stuttgart98krajicek_kafelnikov

Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to stuttgart98krajicek_kafelnikov

  1. Voo de Mar says:
    Points won by each set: [ 30-23, 33-24, 27-21 ]
    Points won directly on serve:
    50 % Krajicek – 36 of 72
    27 % Kafelnikov – 24 of 86

    Krajicek’s [11] excellent match from start to finish, he hit BH-volley winners in the beginning & in the end, he won his first 16 points on serve, majority of them unreturnable. Despite very quick final, it’s tough to say Kafelnikov [8] played very bad match, there were six ‘deuce’ games, and Krajicek grabbed them all (four on the Russian serve) which made the difference. They faced each other three times in 1998 with Krajicek always leaving the court as the winner (ultimately the Russian won their rivalry 5-4).
    It seemed that thanks to the Stuttgart title the Dutchman would participate in ‘Masters’ being the main favorite along with Sampras, but in the next event in Paris, he suffered a knee injury in the 3rd set of his match vs Rosset and retired leading 4-6, 7-5, 5-2! He needed to win only two matches in Paris to qualify, but realized that after potential victory over the Swiss, he couldn’t play another match, and helped his opponent in advancing to the next round, even though Rosset accused him on taking too long breaks between the games in the decider.

    Krajicek’s route to his 15th title:
    2 Magnus Norman 6-4, 6-1
    3 Andre Agassi 6-3, 6-4
    Q Goran Ivanisevic 7-6(3), 7-6(5)
    S Pete Sampras 6-7(2), 6-4, 7-6(5)
    W Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-4, 6-3, 6-3

    # Three points away from defeat to Sampras… the toughest opposition to win a Masters 1K title (Mercedes Super 9 then) – three nos. 1, two nos. 2 given career-best ranking
    The ranking of his opponents at the time: 52-5-14-1-8

Leave a Reply