Episode 26 of the Tennis Abstract Podcast, with Carl Bialik of the Thirty Love podcast, starts with the superlative performances of Elina Svitolina, Maria Sharapova, Alexander Zverev, and Novak Djokovic in Rome, and considers how they cause us to revise our estimates of those players. For Djokovic, Sharapova, and Serena Williams, we compare their current Elo ratings–including penalties for time off–to our perceptions of their current levels.
We also talk about the pros and cons of transitioning to a “weak era,” as well as the potential role of fatigue when tomorrow’s opponents don’t get the same amount of rest today. Thanks for listening!
(Note: this week’s episode is about 62 minutes long; in some browsers the audio player may display a different length. Sorry about that!)
Click to listen, subscribe on iTunes, or use our feed to get updates on your favorite podcast software.
A few things we talked about:
Update: Episode index with links, thanks to FBITennis:
| Zverev v Nadal (Rome Final) | 0:58 |
| Is Nadal declining? | 4:37 |
| Zverev’s narrow margins (tiebreak success) | 7:15 |
| Nostalgia sidebar: Honoring Ferrer’s clay prowess | 10:40 |
| Svitolina’s tremendous success in finals | 11:47 |
| WTA Rome final takeaways, if any | 15:11 |
| Halep’s not-tremendous (recent) results in finals…and Wozniacki too | 17:15 |
| Is Novak back? ELO says he only sorta left. | 22:34 |
| Djokovic’s “good” losses | 28:30 |
| Roland Garros favorites; comparing conventional wisdom and analytics | 30:04 |
| A “weak era” is a good thing! Maybe. | 35:13 |
| Serena a true #11 on clay; Sharapova a true #9 on clay (ELO, adjusted) | 44:02 |
| Will Ostapenko defend her French Open title? “Shock heuristic” says no. | 53:03 |
| The effect of fatigue between matches | 55:22 |