{"id":1166,"date":"2013-04-12T10:27:37","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T14:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2013-04-12T10:27:37","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T14:27:37","slug":"robin-haases-unlucky-13-tiebreaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/12\/robin-haases-unlucky-13-tiebreaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Robin Haase’s Unlucky 13 Tiebreaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Robin Haase<\/a> lost a second-set tiebreak to Kenny De Schepper<\/a>, a mere blip en route to a three-set victory and a place in the Casablanca quarterfinals. \u00a0However, it was yet another set-ending failure for the Dutchman, who has now lost thirteen consecutive tour-level tiebreaks. \u00a0And another reason<\/a> to hate Casablanca.<\/p>\n

Yes, thirteen. \u00a0No other active player has a streak of more than seven, and no tour-level regular has lost more than his last six. \u00a0In fact, Haase is now one lost tiebreak away from tying the all-time ATP record of 14, jointly held by Graham Stilwell<\/a> and Colin Dibley<\/a>, two players who accomplished their feats in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

As I’ve shown before, tiebreak outcomes are rather random<\/a>. Aside from a small minority of players with extensive tiebreak experience (such as Roger Federer<\/a>, John Isner<\/a>, and Andy Roddick<\/a>), ATP pros tend to win about as many breakers as “expected<\/a>.” The good players win more than average, the not-so-good players win fewer than average, but there are few players who seem to have some special tiebreak skill–or a notable lack thereof.<\/p>\n

It would be premature, then, to read too much into Haase’s streak. \u00a0After all, the last fifteen months haven’t been particularly bad for him in general. \u00a0When he last won a tour-level tiebreak, in January of last year, he was ranked 62nd in the world. \u00a0Now he is #53, and he will pick up another few spots next Monday. \u00a0This despite winning only two of the matches in which he lost one of his consecutive tiebreaks.<\/p>\n

If history is any guide, the Dutchman will probably turn things around. \u00a0Dibley won six of the 10 breakers that followed his streak, and Stilwell won four. Nikolay Davydenko<\/a> and\u00a0Thomas Johansson<\/a>, two otherwise excellent players who lost 13 tiebreaks in a row, each won 5 of their next 10. \u00a0More remarkably, the already-missed<\/a> Ivan Navarro<\/a> followed a 10-tiebreak losing streak with a 8-2 record in his next 10.<\/p>\n

In the ATP era, 43 players have suffered tiebreak losing streaks of 10 or more (full list after the jump). \u00a032 of those have gone on to play at least 10 more. \u00a0Naturally, every tiebreak that follows a losing streak is a win, or else it would be considered part of the streak. \u00a0In the nine tiebreaks that follow the streak-breaking win, those 32 players won 134 of 288 tiebreaks, or 46.5%.<\/p>\n

While the numbers don’t exactly presage Isnerian greatness for Haase, even a return to his pre-streak tiebreak winning percentage of 41% would be welcome. \u00a0Fortunately, that’s much more likely than another 13 losses in a row.<\/p>\n

Update:\u00a0<\/strong>In the Barcelona first round, Haase tied the record, losing a third-set tiebreak to Pablo Carreno-Busta. \u00a0On May 6, he lost a tiebreak in the second set of his Madrid first-round match against Alexander Dolgopolov to set a new all-time record of 15 straight lost tiebreaks.<\/p>\n

Update 2:\u00a0<\/strong>On 8 May, Haase lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 7-6 7-6. (How else?) That’s 17 straight tour-level tiebreaks lost. \u00a0The all-time tiebreak\u00a0winning<\/em> streak is 18, held by Andy Roddick.<\/p>\n

Update 3:\u00a0<\/strong>On 27 May, in the second set of his first round match at Roland Garros, Haase WON A TIEBREAK. The historical event came against Kenny de Schepper, the Frenchman who appears in the first line of this post.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These are all tour-level tiebreak losing streaks of 11 or greater in the ATP era, as of 2012\/04\/12:<\/em><\/p>\n

PLAYER                  STREAK  START  \nColin Dibley                14   1978  \nGraham Stilwell             14   1972  \nRobin Haase                 13   2012  \nNikolay Davydenko           13   2010  \nThomas Johansson            13   1997  \nDick Crealy                 13   1978  \nJohn Marks                  13   1977  \nJean Philippe Fleurian      12   1994  \nTom Gullikson               12   1981  \nIon Tiriac                  12   1974  \n\nPLAYER                  STREAK  START\nArnaud Clement              11   2010  \nNoam Okun                   11   2006  \nAndreas Vinciguerra         11   2003  \nMichal Mertinak             11   2003  \nFredrik Jonsson             11   1999  \nDaniel Nestor               11   1997  \nFilip Dewulf                11   1996  \nIvan Lendl                  11   1993  \nAmos Mansdorf               11   1987  \nEddie Edwards               11   1984  \nAnand Amritraj              11   1979  \nAlvaro Betancur             11   1976\n\nPLAYER                  STREAK  START  \nTim Smyczek                 10   2010  \nIvan Navarro                10   2008  \nStanislas Wawrinka          10   2006  \nCyril Saulnier              10   2005  \nJulien Benneteau            10   2004  \nRohan Bopanna               10   2003  \nVictor Hanescu              10   2003  \nDick Norman                 10   2003  \nChristophe Rochus           10   2003  \nAlex Calatrava              10   2001  \nParadorn Srichaphan         10   2000  \nMagnus Gustafsson           10   1998  \nGabriel Markus              10   1993  \nChristian Bergstrom         10   1992  \nFrederic Fontang            10   1992  \nPatrick Baur                10   1992  \nZoltan Kuharszky            10   1982  \nPeter Fleming               10   1979  \nHans Kary                   10   1978  \nMike Estep                  10   1974  \nRobert Maud                 10   1972<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday, Robin Haase lost a second-set tiebreak to Kenny De Schepper, a mere blip en route to a three-set victory and a place in the Casablanca quarterfinals. \u00a0However, it was yet another set-ending failure for the Dutchman, who has now lost thirteen consecutive tour-level tiebreaks. \u00a0And another reason to hate Casablanca. Yes, thirteen. \u00a0No other … Continue reading Robin Haase’s Unlucky 13 Tiebreaks<\/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":[93,114],"tags":[170],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-records","category-tiebreaks","tag-robin-haase"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","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=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}