Stats for 1989 Masters SF (Edberg-Lendl)

[Moose Malloy]

Edberg d Lendl 76(5),75

This match broke Lendl's streak of 9 straight Masters finals. He was also on a 18 match win streak.

Before the match, Mary Carillo said the way Lendl has been playing(he beat Chang, Krickstein, & McEnroe badly in the RR, without losing serve) it would be 'one of the major upsets of the season' if Edberg won.

Edberg had lost his last RR match of the event rather badly to Becker the day before & was struggling with a cold. Less than 24 hours later after the Lendl win, he would beat Becker to win the tournament.

Edberg had 26 non service winners - 3 FH, 5 BH, 4 FHV, 9 BHV, 5 OH

Lendl had 20 non service winners - 10 FH, 6 BH, 2 FHV, 1 BHV, 1 OH

I have Lendl at 10 aces & Edberg at 2 for the match.

For the 1st set I had Lendl having 12 non service winners & 6 aces. Espn had Lendl having 22 winners, 4 unforced errors, 7 aces so I presume they gave him 3 service winners for the set(they gave him an ace for a ball that nicked Edberg's racket & went by him)

I had Edberg having 15 non service winners & 1 aces for the 1st set, while Espn had him at 18 winners, 13 unforced errors, 2 aces so I assume they gave him 1 service winner for the set(again I think they gave him an ace for a ball that nicked Lendl's racquet)

Lendl was 0 for 6 on bp's in the 1st set, Edberg 0 for 4.

For the 2nd set Edberg was 2 for 4, Lendl 1 for 1(he broke Edberg when he served for the match at 5-4, but then got broken right back)

As of 1-0 in the 2nd set, Espn said Edberg was 38 of 54 at the net, Lendl 5 of 9. Those are close to my numbers at that point. They said Edberg was 47 of 68 at 4-3.

Lendl had 14 unreturned serves, Edberg had 32(!)

1st serve %'s:

Lendl was 38 of 67, or 57%

Edberg was 50 of 78, or 64%

Lendl had 5 return winners, Edberg 2.

There was discussion of the #1 ranking for 1989 during this match. Commentators quoted Lendl as saying Becker should be #1 if he won the tournament(even though this event did not count for ATP ranking back then)

Lendl's record on carpet entering this match was 209-32. He was 9-1 on it in 1989 going into this match.

 

[krosero]

Lendl had 14 unreturned serves, Edberg had 32(!)

This is really a remarkable stat. I'll venture that it says less about the quality of Lendl's return compared to Edberg's, than it does about the fact that Edberg was always coming in and forcing Lendl to do something with the return.

And they served differently; Edberg's object was not to serve aces but to get into net. Lendl, not surprisingly, leads in aces 10-2, making up for some of the 32-14 difference in return errors.

Counting all the return errors like this is a much more interesting way of representing the service winners. The way ESPN did it (the way it's mostly done today, I think), just tacking on 2 or 3 serves on top of the aces because they're near-aces, just doesn't say very much.

And when you count all the return errors what you're essentially getting is a lot of the forced errors. It helps to make sense of this match, because otherwise you've got Lendl leading Edberg in clean winners/aces (30 to 28 ) and also making fewer unforced errors per ESPN, as the least in the first set (4 vs. 13).

So why would he lose the match, if he's doing better than Edberg in both winners and unforced errors? The answer seems to be in those return errors, which would have been made up mostly of forced errors rather than unforced.

I've said it before, it's too bad we don't see stats for forced errors anymore.

 

[krosero]

For the 1st set I had Lendl having 12 non service winners & 6 aces. Espn had Lendl having 22 winners, 4 unforced errors, 7 aces so I presume they gave him 3 service winners for the set(they gave him an ace for a ball that nicked Edberg's racket & went by him)

I had Edberg having 15 non service winners & 1 aces for the 1st set, while Espn had him at 18 winners, 13 unforced errors, 2 aces so I assume they gave him 1 service winner for the set(again I think they gave him an ace for a ball that nicked Lendl's racquet).

So this conforms with what you found for the Lendl-Edberg Australian Open final a month later: ESPN's count of the winners exceeded your count of the clean aces/winners.

Looks like a good indication that ESPN was counting service winners in their total winner counts by late 1989/early 1990.

 

[krosero]

One more thing, ESPN's count of the unforced errors for the first set contradicts my guess that Lendl had more ue's than Edberg in this match. If we can go by the first set, Edberg was the one making more of them.

You had said that Lendl led Edberg in winners, which he did; I guessed that he must have lost due to unforced errors. Your stats suggest strongly that the real reason was the forced errors on the return.

 

[Zimbo]

Thanks for the stats Moose. Lendl always said he had problems with Edberg's kick serve and this match indicates this. The thing with Edberg was if his serve was on the placement of it was out of this world. He didn't get aces off it via Becker or Sampras but it was extremely difficult to return. There was only maybe 4 guys who didn't fear Edberg's serve. IMO it was Agassi, Connors, Becker, and Jim C.

 

[andreh]

I think this tournament was key in Edberg's rise to no.1. He had come off a year off disappointments, loosing to Chang in the French final and Becker in Wimbledon and few other final losses. He obviously had some demons to conquer, and he did in the 89 Masters.

It probaly boosted his shattered self-confidence to be able to repeat at Wimbledon (with the same feat, beating Lendl in the semis and Becker in the final) and go on to be no.1 in the world. 89 Master was the start of this.

The psychology of the final against Becker is interesting. Becker starts out very confidently and it doesn't really look like it's going to be Edberg's turn this time either. But Edberg's game grows slowly and he takes over the match. In the last set Becker is the one who seems full of doubt and makes easy mistakes.

The number are almost identitical to the 88 wimbledon final 4-6 7-6 6-3 6-1 vs. 4-6 7-6 6-4 6-2, but the story is very different. In the 88 wimbledon final Edberg played confidently from the start and Becker really didn't have any chance of winning.

 

[Moose Malloy]

Thanks for the stats Moose. Lendl always said he had problems with Edberg's kick serve and this match indicates this. The thing with Edberg was if his serve was on the placement of it was out of this world. He didn't get aces off it via Becker or Sampras but it was extremely difficult to return. There was only maybe 4 guys who didn't fear Edberg's serve. IMO it was Agassi, Connors, Becker, and Jim C.

Yeah, watching this match made me think it is nonsense to automatically dismiss Edberg's chances if he played in this era.

So many get hung up on mph on serve & think Edberg would just be cannon fodder for todays' returns because he was only a 110 kinda guy. But does mph really matter when a guy is just hitting lines all day(like he was in this match)? Not sure what Lendl would have done differently, I guess he could have just tried chipping balls back, but Edberg wasn't exactly scared of volleying easy floaters into the open court.

The way he was serving in this match, on this surface, not sure how anyone could have beaten him. And it was kinda shocking how few volleys he really had to hit, he was getting so many unreturnables, as many free points as some of the big servers today.

In the 88 wimbledon final Edberg played confidently from the start and Becker really didn't have any chance of winning.

really? didn't Becker have set points for a 2-0 set lead?

 

[andreh]

really? didn't Becker have set points for a 2-0 set lead?

No.

He had a breakpoint mid-set. But no other dramatic events in Edberg's serve before the breaker, which he won easily. Becker took the first set which was interrupted by rain several times and could have just as easily gone to Edberg. The last game of that set (along with the rest of the match) had to be played on monday. After that Becker really didn't have many chances and never led the match.