**
by Bobby Chintapalli, TW Contributing Editor
We knew from the start that, even though it’s not 2002 anymore (look up if you don't remember those days), the players to watch were Justine 2.0 and Serena 92K. For me they were the two main questions, yet with the Australian Open women’s singles final here, I find myself surprisingly… surprised.
Maybe it was all the yellow, big Maria’s “Powerade blue”, little Maria’s quarterfinal berth, Kim’s “disheveled” play, Ana’s still-crazy toss, Dinara’s denial about her back, Jelena’s un-JJ-like errors, Svetlana’s dozen tweets, poor Elena D. and Flavia, the breadsticks and bagels, the heads in towels, the towels in weird places, the Chinese, the Russians, the line judges and, yes, Pam Shriver. For some reason, for some time, I stopped focusing so much on Serena Williams and Justine Henin.
Luckily the numbers fill in part of the parts I missed and also foretell some of the story that hasn’t been written yet. Many key stats aren’t tracked of course – Justine’s number of aces following an ‘allez’, Serena’s winner-to-bandages ratio, Justine’s break-point conversions based on number of glances at Carlos Rodriguez, Serena’s number of service holds based on number of late-night tweets. Many key stats are tracked - let’s look at those here.
Serves
Women’s ace leader – Serena Williams
Women’s double fault leader – Justine Henin
Total aces for Henin – 23
Total aces for Serena – 53
Average aces/match for all – 2
Average aces/match for Henin – 4
Average aces/match for Serena – 9
Total DFs for Henin – 33
Total DFs for Serena – 9
Average DFs/match for all – 4
Average DFs/match for Henin – 6
Average DFs/match for Serena – 2
Call her Servena, goddess of the serve, because that serve is heavenly. Serena uses it to go for the kill when things are good and to stay alive when things aren’t. Imagine how comforting it must be for her and how demoralizing for her opponents that she knows (and they know) she always has “a couple of aces” up her sleeve. After her semifinal loss against Serena, Na Li said, “I mean, like if she want win the point, just ace.”
Like at the US Open and Wimbledon before that, Serena served the highest number of aces here. Her serve is no-frills – there’s no underwear-tugging pre-serve ritual, no tossing and retossing… just a few quick bounces, a reliable toss and, more likely than for anyone else, an ace… out wide, down the middle, wherever. As usual Serena managed to reach the top of the ace leader list while staying off the double fault leader list.
Justine, on the other hand, was the double fault leader. We’ve heard the commentators enough to know that’s not as bad as it may seem. For one thing Justine usually double faults because she goes for more on her second serve than others do and not because she gets tentative. While most of her opponents had a faster average first serve speed, only one of them (Yanina Wickmayer) had a faster average second serve speed. Justine’s double fault ‘leadership’ also owes to her retooling of her serve in preparation to hit the green, green grass of Wimbledon with a motion that propels her into the court and toward the net, which is where she wants to finish off more points now.
Volleys
Net approaches won by Justine – 84/127 (66%)
Net approaches won by Serena – 69/97 (71%)
% Points on which Justine approached – 14%
% Points on which Serena approached – 12%
Justine 2.0 is all about Wimbledon and, thus, all about volleying. In preparation for her trip to London, Justine spent some quality time at the net in Melbourne. She won more net approaches than all her opponents. Maybe practice makes perfect, because she also approached more than all but one of her opponents (the once-again-feared Nadia Petrova).
Because of all the talk about the Wimbledonization of Justine’s game, I expected her impressive net stats but was a wee bit surprised by Serena’s, which weren’t too shabby. She approached only a little less than Justine but more than all of her opponents except Victoria Azarenka. When Serena did approach, she won points a little more often than Justine.
Winners & Errors
Winners by Justine – 164
Winners by Serena – 191
Unforced errors by Justine – 225
Unforced errors by Serena – 147
Winner-UFE differential for Justine – Negative 61
Winner-UFE differential for Serena – Positive 44
Serena’s positive winner-to-error differential always makes me smile. (That may say less about Serena’s skills than my lack of a real, non-tennis life.) Watching her play sometimes rough-and-tough tennis, you don’t expect such prim-and-proper numbers. The positive differential owes partly to the fact that aces are included in the winner count. But the rest of it? The rest of it is why she’s Number 1.
Justine is no slouch herself here. She hit more winners than all her opponents except Alisa Kleybanova. Henin also moves and defends well, so Serena’s not likely to hit as many winners against her. If Serena tries to go for more as result, her unforced error count could climb too, making that differential less prim and proper on both ends.
Numbers Schmumbers
As much as stats tell you about aces, winners and volleys, there’s more they can’t tell you, especially when it comes to big matches. How players fill in the gap between what numbers can and can’t show is what separates the great from the Grand Slam champions.
Consider this: Victoria Azarenka was two games away from the match in her quarterfinal loss to Serena and, in the end, lost just three fewer points (102 to 105). Yanina Wickmayer actually won three more points (96 to 93) in her fourth-round loss to Justine. Eventually three points here and there can add up seven Grand Slam titles (Justine) or even 11 (Serena).
Serena already has the most Grand Slam singles titles of any active player, but a win here would take her to a dozen, tying her with Billie Jean King. A win for Justine would extricate her from her tie with the older Williams sister, putting her in a lone second-place spot to the younger Williams sisters (among active players) and one away from Monica Seles’s nine titles.
When Serena and Justine start their 14th match, playing for their 19th combined Grand Slam singles title, with Serena leading the head-to-head 7 to 6, you can forget these numbers and all the rest. Serena for one isn’t manipulating Excel pivot tables as she waits in the locker room, and she isn’t thinking about percentage of net approaches won against Petra Kvitova (100 percent) once she gets onto the court: “I just go out and do whatever I can. Whatever happens, it’s all I can do at that time.” When it comes to the greatest champions on the biggest stages, even the number of winners can’t tell you who’ll do the winning.