1 Response to uo97korda_sampras

1. Voo de Mar says:

   August 31, 2020 at 7:54 pm

   Points won by each set: [ 40-42, 37-28, 36-29, 24-33, 49-38 ]
   Points won directly behind the serve:
   31 % Korda – 54 of 169
   40 % Sampras – 76 of 189

   It’s a special story… Winning a five-set match with three sets won from 5-all it’s a rarity. Only a few players experience such a dramatic win throughout long careers; yet Korda did it twice, and what’s more remarkable – he managed to do that in both cases against the best player in the world! First time in Munich ’93, then four years later in New York, in a match he was two points away from losing all three sets he won!

   1st set: Korda [16] had three mini set points at 4:3, led 5:4 (30/15) & 6:5 (40/0) – Sampras fought set points off with big serves – also 4:2 in the tie-break which lost 4/7
   2nd set: Sampras [1] raced to a 3:0* lead, then led 5:4 (30/15)
   3rd set: Sampras led 6:5 (30-all), in the ensuing tie-break he got only two points (both with aces)
   4th set: a one-hour delay due to rain in the 2nd game, after the resumption the floodlights were activated while the temperature significantly dropped – Sampras made the right adjustments to win 9 out of 11 games!
   5th set: he led 3:0* again, and 6:5 (30-all) when he made an error from a quite good position; in the ensuing tie-break Korda led 4:0 to win it 7/3 with a service winner after 3 hours 37 minutes… the Czech had prepared something special for the decider – he fired 9 out of his 15 aces!

   If Sampras had won this match, it’d have almost been a repeat (in terms of the scoreline) of his epic win at the US Open a year before against Corretja

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