Match Stats/Report - Rios vs Agassi, Grand Slam Cup final, 1998

[Waspsting]

Marcelo Rios beat Andre Agassi 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(1), 5-7, 6-3 in the Grand Slam Cup final, 1998 on indoor hard court in Munich, Germany

It was the only final at the event for both players. Rios finished the year ranked #2 and had risen to #1 earlier in the year. Agassi would go onto reach and finish #1 the following year

Rios won 154 points, Agassi 155

Serve Stats
Rios...
- 1st serve percentage (99/156) 63%
- 1st serve points won (69/99) 70%
- 2nd serve points won (31/57) 54%
- Aces 18 (3 second serves)
- Double Faults 10
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (49/156) 31%

Agassi...
- 1st serve percentage (81/153) 53%
- 1st serve points won (60/81) 74%
- 2nd serve points won (39/72) 54%
- Aces 9
- Double Faults 8
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (49/153) 32%

Serve Patterns
Rios served...
- to FH 42%
- to BH 57%
- to Body 1%

Agassi served...
- to FH 46%
- to BH 53%
- to Body 1%

Return Stats
Rios made...
- 96 (41 FH, 55 BH), including 1 return-approach
- 8 Winners (4 FH, 4 BH)
- 40 Errors, comprising...
- 18 Unforced (11 FH, 7 BH)
- 22 Forced (7 FH, 15 BH)
- Return Rate (96/145) 66%

Agassi made...
- 97 (37 FH, 60 BH), including 1 return-approach
- 1 Winner (1 BH)
- 31 Errors, comprising...
- 10 Unforced (4 FH, 6 BH)
- 21 Forced (9 FH, 12 BH)
- Return Rate (97/146) 66%

Break Points
Rios 5/13 (7 games)
Agassi 5/11 (9 games)

Winners (including returns, excluding serves)
Rios 46 (27 FH, 12 BH, 1 FHV, 4 BHV, 2 OH)
Agassi 20 (9 FH, 8 BH, 3 FHV)

Rios' FHs - 2 cc, 10 dtl (1 return, 1 pass), 1 dtl/inside-out, 9 inside-out (2 returns, 1 at net), 1 inside-out/dtl and 4 inside-in (1 return, 1 at net)
- BHs - 7 cc (2 returns, 3 passes) and 5 dtl (2 returns)

- 1 from a return-approach point, a BHV

- 2 other BHVs were swinging shots (1 non-net shot)
- 1 'OH' was played while on the floor, after Rios slipped

Agassi's FHs - 1 cc, 3 dtl, 1 dtl/inside-out, 2 inside-out (1 at net), 1 inside-out/dtl and 1 inside-in
- BHs - 6 cc (1 return, 1 pass, 1 at net) and 2 dtl (1 pass)

- 1 from a serve-volley point, a second volley FHV

- 1 other FHV was a swinging shot

Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Rios 76
- 54 Unforced (27 FH, 26 BH, 1 FHV)
- 22 Forced (12 FH, 10 BH)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 52.8

Agassi 51
- 25 Unforced (11 FH, 12 BH, 2 BHV)
- 26 Forced (13 FH, 13 BH)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 51.2

(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 for these two matches are keyed on 4 categories - 20 defensive, 40 neutral, 50 attacking and 60 winner attempt)

Net Points & Serve-Volley
Rios was...
- 13/16 (81%) at net, with...
- 1/1 return-approaching

Agassi was...
- 15/21 (71%) at net, including...
- 1/2 serve-volleying, both 1st serves
---
- 0/1 return-approaching

Match Report
An amazing, very lively and as entertaining a match as you'll find, a see-saw, baseline contest on a fast court. Rios brings the attacking flair and sublime shotmaking, Agassi provides the solid, hard hitting element. One or the other has better of play - when Rios' is 'on', its him and when he's not quite 'on' (if not 'off'), its Agassi. At the end, Rios is 'on'

The court is fast. The kind of court where a big serving serve-volleyer might hold games like clockwork in 2 minutes. Even Agassi and Rios' serves are weapons on it - and freebies gained with the serve make up substantial amount of match - almost exactly the same for both players, so it cancels out

When rallies develop, Rios works his magic - for better or worse. Starting with the return (and of course, the serve too) itself - he hits some amazing sharply angled or dtl slapped returns to end points or get Agassi running to defend. He goes for his winners from the back all match - shots set up by the serve, shots from regulation positions, shots set up by the return. Or when a neutral rally develops, he finds a way to turn it into an open court situation by finding angles where none seem to exist and before long, he has a shot at a winner and goes for it. Or he doesn't have a shot at the winner but goes for it anway.

