{"id":1353,"date":"2013-10-31T15:40:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T19:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1353"},"modified":"2013-10-31T15:40:58","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T19:40:58","slug":"winning-matches-with-very-few-return-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/31\/winning-matches-with-very-few-return-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning Matches With Very Few Return Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday in Paris, Gilles Simon<\/a> won the first set of his match over Nicolas Mahut<\/a> (a.k.a. Nicolas Massu<\/a>), doing so with the benefit of a single break. \u00a0That’s not unusual, but his return performance in the set was. \u00a0He won only four return points in the entire set–all, of course, in that single game.<\/p>\n

It’s possible to win a set while claiming only one return point, if you reach a tiebreak and win every point on your own serve. \u00a0In theory, then, a player could win a best-of-three-set match while winning only two return points, or a best-of-five with only three. \u00a0If no sets reach tiebreaks, a player could win a match with as few as four return points per set, as Simon did in the first set yesterday.<\/p>\n

In the last 20-plus years of ATP tour-level matches, no one has ever posted such an extreme win, winning only two return points (or even eight return points in a match with no tiebreaks) en route to victory. \u00a0But on several occasions, players have come close.<\/p>\n

Since 1991, six players have won matches while winning only\u00a0ten<\/strong> return points. \u00a0The most recent was\u00a0Philipp Kohlschreiber<\/a>‘s 6-4 7-6(4) victory over\u00a0Jonathan Dasnieres de Veigy<\/a> at the 2011 Metz tournament.<\/p>\n

More impressive, though, was Albert Montanes<\/a>‘s 2002 victory over Felix Mantilla<\/a> in Acapulco. \u00a0He won 6-4 6-4 with only ten return points won, meaning that he “wasted” only two of those return points. \u00a0Mantilla had ten service games, lost two them, and held to love in at least six of the others.<\/p>\n

Record-setting in their own way are two more of these ten-return-point matches: Irakli Labadze<\/a> d. Justin Gimelstob<\/a>\u00a06-7(2) 7-6(3) 6-2 (2001 Shanghai) and Gustavo Kuerten<\/a> d. Marat Safin<\/a>\u00a03-6 7-6(2) 7-6(2) (2000 Indianapolis). \u00a0These are the three-set matches in which the winner claimed the fewest return points. \u00a0It’s possible that Labadze and Kuerten didn’t win a single return point in the sets they lost, but it makes their eventual victory all the more impressive.<\/p>\n

The Labadze win is also notable in that it is the only ten-return-points-won match in which the winner won a double-break set. \u00a0The Kuerten victory points in a new direction: Safin hit two double faults, so of the ten return points Kuerten won, he only had to make an effort on eight of them.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, that’s not quite the record. \u00a0At 1992 Queen’s Club,\u00a0Shuzo Matsuoka<\/a> beat Goran Ivanisevic<\/a> 6-4 6-3 while winning just 12 return points. \u00a0Five<\/em> of those were Ivanisevic double faults, so Matsuoka only won seven points in which he returned the big Croatian’s serve.<\/p>\n

One more bit of trivia. \u00a0At last year’s US Open, Milos Raonic<\/a> beat\u00a0Paul Henri Mathieu<\/a>\u00a07-5 6-4 7-6(4) while tallying only 16 return points (two of which were PHM double faults). \u00a0That’s the record for best-of-five-set matches, just barely edging out Jurgen Melzer<\/a>‘s 2007 victory in Australia over Ivo Karlovic<\/a>, 6-4 6-4 7-6(6),\u00a0in which he won only 17 return points (three of them doubles).<\/p>\n

Dr. Ivo, as you might guess, has piled up more than his share of this sort of match. \u00a0In fact, he has played 65 matches in his career in which the winner won fewer than 20 return points, amassing a nearly even record of 33 wins and 32 losses. \u00a0That impressive total puts him in second place among ATPers of the last 23 years, behind Andy Roddick<\/a>. \u00a0Roddick played 69 such matches, winning 54 against only 15 losses. \u00a0Fittingly, Roddick and Karlovic played two of those matches against each other … and the American won both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday in Paris, Gilles Simon won the first set of his match over Nicolas Mahut (a.k.a. Nicolas Massu), doing so with the benefit of a single break. \u00a0That’s not unusual, but his return performance in the set was. \u00a0He won only four return points in the entire set–all, of course, in that single game. It’s … Continue reading Winning Matches With Very Few Return Points<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toy-stats"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}