Month: September 2013

Nadal d. Gasquet: Recap and Detailed Stats

Not often do we come away from a straight-set victory with newfound respect for the loser, but that’s the appropriate reaction today.

As I discussed this morning, Richard Gasquet has never accomplished much of anything against Rafael Nadal. The 10-0 head-to-head, if anything, disguises how lopsided it has been.

Today, for two sets, the Frenchman came as close to going toe-to-toe with Nadal as he probably ever will. From the start, he was playing a much more varied game than we are accustomed to from him, serving aggressively, rushing the net at any provocation, and even standing inside the stadium to return serve.

Despite getting broken three times, Gasquet never really went away. After he lost his first service game, it looked like another Nadal-administred drubbing in the works, but Richard held serve for the remainder of the set, finishing at 6-4.

In the second, he once again lost the first game of the set on serve, but went one better. He broke Nadal back, the first service game Nadal has lost in New York. Gasquet took advantage of Rafa’s carelessness to stay on serve until they reached a tiebreak.

Then came the disappointment of the match. Gasquet opened the breaker with a double fault, and serving at 1-6, he doubled once more. That was the only sign of the passive, unthreatening Richard we got all day.

The third set was more lopsided, though Gasquet kept playing aggressive tennis. Nadal was just too good. (Gasquet didn’t help, double faulting twice from 30-30 in the final game, but in the end, it was just the difference between 6-2 and 6-3.)

For Gasquet to beat Rafa, he would have to play the match of a lifetime. He didn’t come close to doing that today, but he did show up with a better set of tactics than he generally brings to bear. While a more varied attack from the Frenchman won’t earn him a spot in the top five, it will ensure he remains in the top ten.

Here are the complete point-by-point stats for the match, and in case you missed it earlier, here’s my recap of the Djokovic-Wawrinka semifinal.

Djokovic d. Wawrinka: Recap and Detailed Stats

Stanislas Wawrinka came into his first Grand Slam semifinal match today as an extreme underdog.  (I made the case for that this morning.)  For the second consecutive Slam encounter with Novak Djokovic, he nearly scored the upset.

As was the case with Andy Murray in Wawrinka’s quarterfinal match, Djokovic didn’t look like a top-three player, especially for the first hour or so.  He dropped the first set 6-2, making way too many errors (18, against only six winners), and failing to take advantage of Stan’s complete inability to put a first serve in the box.

A few games later, the match turned even further in the direction of the Swiss.  After a marathon, 18-point game at 1-2, Wawrinka saved three break points then won a couple of long rallies in the following game to score the first break of the second set.  However, Wawrinka’s first-serve percentage caught up to him while Djokovic started to play slightly better tennis.  Novak broke to even things up at 4-4, and both players continued to hold serve into a tiebreak.

In retrospect, that second-set tiebreak was the turning point.  And if we had to isolate one point, it would be the one on Wawrinka’s racquet at 2-3, when he double faulted.  He never got the mini-break back.

The Swiss only double-faulted six times in the match–not bad for a 331-point contest–but the rough patch in that second-set tiebreak was the first of three very important points he threw away with his serve.  He double-faulted on break point in the first game of the fourth set, giving Djokovic a break he would never recover.  And at game point, 40-30, at 1-1 in the fifth, he double-faulted to give Djokovic an opportunity at deuce.

That third game of the fifth set will go down in the record books.  It lasted 30 points, progressing through twelve deuces.  Djokovic had five break points, and Stan saved them all.

At the time, it felt like a turning point.  After all, what else could a 12-deuce game be?  Looking back, it was Wawrinka’s last hurrah.

It is remarkable that Wawrinka, playing against the best returner in the game, earned the result he did.  He barely made half of his first serves, never topping 55% in a single set.  It’s remarkable, either a testament to Stan’s ground game or an indication of Djokovic’s poor play today, that he won half of those second-serve points.

And by the fifth set, his ability to play on was increasingly in question.  At 4-1 in the fourth set, Wawrinka left the court for a medical time out, getting a tape job on his upper thighs.  He clearly wasn’t moving as well after that, though the results barely show it.  Somehow he continued to fight Djokovic for every point.  He took a few more chances–including some reckless ones–but continued to slug it out in plenty of long rallies.

