Month: September 2015

The Odds of Successfully Serving Out the Set

Italian translation at settesei.it

Serving for the set is hard … or so they say. Like other familiar tennis conceits, this one is ripe for confirmation bias. Every time we see a player struggle to serve out a set, we’re tempted to comment on the particular challenge he faces. If he doesn’t struggle, we ignore it or, even worse, remark on how he achieved such an unusual feat.

My findings–based on point-by-point data from tens of thousands of matches from the last few seasons–follow a familiar refrain: If there’s an effect, it’s very minor. For many players, and for some substantial subsets of matches, breaks of serve appear to be less likely at these purportedly high-pressure service games of 5-4, 5-3 and the like.

In ATP tour-level matches, holds are almost exactly as common when serving for the set as at other stages of the match. For each match in the dataset, I found each player’s hold percentage for the match. If serving for the set were more difficult than serving in other situations, we would find that those “average” hold percentages would be higher than players’ success rates when serving for the set.

That isn’t the case. Considering over 20,000 “serving-for-the-set” games, players held serve only 0.7% less often than expected–a difference that shows up only once every 143 attempts. The result is the same when we limit the sample to “close” situations, where the server has a one-break advantage.

Only a few players have demonstrated any notable success or lack thereof. Andy Murray holds about 6% more often when serving for the set than his average rate, making him one of only four players (in my pool of 99 players with 1,000 or more service games) to outperform his own average by more than 5%.

On the WTA tour, serving for the set appears to be a bit more difficult. On average, players successfully serve out a set 3.4% less often than their average success rate, a difference that would show up about once every 30 attempts. Seven of the 85 players with 1,000 service games in the dataset were at least 10% less successful in serving-for-the-set situations than their own standard.

Maria Sharapova stands out at the other end of the spectrum, holding serve 3% more often than her average when serving for the set, and 7% more frequently than average when serving for the set with a single-break advantage. She’s one of 30 players for whom I was able to analyze at least 100 single-break opportunities, and the only one of them to exceed expectations by more than 5%.

Given the size of the sample–nearly 20,000 serving-for-the-set attempts, with almost 12,000 of them single-break opportunities–it seems likely that this is a real effect, however small. Strangely, though, the overall finding is different at the lower levels of the women’s game.

For women’s ITF main draw matches, I was able to look at another 30,000 serving-for-the-set attempts, and in these, players were 2.4% more successful than their own average in the match. In close sets, where the server held a one-break edge, the server’s advantage was even greater: 3.5% better than in other games.

If anything, I would have expected players at lower levels to exhibit greater effects in line with the conventional wisdom. If it’s difficult to serve in high-pressure situations, it would make sense if lower-ranked players (who, presumably, have less experience with and/or are less adept in these situations) were not as effective. Yet the opposite appears to be true.

Lower-level averages from the men’s tour don’t shed much light, either. In main draw matches at Challengers, players hold 1.4% less often when serving for the set, and 1.8% less often with a single-break advantage. In futures main draws, they are exactly as successful when serving for the set as they are the rest of the time, regardless of their lead. In all of the samples, there are only a handful of players whose record is 10% better or worse when serving for the set, and a small percentage who over- or underperform by even 5%.

The more specific situations I analyze, the more the evidence piles up that games and points are, for the most part, independent–that is, players are roughly as effective at one score as they are at any other, and it doesn’t matter a great deal what sequence of points or games got them there. There are still plenty of situations that haven’t yet been analyzed, but if the ones that we talk about the most don’t exhibit the strong effects that we think they do, that casts quite a bit of doubt on the likelihood that we’ll find notable effects elsewhere.

If there is any truth to claims like those about the difficulty of serving for the set, perhaps it is the case that the pressure affects both players equally. After all, if a server needs to hold at 5-4, it is equally important for the returner to seize the final break opportunity. Maybe the level of both players drops, something we might be able to determine by analyzing how these points are played.

For now, though, we can conclude that players–regardless of gender or level–serve out the set about as often as they successfully hold at 1-2, or 3-3, or any other particular score.

The Pervasive Role of Luck in Tennis

Italian translation at settesei.it

No matter what the scale, from a single point to a season-long ranking–even to a career–luck plays a huge role in tennis. Sometimes good luck and bad luck cancel each other out, as is the case when two players benefit from net cord winners in the same match. But sometimes luck spawns more of the same, giving fortunate players opportunities that, in turn, make them more fortunate still.

Usually, we refer to luck only in passing, as one possible explanation for an isolated phenomenon. It’s important that we examine them in conjunction with each other to get a better sense of just how much of a factor luck can be.

Single points

Usually, we’re comfortable saying that the results of individual points are based on skill. Occasionally, though, something happens to give the point to an undeserving player. The most obvious examples are points heavily influenced by a net cord or a bad bounce off an uneven surface, but there are others.

Officiating gets in the way, too. A bad call that the chair umpire doesn’t overturn can hand a point to the wrong player. Even if the chair umpire (or Hawkeye) does overrule a bad call, it can result in the point being replayed–even if one player was completely in control of the point.

We can go a bit further into the territory of “lucky shots,” including successful mishits, or even highlight-reel tweeners that a player could never replicate. While the line between truly lucky shots and successful low-percentage shots is an ambiguous one, we should remember that in the most extreme cases, skill isn’t the only thing determining the outcome of the point.

Lucky matches

More than 5% of matches on the ATP tour this year have been won by a player who failed to win more than half of points played. Another 25% were won by a player who failed to win more than 53% of points–a range that doesn’t guarantee victory.

Depending on what you think about clutch and momentum in tennis, you might not view some–or even any–of those outcomes as lucky. If a player converts all five of his break point opportunities and wins a match despite only winning 49% of total points, perhaps he deserved it more. The same goes for strong performance in a tiebreaks, another cluster of high-leverage points that can swing a match away from the player who won more points.

But when the margins are so small that executing at just one or two key moments can flip the result–especially when we know that points are themselves influenced by luck–we have to view at least some of these tight matches as having lucky outcomes. We don’t have to decide which is which, we simply need to acknowledge that some matches aren’t won by the better player, even if we use the very loose definition of “better player that day.”

Longer-term luck

Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of luck in tennis is in the draw each week. An unseeded player might start his tournament with an unwinnable match against a top seed or with a cakewalk against a low-ranked wild card. Even seeded players can be affected by fortune, depending on which unseeded players they draw, along with which fellow seeds they will face at which points in the match.

Another form of long-term luck–which is itself affected by draw luck–is what we might call “clustering.” A player who goes 20-20 on a season by winning all of his first-round matches and losing all of his second-round matches will not fare nearly as well in terms of rankings or prize money as someone who goes 20-20 by winning only 10 first-round matches, but reaching the third round every time he does.

