, 2 lobs, 1 net chord dribbler
- BHs - 5 cc (2 passes), 1 cc/inside-in, 1 cc/down-the-middle pass at net, 7 dtl (2 passes), 2 dtl/inside-out passes, 1 inside-out, 1 longline at net, 2 drop shots

Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Lendl 62
- 37 Unforced (22 FH, 12 BH, 1 FHV, 2 BHV)
- 25 Forced (12 FH, 13 BH)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 48.1

Mecir 83
- 57 Unforced (16 FH, 37 BH, 2 FHV, 2 BHV)... with 1 BH at net
- 26 Forced (13 FH, 12 BH, 1 BHV)... with 2 BH at net
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 50.2

(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
Lendl was...
- 22/35 (63%) at net, including...
- 1/1 serve-volleying, a 1st serve
---
- 0/1 return-approaching

Mecir was 19/34 (56%) at net, with...
- 0/1 return-approaching

Match Report
Beautiful match filled with open court rallies, wide angled cc and dtl attacking play. Both players indulge in slightly different ways. Lendl has power + dtl attacks, Mecir lacks the power but has wide cc shots + dtl ones (and few inside-out too) - with both players going at it off both wings.
Lendl’s better and wins for because his serve does some damage (Mecir's virtually none), his attacks are more powerful, he's able to defend better and he can keep up his power based attacks more consistently than Mecir can his placement based ones. Court is on slow side

First serve points won - Lendl 77%, Mec 53%
Second serve points won - Lendl 47%, Mec 53%

Mec with 2 ‘second’ serves, with Lendl with a genuine first - QED
With Mec winning 53% of all the would-be 50-50 points, its easy to even argue that he’s the better court player - though that’s actually open to question because Lendl doesn’t serve that big a first serve. Also, Lendl slightly takes it easy on some return games when he’s up (emphasis on slightly)

Big enough to win majority, but he’s done well to take as big lot as 77%. Fair amount of Lendl’s first serve points simmer into the same kind of rallies that happen on the 50-50 prospect points (henceforth, Lendl’s second serve and all Mecir’s service points will be referred to as 50-50 points)

Court is on slow side, and Mecir does good job of getting so many returns in play. Just 19% freebies for Lendl. 25-35% wouldn’t be surprising. Mec making tough returns well, and often prolonging rally after to reach 50-50 prospect situation
Mec has 13% freebies, to compare. Would say Lendl returned badly if that were 20% and wouldn’t come as a surprise if it were 10%. Lendl does normal or adequate job against a weak serve, usually just putting it back in play without heat.

Lendl with 9 aces, Mec’s only 1 is a second serve late in match in game Lendl lets go

Aggressively ended points are similar (Mec has 4 more winners, Lendl forces 1 more error), so the big difference is in the UEs. Lendl has 37, Mecir 57
Neutral UEs are virtually same (Lendl 16, Mec 17), which in this match-up, would tend to relative win for Mec
Aggressive UEs read Lendl 21, Mec 40 (attacking - Lendl 12, Mec 22 & winner attempts - Lendl 9, Mec 18)

That’d be more regular lapses by Mec. Its not a neutral rally match and rallies are lively, moving into attacking play constantly. Both players are quite solid neutrally, so it usually goes beyond that. Rallies tend to be long too, so the UEs don’t come easy and both players need to defend. Lendl defending better, Mec not having enough power to make his wide attacking play irresistible have a hand in the aggressive UEs count, beyond Lendl being more efficient when attacking

Mec primarily attacks off the BH, which has match high 20 winners (next highest shot in match has 12) and 37 UEs (next highest 22). Combos of wide cc shots to open up the court (and potentially force an error) and dtl shots (to open court of finish point), and there’s no telling which way he’s going to go. Odd drop shot, few inside-out’ish shots too. Beautifully crafted stuff

Lendl attacks near equally off both wings, leaning to FH more. Its unusual for him to have more BH winners of 12 than FHs at 9, but FH has 22 UEs to just 12 on BH. He’s more able to overpower Mec with FH cc than BH cc, but he rams balls dtl off both wings to finish (often allied to an approach)

