Madrid Final Analysis 🎾

Berrettini vs Zverev - Berrettini's Serve & Forehand Potency & Zverev's Returning

Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images)

Zverev d Berrettini: 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-3

Extremely short summary: Very tight 1st and 2nd set. A Zverev double fault cost him the first set in a tiebreaker. And a Berrettini lapse at 4-4 cost him the 2nd set to even things up. Outside these isolated missteps, both sets one and two were mostly too close to call. But from that 4-4 game in the 2nd set onwards, the match turned in Zverev’s favour.

Key factors:

• Berrettini’s serve & forehand potency decline from mid way through set 2 onwards

• Zverev’s 1st serve performance remaining stable throughout the match

• Zverev’s returning

This is one of those matches where the stats can be a bit confusing. Berrettini’s game is built around being able to bomb big serves and hit aggressive forehands as his follow up shot (a serve +1).

In previous rounds, Berrettini with his serve +1 was able to:

• Hit his forehand 86% of the time after 1st serve

• Hit his forehand 84% of the time after 2nd serve

Today in the sets Berrettini lost (2 & 3) he was able to:

• Hit his forehand 90% of the time after a 1st serve

• Hit his forehand 89% of the time after 2nd serve

As you can see, Berrettini got to boom that forehand strength all match long, on both 1st and 2nd serves. This would usually be a recipe for success for the Italian, but as the match wore on, even though he was still getting to play those forehands, that usual strength was blunted by the following:

• Great Zverev returning forcing less comfortable serve +1’s for Berrettini

• Cooler conditions, and slightly slower serving from Berrettini, as the match got later, hurting his serve +1 potency

• Some tired looking shot selection and errors from Berrettini

Berrettini serve & forehand potency - the turning point

For the first set and a half, Berrettini’s serve & forehand were *landing*. He had hit 14 winners off his forehand by the time it was 2-1 in the 2nd set (which was more than any of Zverev’s previous opponents had managed to hit in any of their completed matches). But things started to look a little less sharp at 4-4:

Berrettini (this end in a cap) bombs a big 1st serve and gets the forehand he wants (and one that he had been crushing for most of the match), but misses. First signs of a momentum shift. 0-15.

Same again. A better return from Zverev but still a forehand unforced error on the serve +1 Berrettini forehand. 15-30.

And again. This time pretty much the perfect serve from Berrettini, gets the short forehand he wants, but, perhaps put off by the two topspin drive misses above, he tries the drop shot (which was the wrong play in this position). This game was where his forehand, which had looked so deadly for a set and a half, showed cracks.15-40, break point.

Berrettini then doubled faulted while break point down, and the set was over. One set all.

Despite both players then facing pressure on serve to start the 3rd set, with Zverev even facing a break point…

Perfect big point play from Zverev. This was the only real threat he faced between 4-4 in set 2 and the end of the match.

…the match was slowly but surely swinging in the German’s favour. Zverev’s 1st serve remained pretty stable throughout the match, winning 71% first serve points in set 1, 83% in set 2, and 77% in set 3. Aside from a few double fault yips, Zverev’s serve held very strong today. But on the other side of the net Berrettini’s serve got markedly less effective in the deciding set:

Berrettini’s 1st serve points won:

Set 1: 26/36 (72%)

Set 2: 13/16 (81%) (an indicator of how well Berrettini played outside that one 4-4 game)

Set 3: 14/22 (64%)

Berrettini’s 1st serve unreturned:

Set 1: 34%

Set 2: 31%

Set 3: 19%

(his average for previous rounds was 46%)

Berrettini’s 1st serve avg speed:

Set 1: 133mph

Set 2: 130mph

Set 3: 128mph

A 5mph drop off from start to finish might not seem like a lot, but it can make a difference at this level when it comes to setting up serve+1’s.

Zverev’s Return

Zverev’s return was excellent all match long - he put a staggering 86% of Berrettini’s serves back in play, and he was probably unlucky not to have broken Berrettini more than once in set one. But two things happened in the deciding set:

1. Berrettini continued to struggle to do as much with his forehand as he had done earlier in the match:

A good 1st serve from Berrettini (far end) and he gets the forehand he wants, but in set 1 and most of set 2 he was crushing these short forehand +1’s for winners or strong positional advantage. As set 3 wore on, he struggled to do enough with them (as above). This let Zverev (this end) work his way into more return points and start to exploit Berrettini’s backhand in rallies.

This contributed to two things. 1. Berrettini resorting to more drop shot attempts instead of forehand+1’s (Berrettini was at 77% of drop shots won going into this match but was at just 20% in sets 2 & 3). And 2. Zverev forcing Berrettini to hit a few more backhands, in sub-optimal positions, than he’d usually like:

Points ending in a Berrettini backhand unforced error

Set 1: 9%

Set 2: 5%

Set 3: 15%

2. Zverev’s return got better and better as the 3rd set wore on:

This was a great kick 2nd serve from Berrettini, but Zverev puts the return right on Berrettini’s baseline. Even though this goes down as a Berrettini serve +1 forehand, he has no serving advantage whatsoever. This is a nice indication of why Berrettini getting to hit his favoured forehand wasn’t as much of an advantage as it usually is as the match wore on.

Zverev’s returns in set 3 (not including unreturned serves). Yellow = 1st serve return, purple = 2nd serve return. Strong, but safe, results against a serve as big as Berrettini’s.

Fittingly, Zverev converted match point with a double break, putting a first serve return deep into Berrettini’s backhand corner (the far right yellow ball above) and forcing an error off the Italian’s weaker wing. Game, set, match.

TL;DR

Today was a good example of the more stable and balanced player winning. Zverev has a weak second serve (and occasionally a weak forehand on other surfaces), but on clay his baselining is unbelievably solid from both backhand and forehand wings, his return is world class, and his 1st serve is sufficiently big to win him more free & easy points than pretty much anyone else. Berrettini on the other hand relies more meaningfully on his two main strengths (serve & forehand). And while his peaks are extraordinarily high and fun to watch (as anyone who witnessed Berrettini’s fiery forehands this week will know), his dips will also usually be lower and more exploitable. Both guys did a lot well today in Madrid, but what Zverev needed to do to win was simply more sustainable than his opponent (in set three Zverev hit just 4 groundstroke unforced errors to Berrettini’s 17).

Berrettini, in his first Masters 1000 final, also looked tired as the match went on (Zverev did not, nor did his serve or groundstroke speeds suffer), and it’s worth remembering that Zverev has been in this position plenty of times before, with a significant experience edge. It would be very interesting to see these two square off again in another big final, if only to see whether a more experienced Berrettini could sustain and manage his peaks for a little longer.

— MW

What happen-ed in Monte Carlo happen-ed, what happen-ed in Barclona happen-ed, and what happen-ed in Madrid happen-ed… and here we are, we are in Rome.

See you on Thursday (ATP Rome Draw & WTA Rome Draw)

Twitter @MattRacquet

If you have any questions or thoughts about what you just read you can leave a comment below & I’ll answer it. No question is dumb.

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