Match Stats/Report - Roddick vs Fish, Cincinnati final, 2003

[Waspsting]

Andy Roddick beat Mardy Fish 4-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(4) in the Cincinnati final, 2003 on hard court

Roddick had recently won Canada and would shortly after go onto win the US Open, and finish the year ranked #1. This was the unseeded Fish’s first Masters final. He would play 3 more (all losses)

Roddick won 125 points, Fish 117

Fish serve-volleyed off all but 3 first serves

Serve Stats
Roddick...
- 1st serve percentage (65/111) 59%
- 1st serve points won (53/65) 82%
- 2nd serve points won (27/46) 59%
- Aces 13 (1 hits opponent), Service Winners 1
- Double Faults 6
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (49/111) 44%

Fish...
- 1st serve percentage (69/131) 53%
- 1st serve points won (55/69) 80%
- 2nd serve points won (31/62) 50%
- Aces 8 (1 second serve)
- Double Faults 9
- Unreturned Serve Percentage (40/131) 31%

Serve Patterns
Roddick served...
- to FH 52%
- to BH 40%
- to Body 8%

Fish served...
- to FH 40%
- to BH 57%
- to Body 3%

Return Stats
Roddick made...
- 82 (29 FH, 53 BH), including 2 runaround FHs & 1 runaround BH
- 1 Winner (1 BH)
- 32 Errors, comprising...
- 8 Unforced (1 FH, 7 BH), including 1 runaround BH
- 24 Forced (15 FH, 9 BH)
- Return Rate (82/122) 67%

Fish made...
- 56 (32 FH, 24 BH), including 4 return-approaches
- 2 Winners (2 BH)
- 35 Errors, comprising...
- 18 Unforced (11 FH, 7 BH)
- 17 Forced (8 FH, 9 BH)
- Return Rate (56/105) 53%

Break Points
Roddick 0/5 (3 games)
Fish 1/6 (3 games)

Winners (including returns, excluding serves)
Roddick 14 (9 FH, 4 BH, 1 FHV)
Fish 36 (4 FH, 7 BH, 14 FHV, 7 BHV, 4 OH)

Roddick's FHs - 5 cc (1 pass, 1 Fish left), 1 inside-out, 1 inside-out/dtl at net pass, 1 inside-in/cc, 1 longline/inside-in
- BHs - 3 cc (2 passes - 1 one-handed), 1 inside-out return pass

Fish had 21 from serve-volley points -
- 17 first volleys (11 FHV, 4 BHV, 2 OH)
- 3 second volleys (2 FHV, 1 OH)
- 1 third 'volley' (1 BH at net), that was also a pass

- 2 from return-approach points (1 FHV, 1 BHV)

- FHs - 2 cc (1 pass), 2 inside-out
- BHs - 2 cc (1 return), 4 dtl (1 return)

Errors (excluding serves and returns)
Roddick 35
- 20 Unforced (15 FH, 5 BH)
- 15 Forced (8 FH, 7 BH)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 43.5

Fish 53
- 32 Unforced (18 FH, 6 BH, 3 FHV, 4 BHV, 1 OH)
- 21 Forced (5 FH, 9 BH, 3 FHV, 1 FH1/2V, 2 BHV, 1 BH1/2V)
- Unforced Error Forcefulness Index 50.9

(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
Roddick was 11/13 (85%) at net

Fish was...
- 58/79 (73%) at net, including...
- 47/60 (78%) serve-volleying, comprising...
- 46/59 (78%) off 1st serve and...
- 1/1 off 2nd serve
---
- 3/4 (75%) return-approaching
- 0/1 forced back

Match Report
Coin flip close, server dominated match of differing styles, with Fish serve-volleying, Roddick playing from baseline. Fish goes through unbroken and also has 2 break/match points in a return game just before the end, but Roddick is slightly (indecisively) better overall player. Court is fast

Despite all the tensions and circumstances - just 1 break, loser having match points, winner not breaking at all etc. - its not a well played match. Plenty of sloppiness from both players in almost all areas. Even the serving, which is good, isn’t sloppy-free

There’s a lot going on, but 2 keys to how match plays out are -
- Extent to which Rod’s serve is too good for Fish’s return (both sides of that contest having a hand in that being so)
- Fish’s serve-volleying - the nicest thing in the match

