2 Responses to rotterdam97krajicek_vacek

1. Voo de Mar says:

   October 11, 2025 at 6:08 pm

   Points won by each set: | 50-43, 41-36 |
   Points won directly behind the serve:
   47 % Krajicek – 34 of 72
   35 % Vacek – 35 of 98

   Points won by each set: | 38-32, 39-36 |
   Points won directly behind the serve:
   33 % Kafelnikov – 25 of 75
   45 % Ivanisevic – 32 of 70

   Matches like these two are essential for indoor tennis of the 90s. In the Netherlands an all-serve-and-volley duel, in Russia a meeting of a player who attacked the net behind each serve (Ivanisevic) and a player who applied a ~33% S/V strategy. These two carpet finals involved four players of Slavic speaking parents, Krajicek a native Dutch speaker though. In both triumphed the local favorites.

   …Vacek [72] played five ATP finals in his career, all indoors, lost them all. Rotterdam ’97 it was his biggest final and a reasonable chance to make an upset. He actually had the same style as Krajicek, but Vacek’s each shot of a basic tennis book was a bit worse, nonetheless, he had easily defeated Krajicek in their only previous match (Milan ’96). In Rotterdam, Krajicek [7] wasted all his break points in the 1st set, in which he experienced the only service game with some pressure on him namely at *4:5 (15/30) when Vacek’s BH return hit the tape preventing him from creating a double set point. Krajicek won his second match point after an identical two-stroke rally. Before it happened, Vacek had led 3:1* in the tie-break, at 3:2 Krajicek lobbed him responding to an overhead (a rare point).
   …Kafelnikov [8] and Ivanisevic [13] recreated to some degree the first two sets of their Wimbledon ’95 quarterfinal with one main difference: in Moscow the Russian dealt better with tight endings. Ivanisevic significantly helped him in the 12th game of the opener when squandered a set point netting an overhead from a position he was probably winning 8 out of 10 points. The progress of the final was quite strange: first 15 straight holds (usually at 0 or 15), then four breaks in a row. In the second tie-break at 5-all Ivanisevic missed his BH volley, and Kafelnikov converted the championship point with a forehand winner – the ball landed on the sideline even though the position to finish the point was super comfortable. Kafelnikov’s third of his six consecutive titles at the Kremlin Cup.

   Krajicek’s route to his 11th title:
   1 Martin Damm 6-4, 6-2
   2 David Prinosil 7-6(7), 7-6(5)
   Q Michael Stich 7-6(4), 7-6(3)
   S Thomas Enqvist 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4
   W Daniel Vacek 7-6(4), 7-6(5)

   Kafelnikov’s route to his 17th title:
   1 Andrey Cherkasov 6-3, 6-4
   2 Sebastien Grosjean 2-6, 6-3, 6-2
   Q Guillaume Raoux 6-1, 6-1
   S Marc Rosset 6-1, 2-0 ret.
   W Goran Ivanisevic 7-6(2), 7-6(5)
   

   Log in to Reply
2. Voo de Mar says:

   October 11, 2025 at 6:38 pm

   ☆ Comparison of records in ‘7-6 7-6’ matches of players who participated in these finals:
   Krajicek 9-10 (3-0 that week), Vacek 3-5, Kafelnikov 5-5, Ivanišević 16-10

   Log in to Reply