Holger Rune should have been out of the Paris Masters in the first round last year.
Rune faced Stan Wawrinka in a contentious opening match that did not end until after midnight. After saving three match points, Rooney beat Wawrinka, a three-time major champion, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3) to win the tournament, his first Masters 1000 crown. Along the way, he upset five top-10 players, including world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and six-time champion Novak Djokovic in the final. The win put him in the world’s top 10 for the first time.
Match points are kept in tennis with the regularity of a metronome. More often than not, a player performs these death-defying feats early in the tournament and then falters before the final rounds. But sometimes, saving a match point can motivate a player for an entire week.
In 2021, winning players saved match points in 58 main-draw matches on the WTA Tour. Only four times, though, did anyone come back to win the tournament. Naomi Osaka did it at the Australian Open when she came back from 3-5 down in the final set to beat Garbiñe Muguruza in the fourth round and then defeated Serena Williams in the semifinals and Jennifer Brady in the final.
Ashleigh Barty won the Miami Open over Bianca Andreescu, but only after hitting a return winner down the line to save a match with 149th-ranked Kristina Kucova in the second round.
At the 2021 Italian Open, Iga Swiatek dropped two match points to Barbora Krejcikova in the third round but managed to escape with a 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-5 victory. She then won the tournament by beating Karolina Pliskova, 6–0, 6–0, in the final.
Krejcikova got some revenge when she saved a match point against Maria Sakkaris in the French Open semifinals a few weeks later, eventually winning 7-5, 4-6, 9-7, on her own fifth match point. Krejcikova then defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova for her first and only singles championship.
This year alone, eight ATP tournaments have ended with a champion saving match points along the way. Six times they have been in the final, including Djokovic’s victories over Sebastian Korda in Adelaide, Australia, and Alcaraz in the Cincinnati final. Hubert Hurkacz has also done it twice this year, saving match points on his way to titles in Marseille, France, in February and in Shanghai earlier this month.
“It’s like you’re on the edge of a cliff,” Djokovic said in 2020 after saving three straight match points against Gael Monfils in the Dubai semifinals before beating Stefano Tsitsipas in the final. “You know there’s no going back, so you have to jump in and try to find a way to survive, I guess, and pray for the best and believe you can make it.”
Last year, eight male players – including Rune in Paris – saved match points, though none in the finals, and won the title. Alcaraz did it twice, against Alex de Minaur in the Barcelona semifinals and against Jannik Sinner in a five-hour, 15-minute US Open quarterfinal that ended at 2:50 a.m. He went on to defeat Casper Ruud in the championship match.
“Sometimes when you get over [match points]it’s good because you’re like half of the tournament, so you’re happy to be there and still have opportunities to play more matches,” Roone said in an interview.
“I try to play more aggressively because you think the opponent might be tighter and more nervous in those moments,” he said. “But I also don’t want to lose because I don’t want to end the race by mistake. So I try to play safe but aggressive and I often play very good tennis in the matches.” Rooney will look to defend his title in Paris when the tournament starts on Monday.
Former world No. 1 and three-time major champion Andy Murray usually has vivid memories of matches he has played. But when asked about winning tournaments after saving match points, Murray stumbled and then smiled when reminded that he had saved a match point against Milos Raonic during the semifinals of the 2016 ATP Finals, eventually winning the match in 5 -7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (9). The win was particularly significant because Murray beat Djokovic in the final, securing the year-end world No. 1 ranking.
“People often say that after you save match points or win matches like that, it frees you up a little bit, but I don’t know if there’s any evidence to support that,” said Murray, who also saved seven match points in one second. -in a tiebreak against Philipp Kohlschreiber in the Dubai quarter-finals in 2017 before winning the championship over Fernando Verdasco.
Murray sees the difference between saving match points in a close match and coming back from a deep deficit.
“It depends a little bit on the match situation,” Murray said. “If you’re a set down and 5-1, 40-0, down, it’s different than 6-6 in the third set and it’s only one match point against you on your serve. You are still very close to winning this match.”
Saving match points in Grand Slam tournaments has a special value for players. In 2016, Angelique Kerber saved a match point in the first round of the Australian Open against Misaki Doi and won the first of three major championships, defeating Serena Williams in three sets in the final.
“When I played here in the first round, I was on point and I was playing with one foot on the plane to Germany,” Kerber told the crowd after the win.
In 1996, Pete Sampras became physically ill during his US Open quarterfinal against Alex Corretja, but managed to save a match and win. He then beat Michael Chang for the title. Boris Becker saved two match points, one with a net winner that went over Derrick Rostano’s racket in the second round of the 1989 US Open. He won the championship over Ivan Lendl.
In 2003, Andy Roddick saved a match in a US Open semifinal against David Nalbadian and then captured his only major by beating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final. Djokovic saved two match points in a classic five-set US Open semi-final over Roger Federer in 2011 and went on to win the title against Rafael Nadal. Djokovic also saved two match points against Federer in the 2019 Wimbledon final.
But no player can top Thomas Muster and the year he had in 1995. Muster won 12 ATP tournaments that year, 11 of them on clay, and had a 65-2 record on the surface. In six of those tournaments, he saved match points, including against Becker in a Monte Carlo final in which Becker double-faulted on his first match point and then made a backhand error.
“Tennis is one of the few games where you can’t take a result and bring it home,” the Master said by phone from his home in Austria. “You have to win the match. It’s always open and can become a different ball game. You can be down a set and 5-0 and still win. In no other sport, no way.
“You need drive and willpower to keep believing in yourself,” added the Master. “When you lose points, you have nothing left to lose. In my mind, I’ve already lost it. But once you save that match point, you say, “Now I win it. Now that I’ve taken it out, there’s no way anyone’s going to take it from me. You have to beat me, you have to win it.”
As for Murray, he’ll take his wins however he can take them.
“I don’t care if I save a match or win 6-1, 6-1,” Murray said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