Sometimes he makes the bulk - and he wins sets. And sometiems he doesn't - and he loses sets. Its not all the time. Sometimes he plays along 'normally', but the normal stuff is the exception and a respite from the dashing shot-making and point construction. And its not wild or desperate stuff - he's in control and as events demonstrate, percentages are in his favour for long term success - just glorious, dashing play

Agassi's not quite just a spectator on the other end. With court opening up, he's almost forced counter-attack. Its clear he'd rather play a game of 'who-can-boss-who' hitting hard and perhaps, he'd take attack if he could draw short balls from that dynamic. Situation doesn't come up often enough to tell - Rios attacks first. As often as not even before rally begins (i.e. with the return or the serve). Some attacking wide returning from Agassi too or power hits to the baseline - strong stuff by a normal standard, a drop in the lake next to Rios' showing. On whole, Agassi remains strong of hitting and very consistent. Though Rios takes the eye, Agassi right in there in all ways

Rios might take almost all eyes, but match is virtually dead even. Agassi plays just as well, though far less flashily

Statistically, the match is extraordinarily even in so many ways. There are other matches like this, but they tend to play out uniformly. But for a see-saw encounter of 5 sets to end up with so many things virtually dead equal is very surprising. Match long stats are of limited value because any given period of play might be deviating from the overall trends drastically, but have a look at how similar

Points won - Rios 154, Agassi 155
Points served - Rios 156, Agassi 153
Break Points - Rios 5/13, Agassi 5/11

Virtually nothing in that. Agassi with neglibile, shadow of a ghost of an edge

Games with break points - Rios 7, Agassi 9

That looks better for Agassi in terms of (statistical) superiority. Realistically, its match of parts so it doesn't matter

Unreturned serves - Rios 49/156 at 31%, Agassi 49/153 at 32%
Double Faults - Rios 10, Agassi 8, hence...
Return Rates - both 66%

Freebies are identical. Their breakdowns are in line with Rios aggressor, Agassi more solid - on both the serve and the return

Aces - Rios 18, Agassi 9
Return FEs - Rios 22, Agassi 21, leaving the slack to be made up by....
Return UEs - Rios 18, Agassi 10

Rios much higher ace count is obviously a product of his serving more aggressively. His much higher Return UE count is product of his returnign more aggressively. He's got 8 return winners to Agassi's 1 - and that's not the whole iceberg. He strikes boatloads of error forcing and initiative grabbing wide returns on top of that too. Agassi strikes a fair few too - but nowhere near as much as Rios

They even serve in similar directions -
- to FH - Rios 42%, Agassi 46%
- to BH - Rios 57%, Agassi 53%
- to Body - both 1%

More basically -

First serve in - Rios 63%, Agassi 53%
First serve won - Rios 70%, Agassi 74%
Second serve won - both 54%

Virtually equal again. Realistically, not too important. At the death in 5th set, Agassi winning 2/14 or 14% second serve points is key. Other sets, figures are 64%, 78%, 59% and 64%. There are similar flucutations for all 4 serves in the match. But if your looking for a statistically significant point, Agassi's 53% first serves in, given a fairly ordinary serve, is not good. With a serve like that, he can reasonably expect it to be 60%+ and in that sense, low in-count is crucial factor. How important it is realistically is less clear - Rios is quite capable of cleaning up on Agassi's first serve points when he gets going

In play -
Points won - Rios 97, Agassi 96, broken down as....
Winners - Rios 46, Agassi 20
Errors Forced - Rios 26, Agassi 22
UEs - Rios 54, Agassi 25

In other words, Rios is + 30 points ended aggressively, Agassi is +31 on UEs
Both are well in the positives point ended aggressively/UE differential - Rios +18, Agassi +17... very well played match

Very, very high UEFIs of Rios 52.8, Agassi 51.2. Even 100% serve-volley matches aren't always this high and this is very much a baseline match (the 2 combine for 37 approaches in 309 points)

Breakdown of UEs -
- Neutral - Rios 13, Agassi 9
- Attacking - Rios 13, Agassi 4
- Winner Attempts - Rios 28, Agassi 12