Again, this may not be entirely luck–this sort of player would quickly be labeled “streaky,” but combined with draw luck, he might simply be facing players he can beat in clusters, instead of getting easy first-rounders and difficult second-rounders.

The Matthew effect

All of these forms of tennis-playing fortune are in some way related. The sociologist Robert Merton coined the term “Matthew effect“–alternatively known as the principle of cumulative advantage–to refer to situations where one entity with a very small advantage will, by the very nature of a system, end up with a much larger advantage.

The Matthew effect applies to a wide range of phenomena, and I think it’s instructive here. Consider the case of two players separated by only a few points in the rankings–a margin that could have come about by pure luck: for instance, when one player won a match by walkover. One of these players gets the 32nd seed at the Australian Open and the other is unseeded.

These two players–who are virtually indistinguishable, remember–face very different challenges. One is guaranteed two matches against unseeded opponents, while the other will almost definitely face a seed before the third round, perhaps even a high seed in the first. The unseeded player might get lucky, either in his draw or in his matches, cancelling out the effect of the seeding, but it’s more likely that the seeded player will walk away from the tournament with more points, solidifying the higher ranking–that he didn’t earn in the first place.

Making and breaking careers

The Matthew effect can have an impact on an even broader scale. Today’s tennis pros have been training and competing from a young age, and most of them have gotten quite a bit of help along the way, whether it’s the right coach, support from a national federation, or well-timed wild cards.

It’s tough to quantify things like the effect of a good or bad coach at age 15, but wild cards are a more easily understood example of the phenomenon. The unlucky unseeded player I discussed above at least got to enter the tournament. But when a Grand Slam-hosting federation decides which promising prospect gets a wild card, it’s all or nothing: One player gets a huge opportunity (cash and ranking points, even if they lose in the first round!) while the other one gets nothing.

This, in a nutshell, is why people like me spend so much time on our hobby horses ranting about wild cards. It isn’t the single tournament entry that’s the problem, it’s the cascading opportunities it can generate. Sure, sometimes it turns into nothing–Ryan Harrison’s career is starting to look that way–but even in those cases, we never hear about the players who didn’t get the wild cards, the ones who never had the chance to gain from the cumulative advantage of a small leg up.

Why all this luck matters

If you’re an avid tennis fan, most of this isn’t news to you. Sure, players face good and bad breaks, they get good and bad draws, and they’ve faced uneven challenges along the way.

By discussing all of these types of fortune in one place, I hope to emphasize just how much luck plays a part in our estimate of each player at any given time. It’s no accident that mid-range players bounce around the rankings so much. Some of them are truly streaky, and injuries play a part, but much of the variance can be explained by these varying forms of luck. The #30 player in the rankings is probably better than the #50 player, but it’s no guarantee. It doesn’t take much misfortune–especially when bad luck starts to breed more opportunities for bad luck–to tumble down the list.

Even if many of the forms of luck I’ve discussed are truly skill-based and, say, break point conversions are a matter of someone playing better that day, the evidence generally shows that major rises and falls in things like tiebreak winning percentage and break point conversion rates are temporary–they don’t persist from year to year. That may not be properly classed as luck, but if we’re projecting the rankings a year from now, it might as well be.

While match results, tournament outcomes, and the weekly rankings are written in stone, the way that players get there is not nearly so clear. We’d do well to accept that uncertainty.

How Important is the Seventh Game of the Set?

Italian translation at settesei.it

Few nuggets of tennis’s conventional wisdom are more standard than the notion that the seventh game of each set is particularly crucial. While it’s often difficult to pin down such a well-worn conceit, it seems to combine two separate beliefs:

  1. If a set has reached 3-3, the pressure is starting to mount, and the server is less likely to hold serve.
  2. The seventh game is somehow more important than its immediate effect on the score, perhaps because the winner gains momentum by taking such a pivotal game.

Let’s test both.

Holding at 3-3

Drawing on my database of over 11,000 ATP tour-level matches from the last few years, I found 11,421 sets that reached three-all. For each, I calculated the theoretical likelihood that the server would hold (based on his rate of service points won throughout the match) and his percentage of service games won in the match. If the conventional wisdom is true, the percentage of games won by the server at 3-3 should be noticeably lower.

It isn’t. Using the theoretical model, these servers should have held 80.5% of the time. Based on their success holding serve throughout these matches, they should have held 80.2% of the time. At three-all, they held serve 79.5% of the time. That’s lower, but not enough lower that a human would ever notice. The difference between 80.2% and 79.5% is roughly one extra break at 3-3 per Grand Slam. Not Grand Slam match–an entire tournament.

None of that 0.7% discrepancy can be explained by the effect of old balls [1]. Because new balls are introduced after the first seven games of each match, the server at three-all in the first set is always using old balls, which should, according to another bit of conventional wisdom, work against him. However, the difference between actual holds and predicted holds at 3-3 is slightly greater after the first set: 78.9% instead of the predicted 79.8%. Still, this difference is not enough to merit the weight we give to the seventh game.

The simple part of our work is done: Servers hold at three-all almost as often as they do at any other stage of a match.

Momentum from the seventh game

At 3-3, a set is close, and every game matters. This is especially true in men’s tennis, where breaks are hard to come by. Against many players, getting broken so late in the set is almost the same as losing the set.

However, the focus on the seventh game is a bit odd. It’s important, but not as important as serving at 3-4, or 4-4, or 4-5, or … you get the idea. The closer a game to the end of the set, the more important it is–theoretically, anyway. If 3-3 is really worth the hoopla, it must grant the winner some additional momentum.

To measure the effect of the seventh game, I took another look at that pool of 11,000-plus sets that reached three-all. For each set, I calculated the two probabilities–based on each player’s service points won throughout the match–that the server would win the set:

  1. the 3-3 server’s chance of winning the set before the 3-3 game
  2. his chance of winning the set after winning or losing the 3-3 game

In this sample of matches, the average server at three-all had a 48.1% chance of winning the set before the seventh game. The servers went on to win 49.4% of the sets [2].

In over 9,000 of our 3-3 sets, the server held at 3-3. These players had, on average, a 51.3% chance of winning the set before serving at 3-3, which rose to an average of a 57.3% chance after holding. In fact, they won the set 58.6% of the time.

In the other 2,300 of our sets, the server failed to hold. Before serving at three-all, these players had a 35.9% chance of winning the set, which fell to 12.6% after losing serve. These players went on to win the set 13.7% of the time. In all of these cases, the model slightly underestimates the likelihood that the server at 3-3 goes on to win the set.