First serve in - Rod 59%, Fish 53%
First serve won - Rod 82%, Fish 80%
Second serve won - Rod 59%, Fish 50%

Rod leading all 3 stats. 2 of them, not by small margin. Rod winning 52% of points, serving 46% of them. Clearly, he’s got better of things

But…
Break points - Rod 0/5, Fish 1/6 (both having them in 3 games)
And with Fish having 2 match points (in a return game), it goes without saying result could just as easily have gone other way

Fish’s stats don’t look like 17/17 hold ones. In count is low enough to leave himself vulnerable and second serve points won not covering that up. He’s either strongly clutched, or been a bit lucky to go through unbroken. And its not as though he’s struggled, or been on the brink of being in danger much. Just 3 games facing break points, and just 5 break points faced. Per commentary, he finished the tournament on an unbroken run of 80+ straight holds

For Rod, 44% freebies is key to success (Fish has 31%, aided by virtual full first serve-volleying). For Rod, contained display of pace and placement. The two players grew up playing each other and are very familiar with each others game. Rod’s relatively contained serving is most likely tailored to exploit what he knows about Fish’s returning abilities, which are average at best

For Fish, winning 78% serve-volley points. His first serves are excellently placed and have Rod skipping and lunging and popping chest high balls back, that Fish dispatches at once. 17/21 of his serve-volleying winners are first volleys. Nicely and efficiently done

That’s the best of the it. There’s plenty of not good, average and ugly stuff in their too
High double faults
Shoddy movement
Bad ground consistency
Consistency problems on the return
So-so defence
Fish goes about baseline action badly

Serve & Return
Good serving - not great, but good - from both players
Returning from both well below the serving

1 formula for server dominated match. Another would be outstanding serving that’s unanswerable. The point to emphasize is this is not that

First serve in - Rod 59%, Fish 53%
First serve ace/service winner rate - Rod 22%, Fish 10%
Second serve double fault rate - Rod 13%, Fish 15% (Fish also has an ace)
Unreturned serves - Rod 44%, Fish 31%

… with Fish serve-volleying off 95% first serves

There’s a lot to unpack here

Rod mixes up his first serves. All in big is minority. Plenty of 120’ish mph serves, with bigger ones 130+. Serves fair 8% to body (including an ace that hits Fish). Often safely placed serves to FH in particular. Almost literally right onto Fish’s racquet, let alone in his swing zone and they tend to be moderate paced ones

Fish with slower first serves, but very well placed ones. ‘Slow’ is both relative term (whose serve isn’t compared to Rod?), and an absolute one. Well as he hits his spots near lines and corners, a ‘good, big’ serve would lead to a plethora of aces. Especially against average moving returner like Rod. And he serve-volleys behind all but 3 of them

For starters, 53% in count for Fish is not good

Relationship between ace rates and freebies is complicated and open to interpretation. Adding to it are the return errors -
Return UEs - Rod 8, Fish 18
Return FEs - Rod 24, Fish 17

22% ace rate for Rod is relatively low. But he’s serving quite a lot to the body and otherwise, quite conservatively where Fish can readily reach ball
He directs 52% serves to FH - and draws 19 errors from that side (as opposed to 40% to BH, drawing 16)
Two players grew up playing against each other and are very familiar with others game

Relatively low ace rate, but high unreturned rate of 44% here probably says good things about Rod’s serving rather than bad. Most likely, he knows what’s good to draw errors from Fish (moderate serve of pace and placement to Fish’s FH tends to do it) - and serves that way

Why risk lowering in count by going wide or full big, when safer serve will win point outright anyway? 44% freebies is wonderful outcome

High return UEs for Fish. 10 are against first serves - regulation returns against pacey serves, 8 against seconds (largely due to attempts at aggressive returning). Big room for improvement, but still, from Rod’s point of view, well done serving; tailoring the serve to be good enough to draw error, and not going overboard looking for unnecessary strong first serves. He certainly sends down strong ones to erase the 2 match points he faces, and to end the same game, when he needs them

Fish returning quite early also has hand in his low return rate. Against second serves, its pointedly early, inside the court and he looks for winning returns. He’s got a couple of winners, wins 3/4 return-approach points, and also mishits routine second returns out looking for aggression