That actually is surprising. Some explanation and analysis

Agassi has considerably better of things neutrally and more so than the small gap in UEs - but little control in keeping dynamics so. Rios' 13 neutral errors are mostly sloppy misses to regulation balls. Agassi's tend to be tricky, not easy, tilted to being defensive shots. When Agassi leads play, he hits hard and well off both sides. Its sort of play that should be good to keep his opponent honest. Rios has other ideas. He plays along, trailing in consistency but not hitting, and sooner or later, turns the dynamic into a more fluid, attacking-defender one with wide angled shots off both sides

 

[Waspsting]

In other words, there isn't a whole lot of neutral play because Rios transforms such rallies to something else. One product is his relatively high 13 attacking errors. That's a great number, given the kinds of balls he attacks. He's in the kind of mood where he goes for winners against anything 'not strong', let alone weak most of the time. When he merely attacks, the balls he goes after are good oens. Stuff almost anyone would jsut play back neutrally

13 attacking UEs from Rios is high relative to Agassi's very low 4. Its a fine number given not only what he's up against, but also, his forcing 26 errors out of Agassi. Agassi is much more efficient on this front, forcing 22 at negligle cost of errors

Neither player is particularly impressive in their defensive movement. Agassi in particular would absolutley have to be to cope with what he's against. Rios selectively makes a full run - at times letting balls go and at others, dashing for all he's worth. And Agassi's greater efficiency forcing errors is also somewhat counter-balanced by Rios striking a large number of winners when on the run and on the defensive (i.e. against balls that would have been marked FEs had he missed). His FH dtl on the run in particular is impressive and he has more dtl based winners than any other direction (10 in all - 9 of them pure dtl shots)

Winner attempt UEs make up about half of both players total UEs. First, that's very rare. Second, when it happens, its usually a huge server that's holding safely on back of unreturned serves going nuts off the ground. Boris Becker and Pete Sampras in their carpet matches do things like this. Hit and miss shotmaking tennis, with big serving safety net

Here, things are very different. Rios attacking play varies some - he seems to be making it up as he goes along. Occasionally, he'll go for winner from regulation position. More often, he'll open court first and then go for chancey winner that isn't high percentage. He hits winners counter-attackingly from defensive postions. And he hits winners set up by his serve (very normal) but also his wide angled returns that drag Agassi out of positions (on top of 8 with the return itself - all of them with Agassi on the baseline), which is exceptional.

Agassi is more normal, rarely looking to attack and end with winners (largely because Rios strikes first to take attacking postion). He misses a few 'easy' ones and doesn't go for winners from the kinds of regulation positions Rios does

2 very different roads, but they both lead to Rome. Winner-hitting efficiency is virtually equal. Dividing winners by winner attempt UEs - Rios scores 1.64, Agassi 1.67. Given how much more attacking Rios is and how he goes for his winners from low perecentage positions, things being equal in this are is a big, big win for him

Despite large discrepancy by shot - Rios has 27 FH winners, 12 BHs - Rios is near even off aggression off both sides. He prefers the FH, but doesn't mind going for it off the BH either - both sharp angled cc or dtl. BH is far more prone to missing the kill shots. He'd probably have done better to ease up on the BH shotmaking and gone for more moderate attacking shots. Not much danger of Agassi capitilizing by taking charge and Rios' BH is most capable of attacking moderately. In fact, more often than not, its his BH that does the court opening first step up of attacking, both cc and longline. Going for BH winners out of regulation positions is a bridge too far even for him - but its a lot of fun to watch

The freakiest coincidences are the almost perfectly symmetrical error breakdowns by type and wing for both players. In Agassi's case, the winners too

For Agassi -
- Winners - FH 9, BH 8
- UEs - FH 11, BH 12
- FEs - FH 13, BH 13

For Rios -
- UEs - FH 27, BH 26
- FEs - FH 12, BH 10
- Winners - FH 27, BH 12

The numbers speak to very much dual winged action. That's Rios' doing - whatever plans Agassi might have had about targetting a side are turned inside out by Rios' direction changers and court opening shots off both sides. With Rios' FH particularly deadly, Agassi shifts to playing to Rios' BH more. It has its benefits, in Rios missing winner attempts at greater rate on that side, but he can turn play any which way he likes off it too

Match Progression
To start with, Rios seems physically off. He has the trainer tend to his side after holding first game (10 points, 1 break point) and continues to receive treatment at changeovers, grimacing through the rubbing. For most of two sets, he's on and off with his movement. Sometimes slow, sometimes not bothering to give chase and occasionally, flashing out a full run - invariably to go for (and usually make) a winner

Agassi too occasionally doesn't move for makeable returns early on.