There’s no evidence here for momentum. Players who hold serve at three-all are slightly more likely to win the set than the model predicts, but the difference is no greater than that between the model and reality before the 3-3 game. In any event, the difference is small, affecting barely one set in one hundred.

When a server is broken at three-all, the evidence directly contradicts the momentum hypothesis. Yes, the server is much less likely to win the set–but that’s because he just got broken! The same would be true if we studied servers at 3-4, 4-4, 4-5, or 5-5. Once we factor in the mathematical implications of getting broken in the seventh game, servers are slightly more likely to win the set than the model suggests. Certainly the break does not swing any momentum in the direction of the successful returner.

There you have it. Players hold serve about as often as usual at three-all (whether they’re serving with new balls or not), and winning or losing the seventh game doesn’t have any discernible momentum effect on the rest of the set [3]. Be sure to tell your friendly neighborhood tennis pundits.

Continue reading How Important is the Seventh Game of the Set?

The Match Charting Project: Quick Start Guide

Italian translation at settesei.it

You’ve heard about the Match Charting Project, you’ve seen the amazingly detailed stats it generates, and you’ve decided it’s time to contribute. Here’s the simplest way to get started.

1. Choose a match. Check the list of charted matches–by date, or by player. If you’ve selected a match more than a couple of weeks old, you can be almost certain that no one else is working on it. But if you’d like to do a current match, or you just want to make sure, email me to check before you begin. Once you’ve completed your first match, I’ll invite you to a Google doc where charters “claim” matches to avoid duplication.

Try to choose a relatively short match, and unless you really like Rafa, I’d suggest you avoid lefties for your first couple of attempts. It makes things a lot easier.

You can find full matches in many ways. There are plenty (though few very recent ones) on YouTube, many more on Asian video sites such as Soku and Mgoon, and lots more if you have access to something like ESPN 3, TennisTV, WTA TV, or Tennis Channel Plus. There are also hundreds of archived ATP Challenger matches. We also maintain a list of video sources in the aforementioned Google doc.

TennisTV and TC Plus are great because their players have buttons to skip forward or backward 10 seconds. Another alternative is to download videos to your local machine and then use a media player like SMPlayer or VLC, which allow you to move forward and backward through the match with quick keyboard shortcuts. Of course, DVRs work great for this, too.

2. Download the Match Charting Project spreadsheet and read through the “Instructions” tab. Charting a match involves a lot of details, but try not to get too bogged down. The most important things for beginners are:

  • serve direction (4 = wide, 5 = body, 6 = down the t)
  • the most common shot codes (f = forehand, b = backhand, s = backhand slice, r = forehand slice)
  • codes to indicate how the point ended (@ = unforced error, # = forced error, and * = winner)
  • codes to indicate the type of error (n = net, w = wide, d = deep, x = wide and deep).

The instructions cover several optional parts of the charting process, like shot direction and return depth. Including those makes things a lot more difficult, so for your first match, ignore them!

3. Start climbing the learning curve. I won’t deny it: It can be a bit frustrating to get started. The codes are a lot to remember, but trust me, it gets easier, especially if you stick to the basics. Many points look something like this:

4ffbbf*

That means: serve out wide, forehand return, forehand, backhand, backhand, forehand winner. That’s all!

It gets more complex when players approach the net or use less common tactics like dropshots. For your first match or two, you’ll probably consult the instructions frequently. Here’s another sample point:

6svlon@

Translated: Serve down the t (6), slice return (s), forehand volley (v), lob (l), overhead/smash (o) into the net (n) for an unforced error (@).

4. Be patient! After a few dozen points, you’ll start to get the hang of it. There will be plenty of rewinding, re-watching, and checking the instructions, but it will get considerably faster.

That’s it!

Once you’ve finished charting every point of the match, send me the spreadsheet and I’ll add it to the database.

After a match or two…

Of course, more data is more valuable, so once you’ve gotten the hang of the basics, it’s time to track more details of the match. But again–don’t rush into this! Adding these additional levels of complexity before you’re comfortable with the above will be very frustrating.

5. Shot direction. For every shot after the serve, use the number 1, 2, or 3 to indicate direction. 1 = to a right-hander’s forehand (or a lefty’s backhand), 2 = down the middle, or 3 = to a right-hander’s backhand. For example:

5f2f3b3b1w#

Translated: Serve to the body (5), forehand return down the middle (f2), forehand to (a righty’s) backhand side (f3), backhand crosscourt (b3), backhand down the line (b1) that missed wide (w) for a forced error (#).

When you’re comfortable with that:

6. Return depth. For service returns only, use an additional numeral for depth. 9 = very deep (the backmost quarter of the court), 8 = moderately deep (the next quarter, still behind the service line), and 7 = shallow (in the service boxes). For instance:

6s17f1*

Meaning: Serve down the T (6), shallow slice return to (a righty’s) forehand side (s17), cross-court forehand winner (f1*).

Again, I have to ask you be patient with return depth: It’s the hardest step to add. In a very short period of time, you need to note the serve direction, return shot type, return direction, and return depth. It takes a bit of practice, but I’m convinced that recording return depth is worth it.

Finally, when you’re comfortable with all that, there’s one more thing to add:

7. Court position. A few symbols are used to record where players were when they hit certain shots. Most of the time they aren’t needed — a volley is almost always hit at net, while a backhand is almost always hit from the baseline. Use these codes for exceptions only:

  • The plus sign (+) is used for approach shots, including serves when a player serve-and-volleys.
  • The dash (-) indicates that a shot is hit at the net. Again, you don’t need to use it for “obvious” net shots like volleys, half-volleys, and smashes. It’s also unnecessary for the shot after a dropshot.
  • The (=) indicates that the shot was hit at the baseline. This is the least common, and usually is used for smashes hit from the baseline.

A couple more examples:

4+s28v1f-3*

Translated: Server came in behind a serve out wide (4+), moderately deep slice return down the middle (s28), volley to (a righty’s) forehand side (v1), forehand winner hit from near the net (f-3*).

One more, which is just about as messy as it gets:

5r37b+3m2l1o=1r#

Meaning: Body serve (5), shallow forehand slice/chip return to (a righty’s) backhand side (r37), backhand crosscourt approach shot (b+3), backhand lob down the middle (m2), forehand lob to (a righty’s) forehand side (l1), crosscourt overhead/smash from the baseline (o=1), forehand slice/chip forced error (r#).

Happy charting! If you have any questions, please email me.

Should Andy Murray Skip the Tour Finals to Prepare for Davis Cup?