Also helps in encouraging fairly high 6 double faults

On flip side, Fish’s well placed first serves drawing popped up returns that he dispatches at net. He’s got 17 first volley winners, only 4 post-firsts, while barely missing any easy volleys. He doesn’t face much that’s not easy, but efficiency in knocking them away is good. On top of drawing substantial return errors of course

Still, 53% first serves in isn’t great. And there are 2 blackmarks coming out of the contest, that somewhat cancel out

- high 9 double faults. Percentage wise, just a little over Rod’s (which is also bad), but unlike Rod, he’s not pressured; Rod usually returns second serves from well back, looking only to get the return in play. 1 more double than he has aces

- for Rod, 8 return UEs. All against second serves, almost all from well back and doing little more than looking to put return in play. Some very soft return errors there
Might be worth it if he were aggressively returning, like Fish does. Certainly not returning from close to the backboard

 

[Waspsting]

Both players also able to find, good, aggressive second serves rarely, but to be clear, fat bulk of it is normal stuff. At best, not easy to attack, but not difficult to put in play normally. And attackable, if returner is inclined to try

Gist - serve-return is essence of the match and there’s a lot going on

Roddick serve/Fish return - contained, varied serving. Pace and placement often checked. Apparently, well tailored to be just enough to draw errors from Fish. Second serve under pressure from Fish looking to thrash return early for winning shot, some double faulting trouble coming out of it. Fish not very good at returning in swing zone, routine first serves

Fish serve/Rod return - well placed serves, not good in count. Virtual full first serve-volleying. Nicely efficient in knocking away easy volleys at once
High double faults. Average second serve. Rod second returning badly, missing plenty while looking to return safely

Statistical gist - freebies Rod 44%, Fish 31%, with high and similar double faults for both too
Fish narrowing gap to large extent via easily putting away first volleys
Good and bad mixed in for both players on both shots, Rod with edge, both servers handsomely outdoing the returner

Play - Baseline & Net
Action can be divided into baseline rallies (all Rod’s service points and Fish’s second serve points) and Fish first serve-volleying vs Rod return-passing

Baseline action is FH centered, with Rod lightly implementing that, Fish happy to play along. Rod thus leading the rallies, Fish reacting, but it’s a light dynamic. Its far from attack-defend and more just trading groundies. Slack movement makes some of the ‘trading groundies’ look more challenging than it is. Despite Rod in lead position more often than not, its Fish that looks to be aggressive - both with point construction and shot-making. He’s not too good at it. Does it off both wings, but more FHs, where ball is most of the time

There’s substantial sloppiness from both player, giving up routine, soft errors. And occasional lax movement, with both players making barely more than rally ball look like an attacking shot into corner. Some lead footwork from Rod early on. He tends to ease up on attacking if Fish gets a couple defensive shots back in play and fall back to neutral

In baseline rallies -
- Winners - Rod 8 (7 FH, 1 BH), Fish 9 (3 FH, 6 BH)
- Errors forced - Rod 6, Fish 3
- UEs - Rod 20 (15 FH, 5 BH), Fish 24 (18 FH, 6 BH)
Aggressively ended points/UE differential - Rod -6, Fish -12

Pretty bad numbers and a fair reflection of action. If anything, better than action is because it doesn’t capture how routine the UEs are or the slack movements
Rod getting better of FHs more than Fish gets better of BHs, + FHs far more often in play = Rod getting better of things

33 combined FH UEs to just 11 BHs speaks to FH being at forefront. That’d be Rod’s preference (though not necessarily advantage). He has more powerful FH, Fish is a little stilted looking

By contrast, Fish with more comfy BH and firmer struck. He’d do well to redirect action to more rallies on that side. Its not difficult. Most of the rallying is neutral, not Rod powerfully pressuring Fish to stay on FH. Fish seemingly indifferent to which side to play off. Plays the same way even on his second serve points, where he’d have more control in setting direction of rally, with Rod’s passive returning

Neutral UEs - Rod 15, Fish 9
Attacking UEs - Rod 3, Fish 6
Winner attempt UEs - Rod 2, Fish 9

Now those are surprising figures, given winners and error stats. They look like Rod being steady, Fish attacking and Fish failing at attacking. That’s not accurate