But in the service game following the marathon hold, Wawrinka’s magic didn’t hold.  He saved two more break points, but on the eighth chance of the set, Novak finally broke.  There wouldn’t be another chance.  From 3-2, Wawrinka continued to hold serve, but no game would reach deuce.

It was a great effort from the Swiss.  Like his straight-set win over Murray, it is, one hopes, a sign of things to come.  Save Nadal, Wawrinka has played as well as anyone this fortnight.  He’s no young rising star, but in the few years remaining in his professional career, he deserves, at the very least, another shot at a Grand Slam semifinal.

Here are the complete point-by-point stats from the match.

The Impossible Cases for Gasquet and Wawrinka

The last eleven times Stanislas Wawrinka has played Novak Djokovic, he has lost.  The last ten times Richard Gasquet has played Rafael Nadal, he has lost.

It takes plenty of optimism, coupled with a hefty dose of creativity, to think we’ll see a close match today.  Even arguing for the likelihood of a fourth set seems a bit much.

Such an argument, if it is to be at all reasonable, must hinge on two things.  First, that the underdogs are playing great tennis, better than their rankings and past results imply.  Second, that the favorites aren’t playing as well as they seem to be.

Underdogs poised for breakthrough?

Certainly, Wawrinka and Gasquet have faced tougher challenges than their opponents have.  Wawrinka has defeated two top-five players, making him 7-7 on the year against the top ten, an impressive mark for anyone other than, well, Djokovic or Nadal.  Gasquet has fought through two five-set battles, including a quarterfinal victory over David Ferrer, the sort of guy who doesn’t lose five-set battles to the likes of Gasquet.

In both cases, though, this argument can be taken too far.  Wawrinka has certainly been playing well, but neither of his last two victories are surprises anywhere near the extent a victory over Djokovic would be.  He had won two of his last five meetings with Andy Murray, and taken a set in two of Murray’s victories.  And even before his fourth-round match, he had a career winning record against Tomas Berdych.

If there is hope for Wawrinka, it comes in his record against Djokovic himself.  The last time they met, in Australia this year, the Swiss effectively fought to a draw, ultimately losing 12-10 in the deciding set.  Yet even that remarkable near-upset might overstate Stan’s case.  Even though it was Wawrinka who won a lopsided first set, Djokovic posted a dominance ratio (DR) of 1.10, meaning that he won 10% more return points than his opponent.  That’s almost always enough to win, and usually enough to avoid playing a sixth set.  Not to take anything away from Stan’s performance that day, but aside from a few lucky breaks, it was business as usual, with Novak playing superior tennis.

For Gasquet, it is even harder to make a case based on his own accomplishments.  He piled up an early lead against a listless Ferrer, then nearly blew it before playing a solid fifth set.  His level careened wildly during his fourth-round five-setter with Milos Raonic, a match which revealed character it shouldn’t have needed to draw upon.  This tournament is full of positives for Gasquet’s future, just not the very near future of his match with Rafa.

Indeed, to find any positive at all in the Nadal-Gasquet head-to-head, we need to go back more than five years, when the Frenchman won a 14-12 tiebreak on the way to a three-set loss.  Since then, everything has gone Rafa’s way.

Favorites overestimated?

If there is any chink in the armor of either Djokovic or Nadal, it is that they have yet to be tested in Flushing.  Neither has played an opponent ranked in the top 20, and Novak has played only one man ranked in the top 40.

So while both players have been dominant–Nadal overpowering almost beyond belief–it would be a mistake to conclude on the basis of these few matches that either player is in some sort of career-best form.  While most Grand Slam semifinalists have to play a third-round match, a fourth-round match, and a quarterfinal, it’s as if these two guys got a bonus second-rounder and two passes through the third round.