After advancing to the Davis Cup final, Andy Murray floated the idea that he might skip the World Tour Finals to prepare. The Belgian hosts are likely to choose clay for November’s Davis Cup tie (in part to make Murray less comfortable), and if Murray reached the final round in London the week before, he would have only four days off to recover and adjust to the different surface.

A lot of factors will go into Murray’s ultimate decision: how much importance he gives each event, how much he thinks fatigue will affect him, and how likely it is that the ATP would sanction him for skipping a required event. For today, I’ll have to ignore all of those and focus on the one most amenable to analysis: The effect of switching surfaces right before a Davis Cup tie.

Shifting from one surface to another immediately before Davis Cup is common. From 2009 to the present, there have been just over 2,000 World Group, Group 1, and Group 2 Davis Cup singles rubbers, and almost 450 of those involved at least one player who had played the previous week [1] on a different surface. It’s very rare that both players switched surfaces, so we have a sample of 432 matches in which one player changed surfaces from the previous week, and the other player either played or (presumably) prepared on the same surface.

At the simplest level of analysis, the switchers have been surprisingly effective. In those 432 matches between switchers and non-switchers, the switchers won 275, or 63.6% of the time. When we narrow the sample to the 130 times the switcher reached at least the round of 16 the week before Davis Cup (and, thus, had even less time to adjust), the results are surprisingly similar: 82 wins, or 63.1% in favor of the switchers.

Of course, there are all sorts of biases that could be working in favor of the switchers. The better the player, the less likely he can change his schedule to better prepare for Davis Cup, leaving him stuck on the “wrong” surface the week before a tie. And the better the player, the more likely he was a switcher in the smaller sample, one of those who reached the round of 16 the week before.

To evaluate the effect of switching, then, we must proceed with more subtlety. If switchers are more likely to be the favorites, we need to consider each player’s skill level and estimate how often switchers should have won. To do that, we can use JRank, my player rating system with surface-specific estimates for each competitor.

Immediately, we lose about 15% of our sample due to matches involving at least one player who didn’t have a rating at the time [2]. These are almost all Group 2 matches, so its doubtful that we lose very much. In the slightly smaller pool of 361 matches, the switcher won 62.0%, and when the switcher reached the round of 16 the previous week, he won 60.0%.

JRank confirms that the sample is strongly biased toward switchers. The player changing surfaces was favored in 69.8% of these contests. To take an extreme example, Murray went from hard courts at the 2013 US Open to clay courts in the World Group playoff against Croatia. Against Borna Coric, who hadn’t played the week before, Murray was a 99.1% favorite, and of course he won the match.

Once we calculate the probability that the switcher won each of the 361 matches, it turns out that the switchers “should have” won 227, or 62.8% of the time. That’s almost indistinguishable from the historical record, when the switchers won 224 matches. In the smaller sample of 120 matches when the switcher reached the round of 16 the previous week, switchers “should have” won 72 matches. As it happened, they won exactly 72.

In other words, it doesn’t appear to be a disadvantage to play Davis Cup matches on an unfamiliar surface. JRank-based predictions are primarily based on “regular” matches, so if switchers are performing at the level that JRank forecasts for them, they’re playing as well as they would at, say, the third round of a Slam, when the surface is familiar.

This isn’t a clear answer to Murray’s dilemma, of course. If he plays, say, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in back-to-back three-setters on Saturday and Sunday, then travels to a different venue, handles tons of press, and practices with a different set of coaches and fellow players before a big match the following Friday, he faces more of a challenge than your typical surface-switcher in our dataset.

However, there’s little evidence that surface-switching alone is a good reason to skip the Tour Finals. If history is any guide, Murray will play very well on the Belgian clay–just as well as he would at the same venue in the middle of the clay season.

Continue reading Should Andy Murray Skip the Tour Finals to Prepare for Davis Cup?

Unlikely Davis Cup Finalists and an Early Forecast for Ghent

Among nations that have reached Davis Cup finals, neither Great Britain or Belgium quite fits the mold.

The fortunes of the UK team depend almost entirely on Andy Murray. If you have to choose one player, you couldn’t do much better, but it’s hardly a strategy with lots of room for error. While the Belgian team is a bit more balanced, it doesn’t boast the sort of superstar singles player that most successful nations can send into battle.

Thanks to injury and apathy, the Brits and the Belgians haven’t defeated the level of competition usually required of Davis Cup finalists. Belgium hasn’t had to face any singles player better than Leonardo Mayer, and the only top-ten singles player to show up against Britain was Gilles Simon.

Measured by season-best singles rankings, these are two of the weakest Davis Cup finalists in the modern era [1]. The last time a finalist didn’t have two top-50 singles players was 1987, when the Indian team snuck past the Australians in the semifinals, only to be trounced by a powerhouse Swedish side in the final. This year, neither side has two top-50 players [2].

It’s even worse for the Belgians: David Goffin, their best singles player, has never topped 14th in the rankings. Only three times since 2000 has a nation reached the final without a top-ten player, and to find a side that won the Davis Cup without a top-tenner, we must go back to 1996, when the French team, headed by Arnaud Boetsch and Cedric Pioline, claimed the Cup.

Even when a nation reaches the final without a top-ten singles player, they typically have another singles player in the same range. Yet Belgium’s Steve Darcis has only now crept back into the top 60.

Despite a widespread belief that you can throw logic out the window in the riot that is Davis Cup, the better players still tend to win. Here are Elo-rating-based predictions for the four probable rubbers on clay:

  • Murray d. Darcis (94.3%)
  • Goffin d. GBR-2 (90.1%)
  • Murray d. Goffin (86.7%)
  • Darcis d. GBR-2 (78.1%)

Predicting the outcome of any doubles matches–let alone best-of-five-setters with players yet to be determined, probably including one very good but low-ranked player in Andy Murray–is beyond me. But based on the Murray brothers’ performance against Australia and the Belgians’ lack of a true doubles specialist, the edge has to go to Britain–let’s say 65%.

If we accept these individual probabilities, Great Britain has a 65.2% chance of winning the Davis Cup. That doesn’t take into account home court advantage, which will probably be a factor and favor the Belgians [3].

It’s a huge opportunity for the Brits, but it’s still quite a chance for Belgium, which hasn’t been this close to the Davis Cup for a century.  After all, the Cup is inscribed with country names, not judgments about that nation’s easy path to the final.

Continue reading Unlikely Davis Cup Finalists and an Early Forecast for Ghent

The Case for Novak Djokovic … and Roger Federer … and Rafael Nadal

Italian translation at settesei.it

By winning the US Open last weekend and increasing his career total to ten Grand Slams, Novak Djokovic has pushed himself even further into conversations about the greatest of all time. At the very least, his 2015 season is shaping up to be one of the best in tennis history.

