Moving on with our point-by-point player profiles, let’s look at Rafael Nadal. Perhaps more than anyone else on tour, he is one of a kind, exhibiting many tendencies that reflect his left-handedness, but not consistently so.
Using all of his grand slam matches from 2011, we can begin to quantify those tendencies.
The first table shows the frequency of different outcomes in the deuce court, in the ad court, and on break point, relative to Nadal’s average. For instance, the 0.990 in the upper left corner means that Djokovic wins 1.0% fewer points than average in the deuce court.
OUTCOME Deuce Ad Break
Point% 0.990 1.011 0.849
Aces 0.875 1.139 0.884
Svc Wnr 0.998 1.002 0.792
Dbl Faults 1.076 0.916 1.421
1st Sv In 0.980 1.022 1.011
Server Wnr 0.942 1.064 1.057
Server UE 1.028 0.969 1.119
Return Wnr 0.771 1.254 1.038
Returner Wnr 0.986 1.015 1.571
Returner UE 1.006 0.993 0.950
Rally Len 1.017 0.981 1.172
There are plenty of differences between his deuce and ad-court performance, but they aren’t consistent. He hits far more aces in the ad court, but also allows way more return winners. The safest conclusion seems to be that his ad-court serving generates a different, more explosive kind of tennis. In the deuce court, he hits fewer aces, more second serves, fewer winners..but allows his opponent fewer winners. It’s almost as if he plays clay-court tennis in the deuce court and hard-court tennis in the ad court.
The break point tendencies are even more marked. These points generally go longer (17% longer rallies), which would seem to work in Nadal’s favor, but he doesn’t win points at anywhere near his average rate. To some extent, this is because his break points come against better players, but his break point numbers are generally much worse than Djokovic’s.
Next, this is how he performs on a point-by-point basis. Win% shows what percentage of points he wins at that score; Exp is how many he would be expected to win (given how he performs in each match), and Rate is the difference between the two. A rate above 1 means he plays better on those points; below 1 is worse.
SCORE Pts Win% Exp Rate
g0-0 377 67.9% 67.2% 1.01
g0-15 118 65.3% 64.8% 1.01
g0-30 41 58.5% 61.8% 0.95
g0-40 17 70.6% 61.0% 1.16
g15-0 252 68.7% 68.3% 1.01
g15-15 156 63.5% 66.5% 0.95
g15-30 81 60.5% 64.0% 0.94
g15-40 44 54.5% 62.0% 0.88
g30-0 173 69.4% 69.1% 1.00
g30-15 152 67.8% 67.5% 1.00
g30-30 98 66.3% 65.4% 1.01
g30-40 57 57.9% 63.4% 0.91
g40-0 120 71.7% 69.8% 1.03
g40-15 137 67.2% 68.1% 0.99
g40-30 110 74.5% 67.0% 1.11
g40-40 143 59.4% 60.9% 0.98
g40-AD 58 72.4% 57.9% 1.25
gAD-40 85 52.9% 62.9% 0.84
From the past season, the lingering image I have of Rafa is of him fighting off a slew of break points. That is in evidence at 40-AD, where he wins a staggering 72.4% of points. That’s just remarkable: his 40-AD points come against his best opponents, and he performs considerably better at that score than he does at the logically equivalent 30-40.
But 40-AD is the exception. At almost every other crucial score, when Nadal is playing from behind, he plays worse than expected. 15-40 is the most marked, where he wins only 54.5% of points compared to the 62.0% of points he “should” win. Also worrisome is his performance at AD-40; it seems that Nadal is the best in the game when it comes to getting the score back to deuce.
Serving Against Nadal
We can go through the same exercises for Nadal’s return points. The next two tables are trickier to read. Look at them as Serving against Nadal. Thus, the number in the upper-left corner means that when serving against Nadal, players win 1.3% more points than average in the deuce court; Nadal is a better returner in the ad court.
(I’ve excluded return points against lefty servers. Since lefties and righties have such different serving tendencies, limiting the sample to righty servers gives us clearer results, even as the sample shrinks a bit.)
OUTCOME Deuce Ad Break
Point% 1.013 0.986 1.009
Aces 1.150 0.837 0.994
Svc Wnr 1.098 0.894 0.909
Dbl Faults 0.860 1.152 0.998
1st Sv In 1.008 0.991 1.004
Server Wnr 1.040 0.956 0.946
Server UE 0.994 1.006 0.935
Return Wnr 0.791 1.227 0.874
Returner Wnr 0.925 1.082 1.254
Returner UE 0.918 1.090 1.073
Rally Len 1.006 0.993 1.031
As we might expect, Nadal is a monster returner in the ad court–and servers know it. Righties serve better in the deuce court, but not this much better; Nadal wins 16% more points than average when returning in the deuce court. His opponents help him out, double-faulting at a much higher rate when serving to Rafa’s forehand.
On break point, Nadal isn’t quite so dominant in shutting down the service game, but he does generate a lot more winners later in the point.
Here’s more on Nadal’s return game, again with numbers from the perspective of players serving against him.
SCORE Pts Win% Exp Rate
g0-0 380 57.4% 57.2% 1.00
g0-15 158 50.0% 55.5% 0.90
g0-30 79 50.6% 54.6% 0.93
g0-40 39 61.5% 53.6% 1.15
g15-0 216 57.9% 58.5% 0.99
g15-15 170 52.9% 56.6% 0.93
g15-30 120 54.2% 55.5% 0.98
g15-40 79 62.0% 52.9% 1.17
g30-0 125 61.6% 59.7% 1.03
g30-15 138 58.0% 57.8% 1.00
g30-30 123 57.7% 57.5% 1.00
g30-40 101 50.5% 56.6% 0.89
g40-0 77 63.6% 60.7% 1.05
g40-15 108 60.2% 59.2% 1.02
g40-30 114 69.3% 57.4% 1.21
g40-40 160 57.5% 55.9% 1.03
g40-AD 68 47.1% 55.7% 0.85
gAD-40 92 54.3% 56.0% 0.97
Once again, Nadal loves 40-AD. This time, it’s his chance to convert a break point, and he does so at an alarming rate. And in the return game, he performs nearly as well at 30-40. At 40-AD, he wins more than half of points, a far better performance that we would expect, given the quality of his opponents and his performance on other points against the same players.