Unfortunately for Gasquet, it doesn’t matter what the evidence says about Rafa during this fortnight.  Take as many recent results as you want, and the conclusion is clear: Nadal is playing better than anyone.  The worst thing you can say about his hard court showing this year is that he’s lost a few sets.  He hasn’t lost a match on a hard court all year.  Sure, his dismantling of Tommy Robredo might overstate his capabilities, but not by much.  There’s simply no argument to be made that relies on Nadal’s weakness.

Djokovic, while ranked and seeded #1, hasn’t been quite so unbeatable.  He failed to reach the final of either summer Masters 1000 event, losing to Nadal in Montreal and John Isner in Cincinnati.  He hasn’t won a hard-court event since Dubai, six months ago.  In addition to the summer losses, he fell to Tommy Haas in the spring, and has lost hard-court sets to the likes of Denis Istomin, Fabio Fognini, and Sam Querrey.

That’s your dossier against the Serbian.  He’s not the undefeated Novak of 2011.  In short, he’s human–unlike Nadal.

The best-case scenario for Wawrinka is for a replay of the Melbourne match, with a couple more breaks going his way.  It’s far from likely–oddsmakers give Stan a roughly 25% chance of pulling off the upset, while my forecast is more pessimistic, figuring his chances at 14%.

Neither outcome seems particularly in doubt.  But whether today’s action lasts for six short sets or ten long ones, we can count on some entertaining tennis.  In current form, Gasquet and Wawrinka have two of the most beautiful (and devastating) backhands in the game.  And come to think of it, their semifinal opponents play some pretty good tennis, too.

Early Round Dominance and Women’s Semifinal Outcomes

Today’s women’s semifinals have at least one thing in common.  In both, one player has yet to drop a set at the US Open and has lost many fewer games than her opponent.

Does it matter?

The differences are particularly glaring in today’s second semifinal, between Serena Williams and Na Li.  Serena has not lost a set, and has dropped only 13 games.  Li has been pushed quite a bit further, losing 31 games in her first five matches.

Out of 714 Open-era Grand Slam semifinal matches, 30 have featured two players with such a wide gap.  To quantify it, we’ll note that Li has lost 2.38 times as many games as Serena has.  Of those 30 matches, the player who had displayed more dominance in the early rounds won 25.

Strangely, though, the connection has been much weaker in recent years.  Most of those 25 super-dominant semifinals were the usual suspects in WTA history: Margaret Court, Chris Evert, and Steffi Graf.  Only five of these lopsided pairings have taken place since 1994, and of those five, the less dominant player has won three.  The most recent example was Li’s semifinal in Australia.  She went into her match having lost 31 games, while her opponent, Maria Sharapova, had lost only 9.  Despite showing so much more weakness in the early rounds, Li won her semifinal 6-2 6-2.

In general, however, the more dominant the early rounds, the better chance a player has of reaching the final.  Of the 349 Slam semifinals in which one player had lost fewer games in her first five rounds, 228 (65.3%) advanced to the final.  The same percentage applies to the player who lost fewer sets en route to her semifinal.

Despite her low ranking and her buzzsaw of an opponent, this bodes well for Flavia Pennetta, right?

Well, not exactly.  As hardly needs mention, there are other factors involved here.  A great player might have a sloppy early-round match or suffer an unlucky draw.  That doesn’t mean she’s any less great, or less likely to show her top form in the semis.  Victoria Azarenka has certainly had a more challenging tournament so far than Pennetta has, but it would be a mistake to read too much into that.

For the most part, early-round dominance and superior WTA rankings go hand in hand.  Of 228 semifinal matches where I have ranking data, just over half (117) were won by the player who had dropped fewer games–who just happened to be the player with the better ranking.  No surprises here–if someone is going to play like Serena has so far, she’s probably #1.

The remaining 111 matches are where things get interesting.  In 75 of them, one player had the higher ranking (like Azarenka) and the other had been more dominant in the early rounds (like Pennetta).  The results favor the higher-ranked player, but not as much as you might expect: 30 of those 75 (40%) went in favor of the lower-ranked player.