A recent FiveThirtyEight article introduced Elo ratings into the debate, showing that Djokovic’s career peak–achieved earlier this year at the French Open–is the highest of anyone’s, just above 2007 Roger Federer and 1980 Bjorn Borg. In implementing my own Elo ratings, I’ve discovered just how close those peaks are.

Here are my results for the top 15 peaks of all time [1]:

Player                 Year   Elo  
Novak Djokovic         2015  2525  
Roger Federer          2007  2524  
Bjorn Borg             1980  2519  
John McEnroe           1985  2496  
Rafael Nadal           2013  2489  
Ivan Lendl             1986  2458  
Andy Murray            2009  2388  
Jimmy Connors          1979  2384  
Boris Becker           1990  2383  
Pete Sampras           1994  2376  
Andre Agassi           1995  2355  
Mats Wilander          1984  2355  
Juan Martin del Potro  2009  2352  
Stefan Edberg          1988  2346  
Guillermo Vilas        1978  2325

A one-point gap is effectively nothing: It means that peak Djokovic would have a 50.1% chance of beating peak Federer. The 35-point gap separating Novak from peak Rafael Nadal is considerably more meaningful, implying that the better player has a 55% chance of winning.

Surface-specific Elo

If we limit our scope to hard-court matches, Djokovic is still a very strong contender, but Fed’s 2007 peak is clearly the best of all time:

Player          Year  Hard Ct Elo  
Roger Federer   2007         2453  
Novak Djokovic  2014         2418  
Ivan Lendl      1989         2370  
Pete Sampras    1997         2356  
Rafael Nadal    2014         2342  
John McEnroe    1986         2332  
Andy Murray     2009         2330  
Andre Agassi    1995         2326  
Stefan Edberg   1987         2285  
Lleyton Hewitt  2002         2262

Ivan Lendl and Pete Sampras make much better showings on this list than on the overall ranking. Still, they are far behind Fed and Novak–the roughly 100-point difference between peak Fed and peak Pete is equivalent to a 64% probability that the higher-rated player would win.

On clay, I’ll give you three guesses who tops the list–and your first two guesses don’t count. It isn’t even close:

Player           Year  Clay Ct Elo  
Rafael Nadal     2009         2550  
Bjorn Borg       1982         2475  
Novak Djokovic   2015         2421  
Ivan Lendl       1988         2408  
Mats Wilander    1984         2386  
Roger Federer    2009         2343  
Jose Luis Clerc  1981         2318  
Guillermo Vilas  1982         2316  
Thomas Muster    1996         2313  
Jimmy Connors    1980         2307

Borg was great, but Nadal is in another league entirely. Though Djokovic has pushed Nadal out of many greatest-of-all-time debates–at least for the time being–there’s little doubt that Rafa is the greatest clay court player of all time, and likely the most dominant player in tennis history on any single surface.

Djokovic is well back of both Nadal and Borg, but in his favor, he’s the only player ranked in the top three for both major surfaces.

The survivor

As the second graph in the 538 article shows, Federer stands out as the greatest player of all time at his age. Most players have retired long before their 34th birthday, and even those who stick around aren’t usually contesting Grand Slam finals. In fact, Federer’s Elo rating of 2393 after his US Open semifinal win against Stanislas Wawrinka last week would rank as the sixth-highest peak of all time, behind Lendl and just ahead of Andy Murray.

Here are the top ten Elo peaks for players over 34:

Player         Age   34+ Elo  
Roger Federer  34.1     2393  
Jimmy Connors  34.1     2234  
Andre Agassi   35.3     2207  
Rod Laver      36.6     2207  
Ken Rosewall   37.4     2195  
Tommy Haas     35.3     2111  
Arthur Ashe    35.7     2107  
Ivan Lendl     34.1     2054  
Andres Gimeno  35.0     2035  
Mark Cox       34.0     2014

The 160-point gap between Federer and Jimmy Connors implies that 34-year-old Fed would win about 70% of the time against 34-year-old Connors. No one has ever sustained this level of play–or anything close to it–for this long.

At the risk of belaboring the point, similar arguments can be made for 33-year-old Fed, all the way to 30-year-old Fed. At almost any stage in the last four years, Federer has been better than any player in history at that age [2].  Djokovic has matched many of Roger’s career accomplishments so far, especially on clay, but it would be truly remarkable if he maintained a similar level of play through the end of the decade.

Current Elo ratings

While it’s not really germane to today’s subject, I’ve got the numbers, so let’s take a look at the current ATP Elo ratings. Since Elo is new to most tennis fans, I’ve included columns to indicate each player’s chances of beating Djokovic and of beating the current #10, Milos Raonic, based on their rating. As a general rule, a 100-point gap translates to a 64% chance of winning for the favorite, a 200-point gap implies 76%, and a 500-point gap is equivalent to 95%.

Rank  Player                  Elo  Vs #1  Vs #10  
1     Novak Djokovic         2511      -     91%  
2     Roger Federer          2386    33%     84%  
3     Andy Murray            2332    26%     79%  
4     Kei Nishikori          2256    19%     71%  
5     Rafael Nadal           2256    19%     71%  
6     Stan Wawrinka          2186    13%     62%  
7     David Ferrer           2159    12%     58%  
8     Tomas Berdych          2148    11%     56%  
9     Richard Gasquet        2128    10%     54%  
10    Milos Raonic           2103     9%       -  
                                                  
Rank  Player                  Elo  Vs #1  Vs #10  
11    Gael Monfils           2084     8%     47%  
12    Jo-Wilfried Tsonga     2083     8%     47%  
13    Marin Cilic            2081     8%     47%  
14    Kevin Anderson         2074     7%     46%  
15    John Isner             2035     6%     40%  
16    David Goffin           2027     6%     39%  
17    Grigor Dimitrov        2021     6%     38%  
18    Gilles Simon           2005     5%     36%  
19    Jack Sock              1994     5%     35%  
20    Roberto Bautista Agut  1986     5%     34%  
                                                  
Rank  Player                  Elo  Vs #1  Vs #10  
21    Philipp Kohlschreiber  1982     5%     33%  
22    Tommy Robredo          1963     4%     31%  
23    Feliciano Lopez        1955     4%     30%  
24    Nick Kyrgios           1951     4%     29%  
25    Ivo Karlovic           1949     4%     29%  
26    Jeremy Chardy          1940     4%     28%  
27    Alexandr Dolgopolov    1940     4%     28%  
28    Bernard Tomic          1936     4%     28%  
29    Fernando Verdasco      1932     3%     27%  
30    Fabio Fognini          1925     3%     26%

Continue reading The Case for Novak Djokovic … and Roger Federer … and Rafael Nadal

The Pivotal Point of 15-30

According to nearly every tennis commentator I’ve ever heard, 15-30 is a crucial point, especially in men’s tennis, where breaks of serve are particularly rare. One reasonable explanation I’ve heard is that, from 15-30, if the server loses either of the next two points, he’ll face break point.