With most rallies FH, Rod does lead action most of time. In that light, he hasn’t accelerated much. Not attacked much and his lead play is barely pressuring (though Fish’s movement sometimes makes it look otherwise). But still come off second best in neutral UEs by good distance

Its not as simple as that, with Rod having match high 7 FH winners, but with so few aggressive UEs, he’s clearly not actively looked to put Fish down hard. And Rod has been successfully when attacking, with good attacking ratios, both for forcing errors and striking winners

Fish, with his unexpected neutral advantage, might be expected to sit back and keep rallying against opponent whose not in any rush to attack and isn’t as good at keeping ball in play. Nope. He’s the one that’s gone for his shots and tried to make things happen, from reactive if not defensive base play

And he hasn’t delivered so doing - same number of winner attempt misses as winners, double the attacking UEs to errors forced

Gist of these figures is Fish has gone about rallying about as wrongly as he possibly could
- content to play FHs, which favour opponent and making no effort to implement more favourable BH action
- going off to attack, from unfavourable base and uncomfy FH wing, despite getting better of neutral rallying. Why not just keep rallying, and winning points that way against an opponent whose not being too aggressive?
- 1 reason would be because he’s doing well attacking, but Fish isn’t

On the BH, Rod less comfy than Fish, but more comfy than Fish is on the FH. Has same UE rate as Fish (in fact, its stumbles a little right at the end, otherwise its significantly most consistent shot on show all match), though slightly outhit. Fish going for his shots off that side to, which Rod doesn’t and more successful than on FH

Rallying to net - Rod 11/13, Fish 8/15
Much of Rod’s would be coming in early, set up by strong serve. Good way to finish safely. From back foot, Fish not able to come in as commandingly and not doing much better than he is attacking from the back

Rod at net just 1 volley winner, no errors. Fish on pass has 1 winner (technically, he has 1 other, a net to net point he’s serve-volleying on), 8 FEs. Not much of a volley-pass contest, more a product of strong serve or other strong approaches

Fish at net has 26 winners (including the above mentioned ‘pass’ serve-volleying), 9 UEs, 7 FEs
Rod on the pass has 5 winners, 12 FEs. Both winners and FEs distributed evenly across wings

 

[Waspsting]

Those Fish numbers includes his serve-volleying. Serve draws popped up, optimal height for volleying returns, and Fish knocks them away. As mentioned earlier, 17/21 serve-volleying winners are first volleys

Efficient as he is, 9 UEs isn’t small. He rarely has to face difficult volley, and usually misses when he does. More credit to Rod’s passes for that. They’re not impossible volleys, but distinctly difficult, not ‘makeably tough’.

Very nice, putting away easy volleys by Fish. Rod doesn’t chase a few that are retrievable

Back to baseline points and framing them via second serve points
Fish winning 50% second serve points, with high 9 double faults cancelled out by sloppy return misses from well-back, safely returning Rod. He wins about 50% rally points off second serves too
Rod with sizable 6 doubles too, Fish with more return errors than that, but doing damage (including couple winners) with the return. But Rod winning big 59% second serve points, so considerably more than half of rally points

Rod coming off better, but poor returning consistency costing him chances to break. He’s winning most points that get into neutral. Largely due to to Fish trying to find a way to attack - and failing. Rod himself quite content to rally along, and even toning down from attacking if a couple balls come back

Gist - lot going on, just like serve-return
In baseline action, FH oriented action, which suits Rod. Fish seemingly indifferent to the matter and playing along

- Fish taking or even creating attacking chances, Rod more content to rally along.
This is odd, because its Fish that’s more secure rallying neutrally
Fish not too good at attacking though, and Rod winning bulk of points
Fish serve-volleying efficiently, knocking away easy or routine volleys like clockwork

Match Progression
Like the whole match, first set is tight and flawed
Fish misses a lot of regulation returns and double faults a fair bit. Rod’s often lead footed, makes sloppy errors off the ground and bails on attacking to tone back to neutral rallying
Serve from both players keep server in drivers seat

Fish has to save 2 break points to hold 14-point game for 2-2. Couple good first serves on both. Game also has couple double faults, Rod’s sole return-pass winner and a forced BH1/2V error.
Fish ‘stays back’ off first serve on the last point of the match. Its particularly strong serve and doesn’t come back, with Fish having hopped couple of paces inside court after the serve

