Uchijima vs Bouzas Maneiro: Zaragoza Final Analysis (ITF W100)
Outstanding rallying consistency and extreme efficiency when attacking.
The ITF W100 Zaragoza Open was the biggest event of the week for players not involved in the Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers.
It brought 22-year old Moyuka Uchijima (WTA #143) her biggest career title to date.
Uchijima backed up her opening round win over top-seed Arantxa Rus (WTA #54) by playing a flawless final against 6th seed and crowd favourite Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (WTA #104).
With impeccable shot tolerance, Uchijima defended well and found the right variation between deep, high balls and short, sharp angles to leave Bouzas Maneiro without an answer. The icing on the cake was Uchijima’s very high efficiency whenever she attempted aggressive shots.
While both players finished with 12 winners (distributed between 9 forehand and 3 backhands winners), they were very far apart in error totals: Uchijima made 17 errors, Bouzas Maneiro accumulated 42 errors.
The gigantic 25-point difference derived mostly from Bouzas Maneiro’s 23 unforced errors, in comparison to 7 from Uchijima.
Overall, the gap was established by forehand and backhand shots in very similar proportions.
Forehand Performance
Uchijima: 9 winners / 9 errors = 0
Bouzas Maneiro: 9 winners / 21 errors = -12
12-point advantage for Uchijima
Backhand Performance
Uchijima: 3 winners / 8 errors = -5
Bouzas Maneiro: 3 winners / 21 errors = -18
13-point advantage for Uchijima
Uchijima made 3 unforced errors on missed returns. Therefore, she only hit 4 unforced errors during 68 rallies.
If these numbers look good, Uchijima’s performance gets even more impressive when we look at groundstroke data.
While the “Winners and Errors” stats shown above reflect the last touch on the ball, be it a winner or forced/unforced error, the “Groundstrokes” table below values forcing shots (instead of forced errors) and combines them with winners into a metric identified as “winning shots”. Comparison between winning shots and unforced errors evaluates how players performed when they had opportunity to go for their shots.
Even though Uchijima missed seldomly (4 groundstroke unforced errors), her total of 19 winning groundstrokes suggests she didn’t shy away from taking risks. Superb final numbers that demonstrate Uchijima had excellent efficiency when playing aggressively.
Bouzas Maneiro finished with 17 winning groundstrokes to 21 unforced errors. She struggled mostly with her backhand crosscourt attempts (1 winning shot to 8 UFEs).
Uchijima’s strong groundstroke performance resulted in a complete control of back-court exchanges. With both players simultaneously at the baseline, the score was 38-16 for Uchijima.
Uchijima won 64% of baseline points and was a perfect 4 for 4 on net attacks.
Bouzas Maneiro played from the back of the court in 58 points; she only won 16 (28%). She was a lot more successful at the net (70% win-rate), despite a couple of troubles with the sun.
Another evidence of Uchijima’s superior performance: she had the edge on all rally length intervals.
Uchijima doubled-up on long rallies won and she was close to repeating that for short and medium points.
Overall, it was a convincing win for Uchijima.
Victory in Zaragoza lifted her record on the year to 20 wins and 8 losses and brought a 2nd title of 2024, after W50 Pune in January. Uchijima now stands at 10 titles on the ITF World Tour.
Despite the final loss, Jessica Bouzas Maneiro also had reasons to celebrate. As a result of her strong start of the season, that includes titles in W75 Porto, W50 Morelia, WTA 125 Antalya and runner-up finishes in W50 Porto and now W100 Zaragoza, Bouzas Maneiro has secured a first time entry into the Top-100.
Moyuka Uchijima (WTA #143) vs Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (WTA #104, seed 6)
2024 Zaragoza Final - Match Data
Set by Set Stats