First set is even of play. Two trade breaks in middle of set - Rios double faults twice in 10 point game, including to end it - to give up first break and go down 3-2. After taking a full blown medical time out, he comes back to break back with attacking shots forcing 3 FH errors

Everything looks in order with Agassi up 40-15 at 4-5. Only Rios pounces with a series of stunning shots. Double fault from Agassi gives Rios a second set/break point in the game. Agassi runs Rios corner to corner on it and comes in but Rios scores with a full-running FH dtl pass winner to take the set

Second set is casually sloppy from Rios. Double faults quite a bit, misses regulation returns, misses his winner attempts. A few come off of course and he does make Agassi run around too - but more miss than hit. Agassi remains solidly strong. There's a memorable point where Rios slips at net as Agassi throws up a desperate lob that's low enough for Rios to 'OH' a winner from on the floor. An easy set for Agassi with 2 breaks. He serves out to 30 - opening with a BH cc winner, ending with a FH dtl one. Its a common pattern of Agassi's - playing solidly on the whole, but looking to end sets with a flourish

Third set is one of the best you'll see. Agassi maintains his strong, steady game, Rios engages in mind-blowing shot-making and attacking play - aided by nicely swung serves out wide or darted ones down the middle and hard slapped returns. He hits 23 winners - including 6 aces (1 second serve). Agassi has 4 (2 aces)

Rios has much better of the set, losing just 4 points on serve. He serves 32 points in it, Agassi serves 41

Great job by Agassi to take it into a tiebreak. He survives 2 deuce games, saving 2 break points apiece in them to do so, but 'breaker is more of the same from Rios and he sweeps it 7-1 to go up 2 sets to 1

By contrast, Agassi has much better of the fourth set. He serves much better - he'd made 14/41 first serves in 3rd set, which he ups to 19/30 - but also serves more powerfully. Comes to net a bit and looks to 'delay' serve-volley (the returns don't come back usually). Also opens some off the ground, playing wider angles. Rios carries on his casual shot making way

Just the one break to end the set and its an aggressive game from Agassi who takes net twice to go up 0-30, throws in a BH dtl pass winner after drop shotting Rios to net and couple of points later, smacks a powerful BH inside-in return wide to force error. Agassi serves 30 points to Rios' 41 in the set and is 1/4 on break points across 3 games while facing none himself

The deciding set is fitting end to match, with Rios' wide returning being sublime. He breaks from 30-0 and 40-15 down in game 3 and its as good a return game as I've seen

Next 2 games are breaks also - Agassi breaking half due to Rios' errors, half his own strong play, Rios returning the favour with some more excellent wide returns (and help from Agassi mishitting FH into open court), leaving Rios up a break at 3-2

Rios' movements are best of the match. While Agassi continues as previous set - looking for a bit more attackingly wide hitting and coming to net some

Rios ends the match with a third break. He starts with 2 punishing returns - the first a BH dtl winner, the second a wide FH cc that forces an error - to move up 0-30. Agassi double faults twice in next 3 points after that to end the match

Summing up, fantastic, thrill a minute, fast paced match of attacking baseline action. Marcelo Rios is the playmaker, Andre Agassi providing the hard hitting, steady element. Though turned invisible by Rios flash, Agassi plays a very strong match that would keep most anyone honest. Not Rios, who turns play into whatever he wants to against Agassi's power hits and what he wants is attacking, open court tennis

Rios' shot making is exquisite. His ability to attack and open court against Agassi's strong groundgame is even more impressive. Some excellent serving amidst a potpourri - there's some ordinary first serves and some extraordinary seconds - and fantastic, wide angled attacking returning. To paraphrase the loser, Rios "Dr. Feelgoods" Agassi's game - which has power returning to back up the strong groundstrokes, but the serve is a bit off

Despite appearences - there's virtually nothing between the two players over the full course of the match. Rios' lightening hits just about enough to give him the win. More broadly, when Rios' magic is working, there's not much Agassi can do about it and its working just more often than not

Stats for pair's Miami final earlier in the year - Match Stats/Report - Rios vs Agassi, Miami final, 1998 | Talk Tennis (tennis-warehouse.com)