1996 French Open Round of 16 - Thomas Muster vs. Michael Stich
Thomas Muster went into this match with a 34-1 record on clay in 1996, and a 99-3 record on clay since the start of 1995. The 1996 French Open had already seen attacking players thrive a lot more than before at the French Open, with the hot weather having baked out the clay and made it harder. The usual clay-court players had not done as well at the tournament.
Michael Stich had had a really poor 1996 up to this point. He hadn't played many matches, had a horrible ankle injury and surgery in March. He even talked about not playing at the 1996 French Open, because he said that he didn't want to embarrass himself on clay anymore. Thomas Muster had an ankle injury of his own, just days before the 1996 French Open was due to start, while he practicing in Austria with Javier Sanchez. This had forced Muster to pull out of his scheduled quarter final match against Andrea Gaudenzi at the Sankt Pölten tournament.
The Muster vs. Stich match was surprisingly played on Suzanne Lenglen court rather than Philippe Chatrier court, with the latter court showing the Karbacher vs. Ivanisevic match, on a day when Ivanisevic completely imploded mentally and put in an awful performance, to the boos of the crowd.
In the early stages of the Muster vs. Stich match, both players were trying to settle in, while Stich mixed things up. Muster seemed to have too much for Stich, and won the first set, 6-4. Muster also went up a break in the second set at 3-2, and seemed to have all the momentum. Then, in the middle of the next game, Muster played 3 bad points in a row and got broken. The latter part of the second set then became very scrappy, but it was Stich who eventually broke through to win the second set, 6-4.
Stich now had the momentum early in the third set, with his serve on fire in the sunny weather, and he raced into a 3-0 lead. Muster held in the next game, and had break points in the game after that to get back on serve. Unfortunately for Muster, he failed to take his break chances, and Stich held on, going on to win the third set, 6-1, and take a 2-1 lead in sets.
Now Muster was in real trouble and had to deliver. Muster had leads of 3-0, 4-1 and 5-2 in the fourth set, and a fifth set looked a certainty. Instead, Stich got it back to 5-5, and 6-6. Muster then played an awful tiebreak, and Stich won it 7-1.
Two things stood out about the match, Stich's serve was a big weapon under the conditions (23 aces to Muster's 0 - almost 6 games worth of aces), and Muster seemed strangely flat throughout most of the match.