Very poor game of sloppy ground UEs by Rod to get broken after that

Fish endures a deuce hold for 5-3 little while later, where he’s down 15-30, with Rod missing a routine second return at that stage. Freebies make up most of the points Fish wins

Next go around, Fish serves out to 30. The easy BHV he misses in the game is just his second net UE for the match, but he finishes up with a typical, easy first volley FHV winner. Rod with an even worse than norm no-footwork FH UE in the game too

Things change a bit in second set. Rod’s footwork improves (it’d been poor earlier) and Fish becomes sloppier one off the ground. Fish also with poor 40% first serves in for the set (Rod has 57%), but very well placed serves

No breaks. Rod serves 37 points, Fish 38 for 6 holds respectively
Just 1 game with break points in it for each player (Fish has 3 points, Rod 2)

Rod’s turn through the hoop comes in game 3, where a Fish return-approach, a missed FH cc winner attempt and a double sets him down 15-40. Strikes FH inside-in/cc winner to take care of first break point and draws a makeably tough return error of the second. Fish with a beautifully timed BH dtl winner to raise a third break point, which Rod saves with a wining FH longline shot before going on to hold

Fish has to save 2 break points in holding for 4-4. Misses volleys both difficult and easy (and 1 strange) in the game, but finds good first serves on both break points before holding

Set goes into tiebreak. Its more a bad one from Fish than a good one from Rod
Having won return point to start, Fish strangely stays back off a first serve and misses routine third ball BH
At 3-3, a mild rally develops. Fish is the one to push the envelope and misses FH cc winner attempt. Misses a routine first return to follow up and loses the set with an attacking third ball FH UE against an average return

Rod has slightly better of third set and serves 36 points for his 6 holds, to Fish’s 44, but it doesn’t amount to breaking chances. Again, both players have break points in just 1 game (Fish 2, Rod 1), with Fish’s being match points too

Both those games come at end of set to make things tense

Returning up 5-4, Fish comes out of 30-0 to reach 30-40. Return-approach wins a point, the other 2 come from double fault and third ball FH UE
Strong, wide serve to save match point, but Rod takes on a very uncharacteristic BH dtl for the winner, that he misses to raise another match point
Same serve, even better placed that goes for an ace to save that one
Fish is well placed to have a third match point, but misses a smash, before Rod wraps up with a third strong serve. These winning serves are categorically better than his norm and all are to the BH

Game after, easy FHV miss and a FH inside-out winner attempt 1 puts Fish down 30-40. For only time in match, he second serve volleys and draws return error, before coming through to hold

Tiebreak soon after. Its decided by 1 mini-break, Rod making a decent look FH cc pass winner against rallying to net Fish
Rod’s pretty aggressive in the game too, coming to net behind strong FHs and pounding Fish about with series of FHs to reach 6-4 and match point
Fish gets a return-approach off down match point, but misses FHV on it to end things

Summing up, very tight match with scant chances for returner and just 1 break. Its not a well played match by either player though, with even the serving - the high point of the match - has shortcomings

Roddick with contained serving, almost often as not in opponents swing zone. He’s able to keep rallies on FH (with Fish seemingly content with that), and largely sticks to keeping ball in play from the back - and isn’t very good at that. Some shoddy footwork, or to be more accurate, absence of it from him too and fairly loose in giving up return errors from well back position against second serves

Fish with low in count, but well placed to side first serves, which he virtually always serve-volleys behind. Efficiently putsaway weak returns on the volley. From the back, plays along with FHs, though it looks like BHs would suit him more, and is the one to try to be aggressive, with more fails than success at it
Looks to return early too - against second serves, aggressively so - again, with more fail than success at it

Both players double faulting fair amount - Rod’s at least pressured into it, Fish has no such excuse

Little in the result. 1 particularly bad game by Roddick leads to only break but he has slightly better of things on whole and his winning isn’t an unfitting result. Fish has does well or has been a little lucky to not get into trouble more often on serve

 

[Galvermegs]

This match really gave roddick the onus to win his (surprisingly only) major and end the season 1st. He had a big mental advantage over fish.. definitely an underachiever for my liking, as he should have won big matches like this and the medal match in athens more often.

2003 was a fine season in terms of transition after the chaos of 01 and 02.