Federer loses French Open final
I’ve deliberately titled this post in a manner that is completely dissimilar to the current headlines out there. Well done to Nadal winning the French open; but if you look at the flow of the match from a statistical viewpoint, it was more like Federer who actually lost it in my opinion.
It was a fairly tight match, till the last set at least, 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-1. You would expect the younger player of the two to do better in a tight match and the longer a match goes that has to be your leaning. Over all Nadal won 143 vs 130 points. For most the first set Federer was on top of the points tally, but the failure to close the set out was a real blow.
Set one and set two Nadal had 9 winners vs 15 & 18 from Federer; you can see Federer played some good shots. But the enforced error tally shows a different story. 17 for Nadal in the first two sets and 39 for Federer. For the third set Federer improved and the stats read 11/16 winners and 8/7 unforced errors, this set was farily even. But Federer couldn’t find any winners in the fourth and his error count went right back up. OK Nadal obviously had something to do with the way Federer played, but it was mainly errors on Federers behalf that cause the defeat. If you want a key to demolition job in the last set, Nadal’s return of Federers serve was at it’s peak at this point; he definately won that last set!
Now the Tennis circuit moves off clay and onto grass. Time for short points, power and the brutal servers to take centre stage.
Category: Tennis