Fluid, fun action. And Mec, more the initiator than Lendl of it (though far from to full extent), unable to keep up his combos as efficiently or defend as well

A word on the surface. Per wikipedia, its carpet. I think it’s a hard court
Commentary from ‘85 final specifically states it was not carpet but same hard court as US Open, and wiki has that listed as carpet too
There’s no sign of seams on court and it sounds like a hard court

Serve & Return
Lendl with healthy first serve, Mec with a point starter

First serve in - Lendl 52%, Mec 72%
First serve ace rate - Lendl 14%, Mec 0

Perfectly in line with serve strength, seemingly. Minor tweaks to how things seem

Lendl isn’t in full blast, every first serve mode. Blasts a few, but otherwise keeps something back on power of serve. In that light, 52% first serves in isn’t great figure. Its not bad and not far out of his norm. Typically, Lendl has in counts in 45-50% range when going all in, and 60-65% when contained

Here, he serves something in between ‘full blast’ and ‘contained’. 52% in - not bad, not good… closer to bad than good

Its slightly out or character display. Generally, he likes to go full blast against non chip-charge returners. Mec doesn’t chip charge and doesn’t look to use 2nd return as weapon. So slightly cautious serving from Lendl

Mec’s serve is harmless. He starts match making first 21 first serves, which extends to 35/37 or 95% early in second set. So after that 53/85 or 62% for most of match
Just small change in width of serving across 2 phases. Not enough to justify such a drop in in count. Ironically, his sole service winner is in the 95% phase
95% in count is more accurate gauge of quality of first serves than 62%, so his overall in count isn’t great either, but for him, it matters little since both serves are equal
Wins 53% first serve points, wins 53% second serve points
‘Matters little’ is different from ‘irrelevant’
With serve, Mec draws 8 UEs, 6 FEs
Lendl draws 6 UEs, 9 FEs

Given meager 13% unreturned serves, that’s relatively high lot of FEs drawn by Mec. Would expect something like 11 UEs, 3 FEs. Lendl not great at handling slighlty tougher serve, but they’re so rare it barely matters

Mec by contrast, good on defensive first return, and keeps Lendl to small 19% freebies. Naturally, some weak returns drawn, but he’s done well to make those returns at all. He doesn’t miss much that’s easy either. He doesn’t miss a second return all match, so those 6 UEs are relatively difficult - pacey stuff, in swing zone type stuff, to say nothing of making 61/61 live second returns

 

[Waspsting]

100% second return rate accurately implies Mec doing little with the shot. Rare dtl or wide return. Lendl starting second serve points with minor initiative usually (and free to look to domineer, if so inclined)
Lendl returns passively too. Against first serves, near never attacks. Against seconds, rarely. Usually misses those blasted returns

Gist - Lendl healthy first serve, normal second, Mecir two ‘second’ serves
Lendl returning consistently and safely (simple task), Mec good defensive returning against strong first serves and like opponent, returning seconds quite safely (not complicated, but literally perfectly)

Play - Baseline & Net
Attacking tennis, starting from baseline and extending to net play is the show

Mec starts the process. He doesn’t have a long term neutral baseline game. Might rally with routine placed shots for a few balls, but sooner or later, goes wide to open the court. Lendl at start, tries to play neutral game. Mec holds up in them, before turning dynamic fluid

Mec attacks by hitting wide. Sharp cc or longline. Plays the same shots as point enders too, or as approach shots. He gets Lendl running side to side, rarely as far as corner to corner. He’s better with the angled cc off the BH, and also more apt to play attacking combos off that side

Sometimes approaching behind such shots, sometimes taking on the winner from back. Sometimes just persisting with running Lendl about

He doesn’t have great power, making the absolute kill shot harder to find. There’s a lot of steps in his process, which means, a lot of steps for him to miss an attacking shot. As opposed to Lendl, who when he’s taken charge of point, is apt to finish it decisively (or miss trying - but fewer chances to go wrong that way)

