{"id":1010,"date":"2012-11-02T11:13:09","date_gmt":"2012-11-02T15:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2012-11-02T11:13:09","modified_gmt":"2012-11-02T15:13:09","slug":"the-2012-world-tour-finals-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/02\/the-2012-world-tour-finals-forecast\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2012 World Tour Finals Forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Jo Wilfried Tsonga<\/a>‘s win last night over Nicolas Almagro<\/a>, the field is set for the tour finals. \u00a0Novak Djokovic<\/a> and Roger Federer<\/a> will each head one of the two round robin groups, and will be joined by Andy Murray<\/a>, David Ferrer<\/a>, Tomas Berdych<\/a>, Juan Martin Del Potro<\/a>, Tsonga, and Janko Tipsarevic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite Federer’s dominance on indoor hard courts last year, he is hardly the same unstoppable force this season. \u00a0Not only did he lose in last week’s final to Del Potro, but my rating algorithm, Jrank, views him as a slightly inferior hard-court player<\/a> to Murray. \u00a0Though it will certainly be close, my forecast favors both the Serb and the Brit over the soon-to-be world #2:<\/p>\n

Player         SF      F      W  \nDjokovic    77.7%  47.7%  28.8%  \nMurray      70.0%  41.9%  23.3%  \nFederer     72.6%  40.4%  22.3%  \nDel Potro   45.9%  20.2%   8.3%  \nFerrer      45.4%  17.7%   6.5%  \nBerdych     38.8%  15.2%   5.5%  \nTsonga      30.4%  11.3%   3.8%  \nTipsarevic  19.2%   5.5%   1.5%<\/pre>\n
As always, there are as many reasons to question these numbers as there are to put one’s faith in them. \u00a0Djokovic’s loss<\/a> to Sam Querrey<\/a> this week seriously questions his current ability to play his best tennis. \u00a0Murray’s loss to rising star<\/a> Jerzy Janowicz<\/a> isn’t quite so troubling, but it also fails to fit the profile of a dominant player.<\/p>\n
In the bottom half of the pack, one or two of these guys are likely to play in the Paris final, meaning they’ll be relatively tired upon arrival in London. \u00a0It’s one thing to play the first round of a tournament on weak legs; it’s another when that event is the Tour Finals and your first opponent is a fellow top-tenner.<\/p>\n
[UPDATE, 3 Nov]<\/strong><\/p>\n
The draw is set. \u00a0Federer is joined in Group B with Ferrer, Del Potro, and Tipsarevic, leaving Djokovic with Murray, Berdych, and Tsonga. \u00a0This is a dream setup for Federer, and even dreamier for Delpo.<\/p>\n
Federer’s career H2H against the three men in his group is 31-3. \u00a0His career H2H against Novak’s opponents is 27-18. \u00a0He might prefer not to face Del Potro again so soon, but historically, the Argentine hasn’t been any more dangerous for Roger than any of the three men Djokovic will have to face.<\/p>\n
As noted, it’s the absolute perfect draw for Delpo, too. \u00a0Statistically, Federer is weaker than Djokovic. \u00a0My numbers might overstate Ferrer’s competitiveness in London (and they still aren’t very high), and Tipsarevic is essentially a non-factor. \u00a0In the pre-draw simulation above, Del Potro has a 45.9% chance of reaching the semis and a 8.3% chance of winning it all. \u00a0Post-draw, 54.4% and 9.2%. \u00a0It’s an uphill battle no matter what the draw, but avoiding the Murray group is a huge help.<\/p>\n
Here are the projections, now reflecting the draw:<\/p>\n
Player         SF      F      W  \nDjokovic    74.0%  47.2%  28.2%  \nFederer     76.7%  41.2%  23.0%  \nMurray      68.5%  41.6%  22.6%  \nDel Potro   54.4%  22.4%   9.2%  \nFerrer      46.9%  17.9%   6.8%  \nBerdych     31.2%  13.5%   5.0%  \nTsonga      26.3%  10.4%   3.6%  \nTipsarevic  22.1%   5.8%   1.6%<\/pre>\n
Thanks to his relatively weak round-robin group, Federer has the best shot at reaching the semis, but only the third best chance of reaching the final, since he’s likely to face either Djokovic or Murray in his semi. \u00a0Despite the tougher draw, Djokovic remains the favorite to win the event and put an exclamation point on his season-ending #1 ranking.<\/p>\n
(A quick programming note for regular readers: I won’t be able to update these predictions throughout the tournament on TennisAbstract.com<\/a>, and due to an uncooperative travel schedule, the next TA.com update (including Bercy results) may not occur until Tuesday or Wednesday.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With Jo Wilfried Tsonga‘s win last night over Nicolas Almagro, the field is set for the tour finals. \u00a0Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer will each head one of the two round robin groups, and will be joined by Andy Murray, David Ferrer, Tomas Berdych, Juan Martin Del Potro, Tsonga, and Janko Tipsarevic. Despite Federer’s dominance … Continue reading The 2012 World Tour Finals Forecast<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forecasting","category-world-tour-finals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}