Of course, most of those lower-ranked players aren’t quite the underdogs that Pennetta is.  As we saw yesterday, Flavia is one of the lowest ranked semifinalists in women’s Slam history.  Only two players outside of the top 32 have ever advanced to a final–Venus Williams at the 1997 US Open, and Serena at the 2007 Australian.  Whatever else you might say about the Italian, she’s not a Williams sister.

Using these two variables, though, it is Na Li who faces the tougher challenge today.  She’ll need to beat a higher-ranked player who has been untouchable through five rounds.  Keep the faith: That’s exactly what she did in Melbourne this year.

Wawrinka d. Murray: Recap and Detailed Stats

The narrative felt familiar.  A flashy player from the fringes of the top ten takes on an established top-five guy, a great defender who would be sure to outlast his opponent in the end.

Yesterday, it was Gasquet and Ferrer.  Today, Stanislas Wawrinka and Andy Murray.  Even after Wawrinka took the first set, the same talking points reappeared: Surely Wawrinka would press, or tire, or Murray would wake up and play better tennis.  Fortunately for Stan, he didn’t have to fight off as spirited a comeback as Gasquet did; he simply kept employing the same successful strategies while Murray, passive and error-ridden, let him run away with the match.

While Murray’s impotence will be the story of this match–he hit only 15 winners in the entire match, and that includes six aces–much must be said about Wawrinka’s game plan.

The Swiss is known for his backhand, but unlike Gasquet, he doesn’t unduly favor it.  Roughly 40% of his groundstrokes are backhands (including slices), meaning he is willing to move around it and attack with the forehand.  The Wawrinka forehand is a weapon that is known to break down, but when it’s working, it can be just as deadly as the backhand.  It didn’t falter today: Stan earned 27 winners and induced five additional forced errors with shots from that side.

But the forehand was only a complementary part of the attack.  What continued to surprise throughout the match was Wawrinka’s willingness–sometimes over-eagerness–to come to net.  His transition game is a little awkward, and many of his errors came from failed approach shots, but by continually putting more pressure on Murray, he closed out points when Andy would’ve been content to let them go on for ten more shots.

Another underrated part of Wawrinka’s game is the serve.  While Stan will never post eye-popping ace numbers, it’s an effective shot that sets up the rest of his game well.  Today, he only tallied four aces and one unreturnable, but of 76 total serve points, Wawrinka won 29 of them with or before his second shot.  That isn’t as foolproof as an Isner-like ace tally, but the end result is the same.

And sure enough, it prevented Murray from even sniffing opportunity.  Murray didn’t earn a single break point in the match, the first time he has failed to generate one since his loss to Roger Federer in the 2010 World Tour Finals.

Wawrinka, on the other hand, pushed Murray to 30-30 in almost every one of his service games, and after suffering through a marathon game at the end of the first set, in which he needed seven opportunities to seal the break and the set, he didn’t waste nearly so much time again.  The Swiss converted three of five break point opportunities after that first set.

It was a bad day for Murray, that’s for sure.  It represented a step back to before his days as an Olympic and Grand Slam champion, and it may be a tough one to bounce back from.  Wawrinka, on the other hand, forces us to consider him as one of the “next four,” perhaps the Swiss #1 sooner rather than later.  He won’t always beat Murray with today’s game plan, but he’ll do more damage against higher-ranked players.

In Saturday’s semifinal against Djokovic? That’ll be a big ask, even playing the way he did today.  Novak has reeled off eleven victories in a row in their head-to-head, though their last match was the marathon fourth-rounder in Australia, when Stan pushed him to 12-10 in the fifth set.  The semi won’t have the star power it would’ve with Murray, but we can expect some great tennis.

Here are my detailed serve, return, and shot-type stats for today’s match.

Stubborn Richard and Fighting Flavia

We all know how great Richard Gasquet‘s backhand is.  It’s arguably the best one-hander in the game, and the down-the-line version is right up there with with any other men’s backhandweapon, one- or two-handed.

What has struck me in his last two matches is that, unlike virtually every other top player, he never runs around it.  Even Stanislas Wawrinka, another man with a claim on the “best one-hander” title, will frequently take several steps to get in position to hit a forehand from the backhand corner.

