Zeynep Sonmez vs Ann Li: Mérida Final Analysis (WTA 250)
Sonmez missed very few forehands and showed greater overall consistency to clinch her first WTA Tour title
Zeynep Sonmez (WTA #148) finished the season on a roll, winning 10 of the last 11 games of the Mérida Open Akron final to defeat Ann Li (WTA #108) 6-2, 6-1 and win her first WTA Tour title.
The Turkish 22-year-old took home the winner’s trophy and sombrero de mariachi in just her 10th career main draw participation in a Tour-level event.
A few months or even weeks ago, Sonmez was probably a household name only among hardcore fans, who knew her for a number of fairplay gestures on the court and her kindness off it. No doubt traits of a major champion in life!
But Sonmez also sought recognition for her tennis accomplishments. And in that regard, 2024 was a year of steady progress and a series of career firsts:
first WTA 1000 main draw played (Qatar)
Major main draw debut after coming through qualifying (Roland Garros)
first Tour-level main draw win (Berlin)
first Tour-level quarter-final (Monastir)
Then, to cap off her season, Sonmez put together her best career week to triumph in Mérida and become just the second Turkish WTA singles champion, after Cagla Buyukakcay’s 2016 victory in Istanbul.
A historic accomplishment that secured Sonmez’s debut in the Top-100 and guarantees she will have a few new challenges to conquer in 2025.
The Mérida final was decided by consistency and error-control.
Sonmez was a lot more solid, finishing the match with half of the unforced errors (18 to 34), forced errors (10 to 21) and total errors (28 to 55) made by Li.
→ Here is the eventual champion doing a great job at keeping rallies going after being forced deep or wide, until finding the right moment to counter…
📺source: WTA Tv
… or until a Li error.
→ When commanding the point, Sonmez showed excellent efficiency.
A deeper analysis of the match revealed that almost all of the winning margin originated from rallies lasting between 4 and 8 shots (marked by red box, below). Those were the instances players’ performances were more divergent, when Sonmez hardly missed any ball and Li accumulated a bunch of errors.
In total, out of 35 points decided between the 4th and 8th shots, Sonmez won 28 and lost just 7 points, for a massive 21-point advantage.
Adding to Li’s woes on the day, she also enjoyed a subpar “serve+1” performance, translated into 13 errors. A total that explains Sonmez’s 13-5 edge in 2-shot rallies.
“Serve+1” Performances
Sonmez: 2 winners / 4 errors = -2
Li: 3 winners / 13 errors = -10
→ Li was plagued by too many misses on her first shot after the serve. Here are her last 2 “serve+1” errors, while serving to stay in the match.
Overall, Sonmez exhibited supreme consistency from the forehand side.
She found the court in all of her 28 forehand returns and finished with only 7 forehand errors. These numbers contrasted with Li’s 29 misses from the forehand wing, which created a huge 20-point gap between forehand performances (+2 to -18).
Forehand Performances
Sonmez: 9 winners / 7 errors = +2
Li: 11 winners / 29 errors = -18
While Sonmez was efficient with her forehand groundstrokes, she did most of the damage when hitting down the line shots towards Li’s backhand corner (blue box).
On the other side of the net, Li struggled a bit more with crosscourt forehand groundstrokes (green box).
The American was also very active hunting run-around forehands. She probably earned mixed reviews on those, after totalling 5 forehand winners struck from the AD court (orange circle on the left) along with 6 unforced errors (yellow circle on the right).
Offensive production from the backhand side was scarce, with both players striking a single backhand winner.
Still, Sonmez outplayed Li from that wing as well, making 9 fewer errors (16 to 25) and hitting 6 more forcing shots (7 to 1).
Backhand Performances
Sonmez: 1 winner / 16 errors = -15
Li: 1 winner / 25 errors = -24
Given all the numbers already presented, it was no surprise that Sonmez outrallied Li by some margin. A 26-point difference to be exact, created by a 55-29 score in 84 rallies played.
Sonmez ruled from the back of the court, winning 47 of 70 baseline duels - basically 2 ouf of every 3 played. She finished with a 65% (48/74) baseline win-rate, and limited Li’s success from the back to 33% (26/80).
To round out an outstanding display, Sonmez also won 7 of 10 net approaches.
A dream come true brought by 15 years of work, as the most recent Tour champion described during the trophy presentation.
Zeynep Sonmez (WTA #148) vs Ann Li (WTA #108)
2024 Mérida Final - Match Data
Set by Set Stats
Rally Length
Winners and Errors
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