Another way of looking at it is with a theoretical model. A player who wins 65% of service points (roughly average on the ATP tour) has a 62% chance of winning the game from 15-30. If he wins the next point, the probability rises to 78% at 30-all, but if he loses the next point, he will only have a 33% chance of saving the game from 15-40.

Either way, 15-30 points have a lot riding on them. In line with my analysis of the first point of each game earlier this week, let’s take a closer look at 15-30 points–the odds of getting there, the outcome of the next point, and the chances of digging out a hold, along with a look at which players are particularly good or bad in these situations.

Reaching 15-30

In general, 15-30 points come up about once every four games, and no more or less often than we’d expect. In other words, games aren’t particularly likely or unlikely to reach that score.

On the other hand, some particular players are quite a bit more or less likely.  Oddly enough, big servers show up at both extremes. John Isner is the player who–relative to expectations–ends up serving at 15-30 the most often: 13% more than he should. Given the very high rate at which he wins service points, he should get to 15-30 in only 17% of service games, but he actually reaches 15-30 in 19% of service games.

The list of players who serve at 15-30 more often than they should is a very mixed crew. I’ve extended this list to the top 13 in order to include another player in Isner’s category:

Player                 Games  ExpW  ActW  Ratio  
John Isner             3166    537   608   1.13  
Joao Sousa             1390    384   432   1.12  
Janko Tipsarevic       1984    444   486   1.09  
Tommy Haas             1645    368   401   1.09  
Lleyton Hewitt         1442    391   425   1.09  
Tomas Berdych          3947    824   894   1.08  
Vasek Pospisil         1541    361   390   1.08  
Rafael Nadal           3209    661   713   1.08  
Pablo Andujar          1922    563   605   1.08  
Philipp Kohlschreiber  2948    652   698   1.07  
Gael Monfils           2319    547   585   1.07  
Lukasz Kubot           1360    381   405   1.06  
Ivo Karlovic           1941    299   318   1.06

(In all of these tables, “Games” is the number of service games for that player in the dataset, minimum 1,000 service games. “ExpW” is the expected number of occurences as predicted by the model, “ActW” is the actual number of times it happened, and “Ratio” is the ratio of actual occurences to expected occurences.)

While getting to 15-30 this often is a bit of a disadvantage, it’s one that many of these players are able to erase. Isner, for example, not only remains the favorite at 15-30–his average rate of service points won, 72%, implies that he’ll win 75% of games from 15-30–but from this score, he wins 11% more often than he should.

To varying extents, that’s true of every player on the list. Joao Sousa doesn’t entirely make up for the frequency with which he ends up at 15-30, but he does win 4% more often from 15-30 than he should. Rafael Nadal, Tomas Berdych, and Gael Monfils all win between 6% and 8% more often from 15-30 than the theoretical model suggests that they would. In Nadal’s case, it’s almost certainly related to his skill in the ad court, particularly in saving break points.

At the other extreme, we have players we might term “strong starters” who avoid 15-30 more often than we’d expect. Again, it’s a bit of a mixed bag:

Player                 Games  ExpW  ActW  Ratio  
Dustin Brown           1013    249   216   0.87  
Victor Hanescu         1181    308   274   0.89  
Milos Raonic           3050    514   462   0.90  
Dudi Sela              1066    297   270   0.91  
Richard Gasquet        2897    641   593   0.93  
Juan Martin del Potro  2259    469   438   0.93  
Ernests Gulbis         2308    534   500   0.94  
Kevin Anderson         2946    610   571   0.94  
Nikolay Davydenko      1488    412   388   0.94  
Nicolas Mahut          1344    314   297   0.94

With some exceptions, many of the players on this list are thought to be weak in the clutch. (The Dutch pair of Robin Haase and Igor Sijsling are 12th and 13th.) This makes sense, as the pressure is typically lowest early in games. A player who wins points more often at, say, 15-0 than at 40-30 isn’t going to get much of a reputation for coming through when it counts.

The same analysis for returners isn’t as interesting. Juan Martin del Potro comes up again as one of the players least likely to get to 15-30, and Isner–to my surprise–is one of the most likely. There’s not much of a pattern among the best returners: Novak Djokovic gets to 15-30 2% less often than expected; Nadal 1% less often, Andy Murray exactly as often as expected, and David Ferrer 3% more often.

Before moving on, one final note about reaching 15-30. Returners are much less likely to apply enough pressure to reach 15-30 when they are already in a strong position to win the set. At scores such as 0-4, 0-5, and 1-5, the score reaches 15-30 10% less often than usual. At the other extreme, two of the games in which a 15-30 score is most common are 5-6 and 6-5, when the score reaches 15-30 about 8% more often than usual.

The high-leverage next point

As we’ve seen, there’s a huge difference between winning and losing a 15-30 point. In the 290,000 matches I analyzed for this post, neither the server or returner has an advantage at 15-30. However, some players do perform better than others.

Measured by their success rate serving at 15-30 relative to their typical rate of service points won, here is the top 11, a list unsurprisingly dotted with lefties:

Player             Games  ExpW  ActW  Ratio  
Donald Young       1298    204   229   1.12  
Robin Haase        2134    322   347   1.08  
Steve Johnson      1194    181   195   1.08  
Benoit Paire       1848    313   336   1.08  
Fernando Verdasco  2571    395   423   1.07  
Thomaz Bellucci    1906    300   321   1.07  
John Isner         3166    421   449   1.07  
Xavier Malisse     1125    175   186   1.06  
Vasek Pospisil     1541    243   258   1.06  
Rafael Nadal       3209    470   497   1.06  
Bernard Tomic      2124    328   347   1.06

There’s Isner again, making up for reaching 15-30 more often than he should.

And here are the players who win 15-30 points less often than other service points:

Player                  Games  ExpW  ActW  Ratio  
Carlos Berlocq          1867    303   273   0.90  
Albert Montanes         1183    191   173   0.91  
Kevin Anderson          2946    377   342   0.91  
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez  2356    397   370   0.93  
Roberto Bautista-Agut   1716    264   247   0.93  
Juan Monaco             2326    360   338   0.94  
Matthew Ebden           1088    186   176   0.94  
Grigor Dimitrov         2647    360   341   0.95  
Richard Gasquet         2897    380   360   0.95  
Andy Murray             3416    473   449   0.95

When we turn to return performance at 15-30, the extremes are less interesting. However, returning at this crucial score is something that is at least weakly correlated with overall success: Eight of the current top ten (all but Roger Federer and Milos Raonic) win more 15-30 points than expected. Djokovic wins 4% more than expected, while Nadal and Tomas Berdych win 3% more.

