Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Casper Ruud will be a top-16 seed with a top-10 game in Paris, Zvonareva is the top seed in Roland Garros qualies, and the development of Diane Parry’s game is taking place is full view.
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 1.9%, Casper Ruud’s chance of winning the French Open, according to an early forecast based on Tennis Abstract Elo ratings. With his title in Geneva last week, the Norwegian #1 improved to 16th in the ATP rankings and 10th on my Elo list. Much of Ruud’s true probability of going deep will depend on the luck of the draw this week. Set to be seeded between 13 and 16, he’ll line up to face a top-four seed in the fourth round. If that turns out to be Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic, it probably won’t be Casper’s year. If it’s the clay-phobic Daniil Medvedev or the out-of-form Dominic Thiem, the door will be open. The 22-year-old is 15 and 4 on clay this spring, with six top-20 wins and pair of Masters semi-finals. In a top-heavy field where the favorites are Rafa, Rafa, and Rafa, everyone else is a dark horse. Yet aside from a handful of men with single-digit seeds next to their names, Ruud is the only underdog with a non-negligible chance to dethrone him.
Our second number is 19, the number of years since a 17-year-old Vera Zvonareva qualified in her first appearance at Roland Garros. After losing to Monica Niculescu in the final round of the feeder tournament last fall, she’s the top seed in this year’s qualifying draw. Yesterday, she advanced easily past Francesca Jones, winning 6-1 6-2 in 72 minutes. Back in 2002, the Russian rode the momentum to her first deep run at a major, beating Francesca Schiavone in the third round and taking a set from Serena Williams in the fourth. Five years after giving birth and playing her busiest schedule in nearly a decade, the 36-year-old Russian is once again a threat on the Parisian clay. She’s 7-3 on dirt this spring, including a win over Petra Kvitova in Rome. With an improved ranking after the Italian, if the French Open entry deadline were today, Zvonareva would merit a spot in the main draw. As it is, it’s bad luck for Jones and for Miriam Bolkvadze, her next opponent. The biggest remaining obstacle in the veteran’s path to the main draw is Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, a sometimes dangerous player who Zvonareva defeated just last month in Madrid qualifying.
Today’s third and final number is 218, Diane Parry’s rank on the Tennis Abstract Elo list. It’s better than her position at #291 on the WTA computer, but it’s nothing to be proud of: She’s dead last among the 218 women with 10 or more matches at the ITF $60K level or above since the restart. The French 18-year-old with the one-handed backhand is a former junior number one, and like any promising French youngster, she’s been wild-carded a slew of tour-level opportunities before her game is ready. Parry suffered an eight-match losing streak last fall, including a first-rounder at Roland Garros, and she’s lost her last six matches as a wild card at all levels. She’s on court today in Strasbourg, where she may have drawn an opponent she can handle: fellow qualifier Jule Niemeier, a German 21-year-old also ranked outside the top 200. If that doesn’t work out, she won’t have to wait long for another match: The French Open gave her a main draw wild card for the third straight year.