Lendl early on, runs around and defends. Well. He’s soaked in sweat by end of first set
Later on, Lendl plays attacking ball. His way is more about overpowering and shot-making than attacking combos
He’s able to overpower Mec on FH side, with big cc shots. As in, push Mec back or/and draw weak ball (or error). Lesser degree, on the BH
He plays more dtl shots off both wings than any baseline showing I’ve seen from him. Rams the ball down - both after drawing weaker ball (usually, not completely weak sitter) or taking on the dtl from near normal position. Also does so some on the run, counter-attacking Mec’s wide shots

Also takes net behind the dtl’s. Both wings
He even pure manufactures some approaches. Just slices and comes in from routine position. Atypical for him
Mec sneaks in occasionally. A little less often than Lendl manufactures, which isn’t too often either

And they do have neutral rallies, with Lendl slicing and push-slicing, along with driving and top spinning. Its minority for rally to stay that way though

In baseline rallies -
- Winners - Lendl 11 (7 FH, 4 BH), Mec 19 (7 FH, 12 BH)
- Errors forced - Lendl 16, Mec 13
(Aggressively ended points - Lendl 27, Mec 32)
- UEs - Lendl 34 (22 FH, 12 BH), Mec 52 (16 FH, 36 BH)

… and UE types -
- neutral - Lendl 16, Mec 17
- attacking - Lendl 11, Mec 21
- winner attempts - Lendl 7, Mec 14

For starters, Lendl’s yield of aggressively ended points often flow out of strong serve. Mec’s don’t. Its remarkable how many winners he hits after long rallies, after moving Lendl all over the place from neutral starting point. That’s the beauty, the art of his play - and against able, efficient defender

Those 35 aggressive UEs is the cost of all that beautiful art, and its 3 more than points he wins that way. Lot of credit to Lendl’s defence for that - far more so than discredit to Mec. Lendl makes a lot of tough balls on the run or/and particularly deep to give Mec one more chance to miss or encourage him to go that much closer to lines

Lendl meanwhile with is +9 on the aggressive stuff (that is, aggressively ended points - aggressive UEs)

For both players, that’s aggressive heavy yield of UEs. 53% for Lendl and 67% of Mec’s UEs are aggressive ones. Bringing home aggressive nature of tennis, and with pretty long rallies (that is, not a serve +1 or first strike thing, but point construction and combinations of shots - lively, beautiful stuff)

22/34 Lendl UEs are FHs. With bulk of them aggressive ones. That’d be him looking to overpower Mec. That’s not a small cost - though less than value. Not small number would be not-easy UEs on the move, but those are neutrals

36/52 of Mec’s are BHs, with even bigger bulk of them aggressive ones. He generally likes to lead with BHs, and specifically here, has more scope to do so because Lendl’s less apt to power BHs as FHs. It would take some doing to doctor feelgood Lendl’s FHs. More often than thoughts of it, not being overpowered on FH is probably on Mec’s mind

Rallying to net - Lendl 21/33, Mec 19/33

On ‘volley’ -
- Lendl has 10 winners, 3 UEs
- Mec has 4 winners, 5 UEs, 3 FEs

On the pass -
- Lendl has 6 (1 FH, 5 BH) winners, 12 FEs (3 FH, 9 BH)
- Mec has 10 (3 FH, 7 BH) winners, 9 FEs (5 FH, 4 BH)

Lendl volleying better, Mec better of pass, overall edge to Lendl (he also wins sole serve-volley, both players lose their sole return-approach)

Lendl coming in off rammed dtl shots or against weak returns and occasionally slicing his way in from routine position. Doesn’t miss much, volleys are decent quality. Mec with some superb, precise pass winners
Mec coming in after outmanuvering Lendl and rarely sneaking in and usually to BH. That’s fair few UEs for him at net. He tends to try to be too cute with the touch sometimes. Not bad passing from Lendl, given he’s on full run much of time.

