2 Responses to rg04safin_mantilla

1. Voo de Mar says:

   March 7, 2024 at 5:29 pm

   Points won by each set: | 27-23, 15-25, 32-22, 50-53, 82-79 |
   Points won directly behind the serve:
   20 % Safin – 37 of 184
   14 % Mantilla – 33 of 224

   Court no. 2, two former French Open semi-finalists (Mantilla ’98, Safin ’02) and the longest match in careers of them both. The first three sets absolutely didn’t indicate it’d be so long (4 hours 37 minutes). The Russian [20] entered the court with a conviction he should have been attacking the net a lot with his powerful groundstrokes. Already in the opening six-point game he hit 4 winners, and established his dominance, however, in the 2nd set something very strange happened – the forehand volley completely deserted him, he couldn’t properly play it from very comfortable positions. There was 2:0* (40/30) for him in the 4th set when the longest game occurred in which they both fell down on clay; the game changed the complexion of the encounter – Mantilla [93] held after 9 deuces withstanding five break points, and from that moment to the end, it was a dog fight. Safin was serving at 5:4 (30-all) but lost the set in a 4/7 tie-break mishitting an overhead standing at the net. Initially in the decider, the 30-year-old Mantilla didn’t look well, but a medical time-out – as he trailed *1:4 – did wonders, and he improved to *5:4 running from corner to corner. At 1:4 he fought off a triple-mini match point (five break points in total), at 3:4 another two mini-match points – Safin won a point in that game running all over the court, and did something unprecedented, namely he pulled down his shorts (!) displaying white underpants. The umpire didn’t even have a time to announce 30/0 for him because the crowd was loudly applauding a spectacular rally, it was immediately ’30/15′ for the Russian from ’15/0′. He had to receive a point penalty for an unsportsmanlike conduct because in the 2nd set he had already received a warning for a broken racquet. # What happened between 4-all and 7-all was staggering: six consecutive breaks of serve! Mantilla couldn’t finish the job serving three times for the match. At 6:5 he had a match point which Safin erased with a forehand winner in a 10-stroke rally. At *7:6 (30-all) the Spaniard lost two points in a row having an open court after Safin’s poor backhand dropshots… The match was suspended due to fading light, and resumed the following day in sunny conditions. There was just “4:2” in games for Safin – after 24 minutes – which meant his victory, nothing really interesting happened in those six games. The Russian converted his first match point after Mantilla’s casual backhand error. In the third round Safin prevailed again saving a match point (Potito Starace) which is very rare to win two successive matches being a point from defeat, especially in the ‘best of five’ format. The veteran Mantilla never played a match with so many fans in the stands afterwards, and finished his career in 2007, not playing in 2006 at all (skin cancer!).

   Serve & volley: Safin 3/6, Mantilla 0

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2. Voo de Mar says:

   March 7, 2024 at 5:51 pm

   # In the fourth round of Wimbledon ’21 there was something even more bizarre: eight consecutive breaks at the end of the match (between 3-all and 7-all)
   which Karen Khachanov ultimately won 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 10-8 against Sebastian Korda.

   A few months before the French Open ’04, Safin lost a four-hour Davis Cup rubber to Max Mirnyi 6-7, 6-7, 6-1, 6-4, 9-11

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