5 Talking Points From Davis Cup Finals

Great Britain are the Davis Cup champions. Andy Murray propelled Great Britain to their 10th Davis cup title and first since 1936. The euphoria was unmatched as Andy celebrated the victory with his brother Jamie Murray and fellow team-mates. As Britain now rides at the top of the Davis Cup rankings we look into 5 talking points from the match that sealed the victory for them.

1) Break Points

Break points, as the name suggests, can break or make you. For Andy fortuantely, it was the latter. He created a total of 14 break point opportunities on Goffin’s serve and won 5 of them; enough to steer his way to victory.

For Goffin a conversion rate of just 20% in 5 break points chances was never going to be enough.

Fun Fact 1 : Great Britain won 12 of 14 ties recording the quickest rise to title in the tournament’s history.  

2) Second Serve Points Won

As it is said, you are only as good as your second serve. Andy Murray won 65% points behind his second serve producing a solid performance. Goffin, on the other hand, had a tough day at the office, winning just 43% points on his second serve.

With the quality of Andy Murray, you can never be sure with such a low second serve points won rate. And so it was proved as Andy won in straight sets 6-3 7-5 6-3.

Fun Fact 2 : Davis Cup is named after Dwight Davis who ordered and paid for the inaugural Davis Cup final held in 1900, named International Lawn Tennis Challenge at the time. 

3) Winners and Errors

Winners decides the winner in a tennis match. Murray fired 37 winners and committed 22 unforced errors during the entire match. Davis Goffin posted similar numbers but in reverse order. He committed 34 unforced errors and fired just 24 winners. As matter of fact, in all the three sets of the match, David committed more errors than winners and Andy hit more winners than errors.

Fun Fact 3 : Andy beat Australia, France and U.S.A. enroute to the finals. Interestingly all these nations host one each of the prestigious 4 Grand Slams with Britain hosting the fourth.

4) Second Serve Return

One of the most commanding shots in tennis is a return winner. And when you have one of the best returners in the game playing, you will witness a few them. Andy won an incredible 53% points while returning Goffin’s second serve, whereas Goffin could bank in only 35% of them on Andy’s service.

With such a high conversion rate while returning, Andy was successful in keeping the pressure on Goffin, and eventually breaking his serve.

Fun Fact 4 : Britain is one of the founding nations of Davis Cup.

5) First Serve Percentage

First Serve is the key in every tennis match. (Well, atleast in the ATP ) Andy landed in 63% of his first serves and fired 12 aces and no double faults in the match. Whereas, Goffin could manage only 51% of first serves and hit just 4 aces at the expense of 2 double faults during the match, one of which came at set point.

Fun Fact 5 : Andy Murray is only the third man to win 8 live singles rubbers in a Davis Cup year after John McEnroe in 1982 and Mats Wilander in 1983.