Gasquet doesn’t do that.  In 277 points yesterday, he ran all the way around a backhand once, and there were two or three other shots when he took a couple of steps to hit a forehand when he might have taken one to hit a backhand.  In other words, he’s totally comfortable hitting his backhand from anywhere on the court, against any spin, at any height, and he trusts it as his go-to offensive shot.

In my detailed stats tables, I added a chart last night showing shot types–how many each player hit, grouped into various categories.  Against David Ferrer, Gasquet hit 296 backhands (excluding slices) to 222 forehands, a ratio of 1.33.  Ferrer hit 274 to 297, a 0.923 ratio.  Ferrer is more typical.  He can hit solid crosscourt backhands all day long–even crush a down-the-line winner on occasion, but given the opportunity, he’ll move around it and hit a more powerful inside-out forehand.

Of the last five men’s matches I’ve charted, Gasquet’s backhand preference stands out.  Marcos Baghdatis vs Kevin Anderson: 0.58 for Baghdatis, 0.36 for Anderson.  Lleyton Hewitt vs Brian Baker?  0.72 for Hewitt, 0.86 for Baker. Tomas Berdych, 0.65, against Julien Benneteau, 0.73.  Against Denis Istomin, Andy Murray‘s ratio was 0.56.  Only Istomin is anywhere near Gasquet’s category, with a ratio of 1.15, and that may be more a testament to Murray’s ability to find his opponent’s backhand than anything else.

For all the beauty of Gasquet’s backhand, much of the time it is a simple rallying shot.  Move him deep into that corner, and he generally won’t hurt you. I’m not convinced all those backhands make up a wise tactical decision–perhaps more inside-out forehands would be in order.  Certainly, he’ll need to come up with something out of the ordinary when he faces Rafael Nadal on Saturday.

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From the day the draw was announced, Flavia Pennetta‘s quarter was considered the wide-open section of the field.  Except, until yesterday, nobody thought of it as Pennetta’s quarter.  Technically it was fourth-seed Sara Errani‘s to lose, which she promptly did, to Pennetta in the second round.  It was also considered fair game for Caroline Wozniacki … who lost in the third round.  Then it was the domain of rising star Simona Halep … another Pennetta victim.

Surely Flavia’s run ends tomorrow at the hands of Victoria Azarenka.  In the meantime, let’s take a moment to celebrate a few amazing aspects of her accomplishment thus far.

Ranked 83rd–and ranked outside of the top 100 only six weeks ago–it took a late injury withdrawal to get her into the main draw.  Now, she is only the 10th woman in the Open era to reach a Grand Slam semifinal while ranked outside of the top 80.  Just one previous US Open semifinalist–Angelique Kerber two years ago–was ranked so low.

Another remarkable aspect of Pennetta’s run is that she has reached her first Slam semifinal at the age of 31.  Only three women–Gigi Fernandez, Nathalie Tauziat, and Wendy Turnbull–reached their first Slam semi after turning 30.  (Fernandez did it while ranked outside the top 80, making her the proto-Flavia.)  Turnbull is the only first-time semifinalist to have done so while older than Pennetta is now, by a couple of months.  She accomplished that feat at the 1984 US Open.  Amazingly, it wasn’t Turnbull’s only moment in the spotlight–she reached the semis of the Australian a few months later, beating a young Steffi Graf along the way.  She even reached the quarters at the following year’s US Open.

Finally, we may marvel at the fact that Pennetta, once a top-ten player, did not reach a semifinal until this, her 41st slam.  Also near the top of the all-time leaderboard, but not a record.  Francesca Schiavone had played 41 slams before reaching her first semi in the French Open a few years ago.  Tauziat makes another appearance here; she needed 44 tries before winning five straight matches.  The most dogged of all WTA players must be Elena Likhotseva, who played 56 career Slams, not making it to the semifinal in her 46th try.

Most of these precedents jibe with our intuition that, no matter how hot she is, Flavia doesn’t stand much of a chance against Vika.  But a couple of these cases–Schiavone with her two deep French open runs, and Turnbull with her pair of late-career semifinals–suggest that this could be more than a one-off for the Italian.