Again, breaking down 15-30 performance by situation is instructive. When the server has a substantial advantage in the set–at scores such as 5-1, 4-0, 3-2, and 3-0–he is less likely to win the 15-30 point. But when the server is trailing by a large margin–0-3, 1-4, 0-4, etc.–he is more likely to win the 15-30 point. This is a bit of evidence, though peripheral, of the difficulty of closing out a set–a subject for another day.

Winning the game from 15-30

For the server, getting to 15-30 isn’t a good idea. But compared to our theoretical model, it isn’t quite as bad as it seems. From 15-30, the server wins 2% more often than the model predicts. While it’s not a large effect, it is a persistent one.

Here are the players who play better than usual from 15-30, winning games much more often than the model predicts they would:

Player             Games  ExpW  ActW  Ratio  
Nikolay Davydenko  1488    194   228   1.17  
Steve Johnson      1194    166   190   1.14  
Donald Young       1298    163   185   1.13  
John Isner         3166    423   470   1.11  
Nicolas Mahut      1344    172   188   1.09  
Benoit Paire       1848    266   288   1.08  
Lukas Lacko        1162    164   177   1.08  
Rafael Nadal       3209    450   484   1.08  
Martin Klizan      1534    201   216   1.08  
Feliciano Lopez    2598    341   367   1.07  
Tomas Berdych      3947    556   597   1.07

Naturally, this list has much in common with that of the players who excel on the 15-30 point itself, including many lefties. The big surprise is Nikolay Davydenko, a player who many regarded as weak in the clutch, and who showed up on one of the first lists among players with questionable reputations in pressure situations. Yet Davydenko–at least at the end of his career–was very effective at times like these.

Another note on Nadal: He is the only player on this list who is also near the top among men who overperform from 15-30 on return. Rafa exceeds expectations in that category by 7%, as well, better than any other player in the last few years.

And finally, here are the players who underperform from 15-30 on serve:

Player               Games  ExpW  ActW  Ratio  
Dustin Brown         1013    122   111   0.91  
Tommy Robredo        2140    289   270   0.93  
Alexandr Dolgopolov  2379    306   288   0.94  
Federico Delbonis    1110    157   148   0.94  
Juan Monaco          2326    304   289   0.95  
Simone Bolelli       1015    132   126   0.96  
Paul-Henri Mathieu   1083    155   148   0.96  
Gilles Muller        1332    179   172   0.96  
Carlos Berlocq       1867    256   246   0.96  
Grigor Dimitrov      2647    333   320   0.96  
Richard Gasquet      2897    352   339   0.96

Tentative conclusions

This is one subject on which the conventional wisdom and statistical analysis agree, at least to a certain extent. 15-30 is a very important point, though in context, it’s no more important than some of the points that follow.

These numbers show that some players are better than others at certain stages within each game. In some cases, the strengths balance out with other weaknesses; in others, the stats may expose pressure situations where a player falters.

While many of the extremes I’ve listed here are significant, it’s important to keep them in context. For the average player, games reach 15-30 about one-quarter of the time, so performing 10% better or worse in these situations affects only one in forty games.

Over the course of a career, it adds up, but we’re rarely going to be able to spot these trends during a single match, or even within a tournament. While outperforming expectations on 15-30 points (or any other small subset) is helpful, it’s rarely something the best players rely on. If you play as well as Djokovic does, you don’t need to play even better in clutch situations. Simply meeting expectations is enough.

How Elo Rates US Open Finalists Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci

Italian translation at settesei.it

Among the many good things that have happened to Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci after reaching the final of this year’s US Open, both enjoyed huge leaps in Monday’s official WTA rankings. Pennetta rose from 26th to 8th, and Vinci jumped from 43rd to 19th.

Such large changes in rankings are always a little suspicious and expose the weakness of systems that award points based on round achieved. A lucky draw or one incredible outlier of a match doesn’t mean that a player is suddenly massively better than she was a couple of weeks ago.

To put it another way: As they are, the official rankings do a decent job of representing how a player has performed. What they don’t do so well is represent how well someone is playing, or the closely related issue of how well she will play.

For that, we can turn to Elo ratings, which Carl Bialik and Benjamin Morris used at the beginning of the US Open to compare Serena Williams to other all-time greats [1]. Elo awards points based on opponent quality, not the importance of the tournament or round. As such, the system provides a better estimate of the current skill level of each player than the official rankings do.

Sure enough, Elo agrees with my hypothesis, that Pennetta didn’t suddenly become the 8th best player in the world. Instead, she rose to 17th, just behind Garbine Muguruza (another Slam finalist overestimated by the rankings) and ahead of Elina Svitolina. Vinci didn’t really return to the top 20, either: Elo places her 34th, between Camila Giorgi and Barbora Strycova.

While her official ranking of 8th is Pennetta’s career high, Elo disagrees again. The system claims that Pennetta peaked during the US Open six years ago, after a strong summer that involved semifinal-or-better showings in four straight tournaments, plus a fourth-round win over Vera Zvonareva in New York. She’s more than 100 points below that career-high level, equivalent to the present gap between her and 7th-Elo-rated Angelique Kerber.

The current Elo rankings hold plenty of surprises like this, having little in common with the official rankings:

Rank  Player                 Elo  
1     Serena Williams       2460  
2     Maria Sharapova       2298  
3     Victoria Azarenka     2221  
4     Simona Halep          2204  
5     Petra Kvitova         2174  
6     Belinda Bencic        2144  
7     Angelique Kerber      2130  
8     Venus Williams        2126  
9     Caroline Wozniacki    2095  
10    Lucie Safarova        2084

Rank  Player                 Elo   
11    Ana Ivanovic          2078  
12    Carla Suarez Navarro  2062  
13    Agnieszka Radwanska   2054  
14    Timea Bacsinszky      2041  
15    Sloane Stephens       2031  
16    Garbine Muguruza      2031  
17    Flavia Pennetta       2030  
18    Elina Svitolina       2023  
19    Madison Keys          2019  
20    Jelena Jankovic       2016

While Victoria Azarenka is still nearly 200 points shy of her peak, Elo gives her credit for the extremely tough draws that have met her return from injury. Another player rated much higher here than in the WTA rankings is Belinda Bencic, whose defeat of Serena launched her into the top ten.

