Italian translation at settesei.it
Despite the name, unforced errors aren’t necessarily bad. Sometimes, the right tactic is to play more aggressively, and in order to hit more winners, most players will commit more errors as well. Against some opponents, increasing the unforced error count–as long as there is a parallel improvement in winners or other positive point-ending shots–might be the only way to win.
Last week, I showed that one of the causes of Angelique Kerber’s first-round loss was her disproportionate number of errors in big moments. But as my podcasting partner Carl Bialik pointed out, that isn’t the whole story. If Kerber played more aggressively on the most important points–one possible cause of more errors–it might be the case that her winner rate was higher, as well. Since the 6-2 6-2 scoreline was so heavily tilted against her, it was a safe bet that Kerber recorded more high-leverage errors than winners. Still, Carl makes a valid point, and one worth testing.
To do so, let’s revisit the data: 500 women’s singles matches from the last four majors and the first four rounds of this year’s French Open. By measuring the importance of each point, we can determine the average leverage (LEV) of every point in each match, along with the average leverage of points which ended with a player hitting an unforced error, or a winner. Last week, we found that Kerber’s UEs in her first-round loss had an average LEV of 5.5%, compared to a LEV of 3.8% on all other points. For today’s purposes, let’s use match averages as a reference point: Her average UE LEV of 5.5% also compares unfavorably to the overall match average LEV of 4.1%.
What about winners? Kerber’s 15 winners came on points with an average LEV of 3.9%, below the match average. Case closed: On more important points, Kerber was more likely to commit an error, and less likely to hit a winner.
Across the whole population, players hit more errors and fewer winners in crucial moments, but only slightly. Points ending in errors are about one percent more important than average (percent, not percentage point, so 4.14% instead of 4.1%), and points ending in winners are about two percent less important than average. In bigger moments, players increase their winner rate about 39% of the time, and they improve their W-UE ratio about 45% of the time. Point being, there are tour-wide effects on more important points, but they are quite small.
Of course, Kerber’s first-round upset isn’t indicative of how she has played at Slams in general. In my article last week, I mentioned the four players who did the best job of reducing errors at big moments: Kerber, Agnieszka Radwanska, Timea Bacsinszky, and Kiki Bertens. Kerber and Radwanska both hit fewer winners on big points as well, but Bacsinszky and Bertens manage a perfect combination, hitting slightly more winners as the pressure cranks up. Among players with more than 10 Slam matches since last year’s French, Bacsinszky is the only one to hit winners on more important points than her unforced errors over 75% of the time.
Compared to her peers, Kerber’s big-moment tactics are remarkably passive. The following table shows the 21 women for whom I have data on at least 13 matches. “UE Rt.” (“UE Ratio”) is similar to the metric I used last week, comparing the average importance of points ending in errors to average points; “W Ratio” is the same, but for points ending in winners, and “W+UE Ratio” is–you guessed it–a (weighted) combination of the two. The combined measure serves as an rough approximation of aggression on big points, where ratios below 1 are more passive than the player’s typical tactics and ratios above 1 are more aggressive.
Player M UE Rt. W Rt. W+UE Rt. Angelique Kerber 20 0.92 0.85 0.88 Alize Cornet 13 0.92 0.87 0.94 Agnieszka Radwanska 17 0.91 0.95 0.95 Simona Halep 19 0.93 0.94 0.95 Samantha Stosur 13 0.95 0.98 0.96 Timea Bacsinszky 14 0.89 1.02 0.97 Elina Svitolina 15 1.02 0.95 0.97 Karolina Pliskova 18 0.97 0.98 0.97 Caroline Wozniacki 14 0.93 1.00 0.97 Johanna Konta 13 1.00 0.97 0.98 Caroline Garcia 14 0.94 1.02 0.98 Svetlana Kuznetsova 17 0.96 0.98 0.99 Garbine Muguruza 20 1.02 0.94 0.99 Venus Williams 25 1.00 0.97 0.99 Elena Vesnina 13 0.96 1.03 0.99 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 15 1.03 0.99 0.99 Coco Vandeweghe 13 1.08 0.95 1.01 Madison Keys 13 1.01 1.02 1.01 Serena Williams 27 0.99 1.05 1.02 Carla Suarez Navarro 14 1.00 1.14 1.05 Dominika Cibulkova 14 1.11 1.03 1.07
Kerber’s combined measure stands out from the pack. Her point-ending shots–both winners and errors, but especially winners–occur disproportionately on less important points, and the overall effect is double that of the next most passive big-moment player, Alize Cornet. Every other player is close enough to neutral that I would hesitate before making any conclusions about their pressure-point tactics.
Even when Kerber wins, she does so with effective defense at key points. In only two of her last 20 matches at majors did her winners occur on particularly important points. (Incidentally, one of those two was last year’s US Open final.) In general, her brand of passivity works–she won 16 of those matches. But defensive play doesn’t leave very much room for error–figuratively or literally. The tactics were familiar and proven, but against Makarova, they were poorly executed.