Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Sabalenka has barely broken a sweat in Madrid, Benoit Paire breaks a dreadful losing streak, and Barbora Strycova says goodbye to the tour.
Scroll down for a transcript.
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Music: Love is the Chase by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2021. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Ft: Apoxode
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Rough transcript of today’s episode:
The first number is 12, the total games lost by Aryna Sabalenka across her first three Madrid matches. She has cruised against Vera Zvonareva, Daria Kasatkina, and Jessica Pegula, who she dispatched yesterday in 52 minutes. She has yet to allow more than four games in a single set, common enough for the Belarussian on her good days, but unusual for her to pull off several days running. In fact, this is the first time in her career at tour level that she has won her first three matches at an event without needing a third set or a tiebreak. The closest she has come to such sustained domination was back in 2018 in Lugano, when she strung together three easy wins starting in the second round. Her opponent in the final was Elise Mertens, her longtime doubles partner and—thanks to the Belgian’s upset of Simona Halep yesterday—Sabalenka’s quarter-final opponent today. Aryna has won their last three meetings, but it was Mertens who won the Lugano title three years ago. Should Sabalenka struggle today, perhaps she’ll wish she had spent a little more time on court in the early rounds.
Our second number is 10.5%, Benoit Paire’s chance of upsetting Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Madrid second round today, according to the Tennis Abstract forecast. It’s the most lopsided match on today’s schedule, behind even Rafael Nadal’s first-time meeting with teenage wild card Carlos Alcaraz. Tsitsipas has played his way into the top rank of clay contenders with a title in Monte Carlo and a near-miss in Barcelona, but it’s the Frenchman who has really built up the gap between the two players. Paire is a former top-20 player, and it is only the pandemic-adapted ranking rules that are keeping him in the top 40. His win against Munich champ Nikoloz Basilashvili yesterday was only his third victory against 16 losses since the restart, and it stops a seven-match losing streak, only two of which were against opponents ranked in the top 90. Paire has publicly struggled with motivation amid empty stadiums, and his behavior led to the French Federation declaring him ineligible for this summer’s Olympics. With grandstands slowly filling up and a 32nd birthday on Saturday providing some inspiration, perhaps he’ll bring back some of the unique tennis that won his three tour-level titles. Just not this week, with Tsitsipas in the way.
Today’s third and final number is 31, the number of net points won by Barbora Strycova in her 2019 Wimbledon third-round match against Kiki Bertens. The 35-year-old Strycova has a baby on the way, and she announced her retirement yesterday, saying that she still hopes to play a farewell match on grass. The fastest surface was her best, and a career singles highlight was her run to the 2019 Wimbledon semis, beating four seeds, including #4 Bertens and British hope Johanna Konta, before running out of steam against Serena Williams. A doubles wizard who reached #1 in the world and won the title with Hsieh Su-Wei at that event, it was her net play that took her singles game to new heights. Against Bertens, she went to net 41 times out of 129 total points, winning more than three-quarters of those chances. She went 33-of-44 at net against Elise Mertens in the round of 16, and 13-of-19 in the Konta match. Retiring ranked #2 in the world in doubles, there’s no doubt that the Czech has more high-quality tennis in her. The WTA tour is packed with mothers these days, so in another couple of years, Strycova’s next press conference may well announce her comeback.