Gist - lot of fun things going on. Lendl thwarted in bleeding Mec out, joins him in attacking
Mec attacking with combos of wide shots in all directions, especially the BH
Lendl attacking with brute power, often set up by serve and going dtl to finish. He’s powering off FH more often than BH, but goes dtl off both wings
Both adding net play to mix
Mec’s BH is at forefront of things - most winners, most UEs - with the UEs little more, in large part for Lendl defending so well on the run

Match Progression
Poor Lendl has a lot of running to do all through first set. He tries to simply outlast opponent, but Mec has different ideas, sends the ball wide and has Lendl playing chase. Lendl’s soaked in sweat by end of set

BH cc winner from Mec to start the match. And a rare (unique actually) service winner from him in the game. He makes his first 21 first serves of the match
Adds BH winners inside-out and drop shot and dtl and longline at net in next few games, but is thwarted on break point at 2-1 by net chord dribbling third ball winner from Lendl

Mec is broken to love to fall behind 2-3. Same kind of beautiful shot combos as earlier, only misses
But breaks back in error riddled 10 point game, which still has fluid, good rallies. Getting a time violation warning for toweling off before break point angers Lendl, and he’s ends game rashly - and plays next game same way

Two trade breaks again in moving from 4-3 to 5-4
Mec breaking first with BH dtl winner and forcing a deep FH error on move
Lendl scoring with BH dtl winner of his own and a powerful winning BH cc pass, before Mec misses a BH dtl to restore parity

Mec breaks to end the set. Delightful FH1/2V winner, set up by surprise BH inside-out gets him break point and he outlasts Lendl for a BH UE on it

Lendl turns it on in second set. No more being around, he overpowers Mec instead before the process can get started. Returns with some heat, powers ball off both wings, rams dtl shots, takes net. 6-1 pretty quickly

Third set is a great one. Lendl still powering, and also going wide with cc shots, Mecir back to form too. Lot of BH rallies - there are slices, orthodox play, but also wide cc and dtl shots to liven up from both players
Beautiful opening game, where Mec breaks to 30, with artful rallies. 3 winners, 2 FEs in the game

He’s in lot of trouble serving though. He’s broken back at once to 30 and rest of his games last 12, 10 and 8 points as set stays on serve, until the end, when Lendl breaks to 15

Lovely, dab BH cc pass winner from near service line by Lendl to start that last game, and winning BH dtl to follow it up. Mec misses BHV trying to be too cute with it and gives up routine BH UE to end the set

Fourth set is mixed affair. Sandwiched between 12 and 16 point holds (2 break points saved in each), Lendl breaks to love in between to take 3-0 lead. Lot of fine tennis in all the games
Thereafter, tennis drops. 3 comfy holds from Lendl, and he takes it little easy in return games. He does give Mec a scare returning at 2-5, but Mec come through in fine game, before Lendl serves out to 15 to close

Summing up, beautiful match of open court, artful rallies of healthy lenght. Mecir starts the dance with lovely wide placement, Lendl modifies it to his more power based tune and rams dtl shots off both wings, with significant wide angled play also

Its always fun, but not super competitive. Lendl’s better for few reasons.
- He has a first serve that does some damage, despite Mecir’s defensive returning being good, while both Mecir’s serves are harmless
- He can maintain his power-offence game longer than Mecir can his placement based one
- He’s more able defender, with Mecir’s attacks not quite powerful enough to be fully decisive. Lendl ekes out good few points defending and giving Mecir’s complex manuvers one more chance to falter

 

[Drob]

I'd love to see this match. This is the EEC, or "Golden Racquet" tournament, yes? Many years this was a bonafide equivalent of a strong Masters 1000. I am not sure about this particular year, without digging, but would have least been a "750" i imagine. These results are now virtually lost to tennis history because this was a tournament independent of approval by the Tennis Players' Council (precursor to ATP), perhaps for the HUGE money it awarded.

Ivan is a BEAST. The man has at least 120 world-class titles.

Thank you.

 

[Waspsting]

This is the EEC, or "Golden Racquet" tournament, yes?

Yes, that's the one

Ivan is a BEAST...

He ain't a beauty