The oldest final

Pennetta and Vinci are both unusually old for Slam finalists, not to mention players who reached that milestone for the first time. Elo doesn’t consider them among the very best players active today, but next to other 32- and 33-year-olds in WTA history, they compare very well indeed.

Among players 33 or older, Pennetta’s current rating is sixth best in the last thirty-plus years [2]. As the all-time list shows, that puts her in extraordinarily good company:

Rank  Player                Age   Elo  
1     Martina Navratilova  33.4  2527  
2     Serena Williams      33.9  2480  
3     Chris Evert          33.4  2412  
4     Venus Williams       33.3  2175  
5     Nathalie Tauziat     33.9  2088  
6     Flavia Pennetta      33.5  2030  
7     Wendy Turnbull       33.1  2018  
8     Conchita Martinez    33.3  2014

In the 32-and-over category, Vinci stands out as well. Her lower rating, combined with the somewhat larger pool of players who remained competitive to that ago, means that she holds 24th place in this age group. For a player who has never cracked the top ten, 24th of all time is an impressive accomplishment.

Keep an eye out for more Elo-based analysis here. Soon, I’ll be able to post and update Elo ratings on Tennis Abstract and, once a few more kinks are worked out, use them to improve the WTA tournament forecasts on the site as well.

Continue reading How Elo Rates US Open Finalists Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci

How Important is the First Point of Each Game?

Italian translation at settesei.it

A common belief among players, coaches, and commentators is that the first point of each game is of particular importance. It’s often suggested that the first point sets the tone for the entire game.

Of course, winning the first point is better than losing it, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  Winning any point is better than losing it. If the first point is more important than the others, winning it would have to give a player even more of an advantage than the simple fact of having reached 15-0 instead of 0-15.

The difference between 15-0 and 0-15–apart from any momentum it generates–is a substantial one. Using a theoretical model that treats each point as independent, a player who typically wins 60% of service points will hold about 74% of the time, meaning that at love-all, they have a 74% of winning the game. At 15-0, that probability jumps to 84%. At 0-15, it’s only 58%.

To say that the first point is particularly important, then, is to say that the gap between winning and losing it is even greater than that. On the evidence of over 20,000 recent ATP and WTA matches, covering nearly half a million games, though, the first point is no more important than it should be. Except for, possibly, a few players and a few in-match situations, it gives no momentum to either player.

The basics

The broadest finding is perhaps the most surprising. Winning the first point fails to give the server any extra advantage, but losing the first point does. The results for ATP matches and WTA matches are the same. If the server loses the first point, he or she is then about one percent more likely to win the game than if points were truly independent of each other.

Naturally, this is not a recommendation that a server should lose the first point of any game! For our 60% server, winning the first point still improves her odds of a hold to 84%. But instead of the 58% chance at 0-15 that the theoretical model predicts, it’s really between 58.5% and 59%.

An effect of this size is not something that one would ever notice simply watching tennis matches. It probably doesn’t have any practical import, either. But over multiple very large samples of recent professional matches, the effect demonstrates that winning the first point of a game does not endow a player with any additional benefits.

Situations where it matters

In general, the first point is only as valuable as its immediate effect on the score. However, there are certain situations where winning it seems to give the server a bit more of an edge, or where losing it isn’t the disadvantage that it should be.

The latter situation is most pronounced. In both men’s and women’s tennis, servers outperform the theoretical model when serving down two breaks, at scores such as 0-4, 0-5, and 1-5. They beat the model to a much lesser, but still real, extent when serving down one break. This could be due to their acknowledgement that these games are “must wins,” or in the double-break situations, to a lack of effort on the part of the returner.

Regardless of the reason, with a double-break disadvantage, the effect of going down 0-15 is much less than in the model. Our 60% server, instead of facing a choice between an 84% chance of winning at 15-0 or 58% at 0-15, is looking at a 91% chance of winning at 15-0 or a 71% chance of winning at 0-15.

When serving with the break advantage, the situation is reversed, but it is much less pronounced. At scores such as 6-5 and 3-2, the model is a good predictor of win probability from 15-0, but servers underperform against the model from 0-15. The difference, though only a few percentage points, could be due to more aggression or focus on the part of the returner, or to the server feeling nerves.

At the majority of the most common scores, though, the effect of the first point is no different than the aggregate numbers, with the first point having almost no effect beyond the score.

Susceptible servers

There are a few players for whom the first point does seem to have an extra effect. These fall into two categories: players who fit the conventional wisdom, doing much better (compared to the model) from 15-0 than from 0-15, and those who are the opposite, reducing the gap between the likely outcomes from 15-0 and 0-15.

Among the 38 ATPers for whom I have more than 2,000 recorded service games, the player in the first category who sees the greatest first-point effect is Richard Gasquet. From 15-0, he beats the model by about one percent, but from 0-15, he underperforms by five percent. He’s the only male player whose gap between these two figures is more than five percent.

At the other end of the spectrum is Santiago Giraldo, who from 15-0 underperforms against the model by two percent, but from 0-15, beats the model by seven percent.

The rest of Giraldo’s category is where things get interesting. The other four players with a gap of four percent or greater are Feliciano Lopez, John Isner, Juan Martin del Potro, and Rafael Nadal. It’s no surprise to see two lefties here, as left-handers typically win more points in the ad court. Every other lefty in the dataset fits the same pattern, though their gaps are smaller.

The presence of big servers at this end of the list is a bit tougher to explain. Because they are so likely to hold in any given service game, perhaps they are sometimes unfocused on the first point of a game and become more serious after falling to 0-15.

Among WTA players, the distribution is about the same. The most extreme effect is on the serve of Sorana Cirstea, who, like Giraldo, is much more effective (compared to the model) from 0-15 than from 15-0. The other women in this category with more than a five percent gap are Flavia Pennetta, Ekaterina Makarova, and Ana Ivanovic.

At the other extreme, in Gasquet’s category, are Francesca Schiavone, Li Na, Julia Goerges, and Eugenie Bouchard, all of whom are about two percent more effective than expected from 15-0, and four percent less effective than expected from 0-15.

Conventional overstatement

As is so often the case, the conventional wisdom proves to have a grain of truth in it … sometimes, maybe, and to a much lesser extent than is generally claimed. Even the most extreme effect on tour, like that of Gasquet or Cirstea, doesn’t change the result of a game more than once every two or three matches.

The first point of a game is quite meaningful, because 15-0 is so much better than 0-15. But except for a few players and a few situations–some of which actually shrink the gap between 15-0 and 0-15–there’s little truth to the common claim that the first point is more important than its mere effect on the scoreline.