Ylena In-Albon vs Maja Chwalinska: Florianópolis Final Analysis (WTA 125)
Chwalinska clinched her first WTA 125 title by totally dominating rallies of 3 to 5 shots while longer exchanges helped break In-Albon's spirit.
In the biggest final of their careers thus far, 7th-seed Maja Chwalinska (WTA #161) defeated qualifier Ylena In-Albon (WTA #345) 6-1, 6-2 to capture her first WTA 125 title and take home a new pet, “Dompa Tenista”.
The win gave Chwalinska 3 titles on the season, after consecutive ITF World Tour triumphs in July at W75 Montpellier and W75 Porto.
In Florianópolis, saturday’s bad weather forced both finalists to play the semi-finals just a couple of hours prior to the final.
While Chwalinska enjoyed a short match against 8th-seed Leolia Jeanjean (WTA #179), winning the first 10 games before completing a 6-0, 6-3 victory in 1h19min, In-Albon barely survived a 3-hour battle against top-seed Maria Lourdes Carlé (WTA #92).
The 25-year-old Swiss was down a set and 0-4, produced a break a few games later when Carlé served for the match at 4-5 and saved a couple of match-points during the marathon second set tie-break. Eventually, In-Albon triumphed 3-6, 7-6 (11:9), 6-2.
After such demanding contest, In-Albon probably would have preferred to meet a player with a different game-style. Chwalinska is known for her craftiness, for mixing high balls with slices and drop shots, for offering little pace and dragging opponents into a number of long rallies.
The following back-to-back-to-back points are perfect examples of that.
These rallies were played out during a dominant sequence of 15 straight points won by Chwalinska, from 2-1 15/30* until the end of the opening set.
By the end of the Florianópolis final, long rallies of 9+ shots had accounted for 37% of the points played (34 of 91), with the average rally length reaching 7.78 shots per point.
Certainly not ideal conditions for a weary In-Albon, even more so considering she isn’t a power player.
You may have noticed in the first 2 videos shown above that Chwalinska was happy to hit relatively deep, high-bouncing returns just to get rallies going (and she found the court with all of her returns).
The Pole played with great patience throughout, but she also did a masterful job at surprising In-Albon with occasional attacking “return+1” forehands or drop shots.
→ A compilation of a few winning “return+1s” from Chwalinska
By contrast, in line with her general inability to find early-rally offense on the day, In-Albon failed to register a single winning “return+1”. Instead, she piled up 7 “return+1” errors.
“Return+1” Performances
In-Albon: 0 winning shots / 7 errors = -7
Chwalinska: 7 winning shots / 1 error = +6
The combination of these factors resulted in a gigantic and decisive 24-2 advantage for Chwalinska in rallies lasting between 3 and 5 shots (marked by red box, below).
Ultimately, long rallies burnt In-Albon’s legs and broke her spirit while 3- to 5-shot rallies provided Chwalinska most of her winning margin.
To conclude this analysis, here are a few more relevant facts from the Florianópolis final.
1. The match was characterized by opposite backhand performances.
Chwalinska enjoyed a solid performance from the backhand wing, missing just 4 shots while generating 7 backhand winners. By contrast, In-Albon accumulated 18 backhand unforced errors and 25 total errors, after getting repeatedly targeted by Chwalinska’s hooking lefty forehands.
In-Albon was nowhere near erasing her 22-point deficit from backhand performances (-19 to +3) as she could only come up with 2 forehand winners.
Forehand Performances
In-Albon: 2 winners / 20 errors = -18
Chwalinska: 7 winners / 17 errors = -10
Backhand Performances
In-Albon: 6 winners / 25 errors = -19
Chwalinska: 7 winners / 4 errors = +3
2. Chwalinska’s superiority from the back of the court was undeniable as she won 2 out of every 3 baseline duels played (38 to 19).
3. Chwalinska was very successful when attempting drop shots, winning 11 of 15 points (73%).
Ylena In-Albon (WTA #345, qualifier) vs Maja Chwalinska (WTA #161, seed 7)
2024 Florianópolis Final - Match Data
Set by Set Stats
Strokes Breakdown
Direction of winning shots and unforced errors (only groundstrokes)
Serve and Return
1st Serves
2nd Serves
Return & rallying performance
Points won breakdown
This final section gives a last, broader look at the match by presenting how each player won points. Points are listed according to their frequency (highest to lowest) and are named in relation to the last touch on the ball. For simplicity, groundstrokes hit from the 5th shot onwards are grouped together.
Breakdown by side (FHs or BHs)
Breakdown by error type (UFEs or FEs)
To find out more about the stats published here, please visit the following post.
While we follow the same criteria used on all major tennis events, our stats are collected through our own video analysis and are not official WTA or ITF stats.
Thanks for reading!
— Tennis Inside Numbers