Around the Net is my attempt to provide a clearinghouse for tennis analytics on the web. Each week, you’ll find a summary of recent articles, podcasts, papers, and data sources, as well as trivia and the occasional bit of interesting non-tennis content. If you would like to suggest something for a future issue, drop me a line.
Articles
- Serve Speed vs. Serve Accuracy in Tennis (medium.com/@miha.mlakar)
- Head-to-Head Effects (on-the-t.com)
Multimedia
- Tennis Abstract Podcast Episode 52: The Unpredictable WTA of Osaka, Stephens, and Sasnovich (with guest co-host Jeff from Hidden Game of Tennis)
- StatsOnTheT on Chilling With Charlie
Data
- Match Charting Project: The dataset has grown by 70 matches in the last week, from 5,256 to 5,326. We’ve added a slew of men’s and women’s matches from Indian Wells, several more 90’s Wimbledon semi-finals, and best of all, three long-sought Roland Garros women’s finals. We have now charted all men’s and women’s French Open finals back to 1980.
Trivia
- Belinda Bencic continues to rack up top-ten wins, and despite her semi-final loss to Angelique Kerber on Friday, her record against the top ten is above .500, at 19-16. That’s something that few of her peers can claim, even many players we consider to be elites.
- Sara Errani hit a whopping 57 double faults in her last four matches, including 22 in the Guadalajara first round against Irina Camelia Begu. And she won! 57 double faults is more than she hit in the entire 2017 or 2018 seasons.
- The next generation of WTA teens is coming fast: 16-year-old Clara Tauson won this week’s ITF Shenzhen $60K title, and 15-year-old Dasha Lopatetskaya won her fifth pro title. At least two more teens won ITF titles this week, with three more playing finals today.
- With his defeat of Novak Djokovic, Philipp Kohlschreiber became the 4th-oldest player to beat an ATP No. 1.
- Ivo Karlovic turned 40 three weeks ago, and celebrated by winning three matches at Indian Wells, the first time since 2011 (also at Indian Wells) that he won three or more matches at a Masters event.
Thanks to Peter for help with this week’s issue.