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Rafael Nadal has yet to lose serve at the US Open, and has a string of 82 consecutive service holds going back to Cincinnati.  I plan to have more on this before his semifinal match.

Here’s a win-probability graph for yesterday’s Gasquet-Ferrer five-setter. And if you somehow missed it the last five times I linked to it, here are my detailed stats from that match.

I’ll chart one of the two men’s quarters today, though I’m not yet sure which one.  Keep an eye on my Twitter account, as I’ll post those stats after each set.

And last for today, here’s an example of thorough data collection that tennis organizations will almost certainly fail to follow.

Gasquet d. Ferrer: Recap and Detailed Stats

The knock on Richard Gasquet has long been his inability to play the big matches, to overcome higher-ranked opponents, even when he has the weapons to defeat them.  David Ferrer is the sort of guy who eats such players for lunch.  One might figure the Frenchman would win a set, but not that he would find his way into the semifinals of a Grand Slam.

For two sets today, Gasquet played as well as I’ve ever seen him play. He combined patience with his devastating down-the-line backhand, waiting eight, ten, or more shots before the opportunities arose to unleash the monster.

What’s remarkable is that most conventional stats don’t bear this out. He barely got half of his first serves in. He hit a mere seven winners in the first set, against a dozen unforced errors. But he coaxed plenty of mistakes out of an opponent who doesn’t often make many.

Gasquet was able to race to his two-set lead in large part because Ferrer wasn’t playing his best tennis. The tactics looked familiar, but Ferru wasn’t quite as aggressive as usual, letting Gasquet earn those opportunities to strike. Ferrer hit only three winners in the entire second set.

The next two sets fulfilled everyone’s expectations. Despite his five-set triumph over Milos Raonic, Gasquet’s history suggests he would mentally fade, and perhaps physically give out long before Ferrer would. As the Spaniard piled on the breaks, those forecasts appeared to come true.

Ferrer’s success against Gasquet’s serve tells the story. While failing to win more than 30% of return points in the first two sets, suddenly he won half of Gasquet’s service points. With Gasquet playing more listlessly, settling in further back in the court, a couple of breaks were plenty.

It would have been easy for the Frenchman to go away in the fifth set; he’s done it before. Ferrer’s reputation precedes him, and certainly, he showed no signs of physically weakening as the match went into its fifth hour.

But Gasquet dug out of a 15-30 hole to win his opening service game; he fought past two deuces and a break point to win his second. With both players settling in for a grind, the turning point came on Gasquet’s only break point of the deciding set, when Ferrer double-faulted to give his opponent a 5-2 advantage.

Thanks to a couple of errors from Ferrer in the final game and a big serve on match point, the Spaniard never had another opportunity. Gasquet moves to the semifinals and a probable date with Rafael Nadal.

It was only Gasquet’s second win against Ferrer in nine meetings, and only his seventh career win in a five-setter. His only previous five-set win against a higher-ranked opponent was in his only prior Grand Slam quarterfinal, in 2007 at Wimbledon against Andy Roddick.

And now, after winning his second Grand Slam fourth-round match in 17 tries, he moves to a perfect 2-0 in quarterfinals.

Here are my complete serve, return, and rally length stats for the match.

Number One Bagels and Clutch Break Points

The big story from yesterday’s action at the US Open was the dominance of the world #1s.  Both Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams dished out two 6-0 sets, making one wonder if we’d been transported back in time to the first Tuesday, when top players are more likely to face opponents who don’t challenge them.

Djokovic’s drubbing of Marcel Granollers was only the 146th men’s Grand Slam match of the Open era in which one player won two bagel sets.  That’s a little less than once per Slam for that time period.

Only 15 of those double-bagels have come in the fourth round or later, and such final-16 drubbings have gotten more rare over time–only 5 of the 15 have taken place since 1983.  The most recent was Rafael Nadal‘s defeat of Juan Monaco at last year’s French Open, 6-2 6-0 6-0.  Roger Federer shows up on the list as well, twice: His quarterfinal win over Juan Martin del Potro at the 2009 Australian, 6-3 6-0 6-0, and the final in his 2004 US Open title over Lleyton Hewitt, 6-0 7-6 6-0.

