Toy stats – Page 2 – Heavy Topspin

Seeds Firmly Planted

Unless seeds withdraw at the last minute, every 2nd round match at Indian Wells and Miami is between a seed and a non-seed. While byes are by no means limited to these two events, Indian Wells and Miami are the only ones that offer us 32 matches pittting a seeded favorite against an unseeded underdog.

Of course, for a variety of reasons, from surface to health to lucky bounces, the favorites don’t always win. But over the last two days at Crandon Park, it has felt like they do. All 32 seeds showed up ready to play, and 29 of them advanced to the third round. Only Juan Ignacio Chela, Feliciano Lopez, and Marcel Granollers lost.

Cue the chorus: That’s got to be some kind of record, right?

Indeed it is, at least back to 1991, which is the current extent of my database. Miami has had the 96-player draw with 32 seeds (and 32 byes) back to 1986, while Indian Wells got into the act in 2004. That gives us 30 past tournaments in my database, including last week’s event at Indian Wells, for the 2012 Miami Masters to measure up against.

On average, seeds win approximately two-thirds of their 2nd-round matches in these 96-player draws. (At tour-level events in general, seeds win 70% of their matches against unseeded players.) In a typical event, then, 21 or 22 seeds advance to the third round. As it turns out, that’s what happened last week at Indian Wells–21 wins, 10 losses, one withdrawal.

This week’s 29 seeded winners doesn’t just set a new record–it blows away the old mark. Three years ago, 25 seeds advanced to the third round in Miami. In 2008, the same number advanced in Indian Wells, and that’s the best the seeds have ever done. Five other times (including last year at Indian Wells), 24 seeds advanced. At the other extreme, the 1997 Miami event was a bloodbath, with only half of the seeds advancing.

It’s remarkable enough that this many seeds won for the first time in 31 tournaments. But the odds are far lower than that. Using my projections for the second round–which, of course, aren’t perfect, and may slightly underestimate the odds of the top few players advancing–there was only a 0.37% chance that 29 or more seeds would win their first matches. That’s roughly 1 in 270.

So, if you were watching yesterday, you were witnessing history. Rather boring history, but a rare event nonetheless.

Who Excels at the March Masters?

Italian translation at settesei.it

It’s not quite March Madness, but the March Masters tournaments of Indian Wells and Miami do constitute a unique part of the tennis season. Though the conditions are different on opposite sides of the continent, it’s hot, and many players are contesting their first important matches since the Australian Open.

I queried my match database to come up with the best career performers at these two tournaments. Setting aside a few players who have done well in just a couple of showings, here are the top twelve active players, by win percentage at Indian Wells and Miami. (Incidentally, they are the only twelve with winning percentages over 60%.)

Player                  W   L  Titles   Win%  
Novak Djokovic         40   8       4  83.3%  
Rafael Nadal           57  13       2  81.4%  
Roger Federer          73  19       5  79.3%  
Andy Roddick           58  19       2  75.3%  
Juan Martin Del Potro  19   7       0  73.1%  
Andy Murray            25  11       1  69.4%  
Lleyton Hewitt         42  21       2  66.7%  
Ivan Ljubicic          37  20       1  64.9%  
Tomas Berdych          25  14       0  64.1%  
James Blake            37  21       0  63.8%  
Jo Wilfried Tsonga     13   8       0  61.9%  
Stanislas Wawrinka     14   9       0  60.9%

Del Potro is highest on the list among those without a title at either event. Roddick’s place so high on the list serves as a reminder that this is his kind of territory–hard courts in the heat. If he hadn’t played so poorly in his last two events, it would be tempting to pick him as an underdog this month.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, I hope you’ve started playing around with Tennis Abstract. One of the latest features to come online is the ability to make multiple selections from a single menu. For instance, on Ivan Ljubicic’s page, select “Career” from the “Time Span” menu, then open up the “Events” menu on the left-hand side, then select both Indian Wells and Miami, which will show you the matches (and their stats) that add up to his 37-20 record at these tournaments.

Federer in Straight Sets

During the telecast of today’s match between Roger Federer and Andreas Seppi, commentator Jason Goodall mentioned an interesting stat. Federer has won more of his matches in straight sets since losing the number one ranking than he did while ranked number one.

Just about every stat from Roger’s reign at number one is impressive. Not counting Davis Cup or matches that ended in retirement, Federer played 432 matches while atop the rankings, and won 383 (88.7%) of them. He won 284 of those matches in straight sets. That’s 65.7% of all matches, and 74.2% of his wins.

Since losing the top spot, Roger has played 189 matches, and won 162 (85.7%) of them. (Still pretty good, eh?) In that time span, he has won 125 matches in straight sets–66.1% of all matches, and 77.2% of his wins.

Both numbers are better, though not much. The story here isn’t that he is suddenly more dominant in his wins–the increases aren’t enough for that. Instead, the surprise is that he doesn’t seem any less dominant. A bit of that is because some 3-set victories have turned into losses, but his modest drop in winning percentage reminds us that he still isn’t losing very many matches. Today’s hiccup against Andreas Seppi notwithstanding, second-tier players still aren’t making many inroads against Federer.