iw92chang_chesnokov

Points won by each set: [ 35-25, 34-26, 39-32 ]
Points won directly behind the serve:
15 % Chang – 13 of 86
12 % Chesnokov – 13 of 105

Chesnokov [36], associated for a few years with clay-courts, found his way to be successful on hard-courts implementing the same tactics as on the red clay, so steady baseline strokes played high over the net. He triumphed at the Canadian Open ’91, and half a year later he reached the Indian Wells final. In a rather boring end-game he wasn’t able to take a set from Chang [15] whose faster forehand simply did the job. At the end of the 1st set it seemed that the final would be concluded with a retirement of the Russian who’d pulled rib cage muscle. After a medical time-out between the 1st and 2nd set, Chesnokov recovered and had decent chances to win at least one of the two following sets: squandered break points leading 3:1 in 2nd, and 4:2 in 3rd set. “I don’t want to talk about the injury. I’m OK,” he said. “I played a good game with the injury. I was always little bit afraid to breathe or move. But I thought I had chances to win it even when I was down 6:5 in the third set. I will remember this week for the rest of my life because it was the first time that I beat three players in the Top 10. It was a great week for me.” En route to the final he eliminated Courier [1], Stich [5] & E.Sanchez [10].

Chang’s route to his 7th title:
1 Martin Jaite 6-0, 6-7(6), 7-6(3)
2 Javier Sanchez 0-6, 6-4, 6-1
3 Richard Krajicek 6-3, 6-7(4), 7-6(4) – 1 m.p.
Q Andrei Cherkasov 6-4, 6-2
S Francisco Clavet 6-0, 6-1
W Andrei Chesnokov 6-3, 6-4, 7-5

# Really incredible route to the title, Chang barely survived the first three rounds to win another three matches with relative ease. He trailed in third sets 1:5 vs Jaite, and *2:5 vs Krajicek, saving the match point on the Dutchman’s serve

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