Double bagels are a bit more common in the women’s game, though not as frequent for Serena at Slams as you might expect.  While there have been over 180 in the Open era, yesterday’s defeat of Carla Suarez Navarro was only her fourth.  Several of the game’s greats tallied more than that, notably Chris Evert with 13, Margaret Court with 8, and Steffi Graf with 7.

Where Serena stacks up more impressively is in her record of 6-0 sets this year.  She has now served a bagel in ten different Grand Slam matches in 2013, including two double bagels.  Only Court in 1969 and Graf in 1988 won a 6-0 set in more Slam matches in a single year, and only Graf won more 6-0 sets at Slams in a single year.

Of course, Serena isn’t done yet.  However, in nine career matches against her semifinal opponent, Na Li, she has only won a single set 6-0.  She might not want to do it again: After serving a bagel set to open their 2008 in Stuttgart, Serena lost the next two sets for her only career loss against Li.

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As we all mulled over Roger Federer’s future yesterday, Carl Bialik outlined a useful way of thinking about break point conversions.  As I noted yesterday, while Federer has played horribly on such key points in his last several slam losses, it’s not clear how much we should read into those numbers.  Yes, he probably would’ve won the match had he converted more break points, but does a dreadful 2-for-16 showing (or several) mean he is a fundamentally different player than he used to be?

Carl’s algorithm involves comparing performance on break points to performance on all other points.  If tennis players were robots, we would expect them to perform exactly as well at 30-40 as they do at 30-0.  The only slight difference is that most break points take place in the ad court, and lefties have an advantage there.  For now, let’s ignore that.

Thus, a player who wins 44% of break point opportunities against only 40% of other return points is playing 10% better in those pressure situations.  We might even say he is performing well in the clutch.

I ran these numbers for every member of the top 50 in 2013.  As is so often the case, the results don’t offer a lot of confidence in the connection between break point results and clutch skills.

The four players who have performed the best this year on break points, relative to other points in the same matches, are Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (+14%), Martin Klizan (+12%), Nicolas Almagro (+10%), and Ernests Gulbis (+10%).  Of the big four (or five, or seven), tops is Rafael Nadal, at +5%.

At the other end of the spectrum are Tommy Robredo (-5%), Sam Querrey (-6%), Kei Nishikori (-6%), Michael Llodra (-7%), and David Ferrer (-7%).

(These numbers don’t include the US Open.  If they did, presumably Robredo would move up a few spots.)

Federer ranks 38th among the top 50, winning 2.6% fewer break points than non-break points.  That’s certainly nothing to be proud of, but it’s only two spots behind Novak Djokovic, at -1.7%.

Another approach that matches our intuition a little better is to look only at break point opportunities–that is, clutch return points.  Here, Federer is -7.8%, worse than 40 members of the top 50.  Djokovic and Andy Murray are still in the bottom half, but a full 10 spots ahead of Roger, at -3.2% and -3.7%, respectively.  Nadal is +2.1%.

If nothing else, these numbers show us how thin the margins are in top-level men’s tennis.  A few percentage points differentiate the very best from a fading player having a disappointing season.

The presence of Djokovic so far down these lists serves as another reminder.  Converting break points is a numbers game.  Look through Novak’s season and you’ll find a couple 3-for-11s, a 2-for-12, and a 4-for-18 (against Bobby Reynolds!).  You only need to convert a few to win a match, and the best way to convert a few is to earn as many as possible.

In other words, break point conversion rates represent only a small part of a player’s performance on any given day.  Earning those break opportunities can be every bit as important, and that’s one category in which Federer remains strong.

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If you missed it last night, check out my recap and detailed stats for Murray vs. Istomin.

Here’s another interesting graph from Betting Market Analytics, showing win probability throughout yesterday’s Ivanovic-Azarenka match.  Because Vika was so heavily favored yesterday, she retained a better than 50/50 chance of winning the match even after Ana took the first set.