In this new series on USOpen.org, we examine the tactics that led to the title. In addition to telling you what happened in the championship match, we take a closer look at the "how" and the "why." Up next: how Martina Hingis exposed Venus Williams' inexperience and neutralized her serve.
It’s easy to say that Martina Hingis won the 1997 final because Venus Williams was nervous. And while that was an important factor in Hingis’ eventual win, it doesn’t account for the fact that tactical ninja Hingis executed her game plan perfectly.
Hingis kept Williams behind the baseline and only brought her forward when she wanted to open up the court with a short, angled approach. Hingis is known for her on-court acumen and precision, and this final was a perfect display of it in action.
She used her forehand to hit balls cross court to avoid the Williams backhand, and she forced the American to create her own angles from the center of the baseline by hitting backhand after backhand down the middle. While Hingis can mix up her shots and incorporate slices, chips, drop shots and lobs, she never really needed a Plan ‘B’ and instead had more than enough success hitting the ball deep from both wings.
“You can't allow her to make her game,” Hingis said. “She has very powerful groundstrokes. If she's going to let you run left-right all the time, especially her backhand is very dangerous.”
Coming into the final, Williams had played well, particularly on serve.
She had landed her first serve at least 60 percent of the time in all six matches, winning 69 percent of these points and 52 percent of points on her second serve. She had averaged almost 24 winners per match through the semifinals, and she had secured a combined 31 total breaks of serve in 54 chances, an average of five breaks in nine opportunities per match. And when she came into the net, she had won two-thirds of all the points she played.
Against Hingis, however, she rarely had a chance to impose herself.
Despite a 69 percent first-serve percentage, her highest of the tournament, Williams won fewer than half the points she played. She won 21 of 43 (49 percent) on her first serve and 8 of 19 (42 percent) on her second.
Importantly, of the 58 serves Williams put in play, Hingis missed just eight returns (four of those were aces), meaning she made Williams play a second and often a third shot. And when Hingis did return the serve, she made Williams hit a forehand almost 38 percent of the time, avoiding the backhand where Williams could do real damage, especially with the disguise she could generate from an open stance.
Part of the reason she could attack the forehand was because her ability to read the serve placement was impressive. It allowed her to stand virtually on the baseline for first serves and well inside the baseline to return second serves.
Williams served wide to either the Hingis forehand on the deuce court or to the backhand on the ad court 48 percent of the time. And while the American had success when she served into the body (she won 11 of 18 points), she won just one-third of the points when she served down the ’T’ and 38 percent when she served to the forehand on the deuce court.
“I’m pretty much known that I'm having a good return,” Hingis said after the match. “So my serve is not a big weapon I have in my game. I have to have something else. That's my return. I also think mostly she's trying to serve to my forehand. I just know the ball, if it's going to be important, she's going to try to serve there. You know, she maybe didn't serve as hard as against the other players. Just was trying to keep the ball in the game. You know, I always had the chance to play it back.”
Williams’ problems were compounded by the fact that she recorded more than twice as many errors (38) as winners (16) and created just three break-point opportunities on the Hingis serve.
Yes, Williams was nervous, but more importantly, she was inexperienced. Her lack of matches, not even marquee Grand Slam final matches, was why she struggled to gain a footing in this contest on a beautiful made-for-tennis, 79-degree day.
Despite being just 16 years old, Hingis was no stranger to prime time. She had reached the semifinals of the US Open 12 months earlier in just her second trip to Flushing Meadows, and she made history in 1997 by winning titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon and reaching the final at the French Open.
By contrast, Williams, who had turned 17 earlier in the summer, was playing the first major final of her career. She had won just one main-draw match at the Grand Slam level before the US Open began. It wasn't necessarily that Williams was more nervous; it was just that Hingis was more experienced and more tactically aware at this young stage in her career.
