{"id":1333,"date":"2013-09-16T12:55:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T16:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2013-09-16T12:55:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T16:55:34","slug":"are-there-more-five-setters-in-davis-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/16\/are-there-more-five-setters-in-davis-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Are There More Five-Setters in Davis Cup?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s no denying that Davis Cup gives us some of the most dramatic moments on the men’s tennis calendar. \u00a0It’s easy, then, to fall prey to some mistaken conventional wisdom, such as the canard that upsets are much more common in the international competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(In fact, upsets are only more common if Amir Weintraub<\/a> is playing.)<\/p>\n

Even if the favorites usually win, what about hard-fought matches? \u00a0Is it possible that any given Davis Cup match is more likely to go the distance<\/a> than a Grand Slam match?<\/p>\n

It sounds good, but no, the frequency of five-setters (and even four-setters, for that matter) is steady regardless of context. \u00a0Since 2003, 18.7% of Grand Slam matches have gone five sets, while just 17.5% of best-of-five Davis Cup rubbers have gone that far.<\/p>\n

There are differences among levels of Davis Cup, as we might expect. \u00a019.9% of best-of-five World Group rubbers go five, and 20.3% of World Group playoff rubbers go five. \u00a0But neither of these numbers stands out compared to some subsets of Slam matches. \u00a019.6% of second-round matches at majors reach a fifth set, while 20.3% of fourth-rounders and 20.6% of quarterfinal matches do so.<\/p>\n

Here is the complete breakdown by set length:<\/p>\n

LEVEL        MATCHES  3 SETS  4 SETS  5 SETS  \nDavis Cup       2496   56.6%   25.9%   17.5%  \nGrand Slams     5453   51.2%   30.1%   18.7%  \n\nDAVIS CUP                                              \nWorld Group      473   51.0%   29.2%   19.9%  \nWG Playoffs      261   52.9%   26.8%   20.3%  \nGroup 1          688   54.9%   27.5%   17.6%  \nGroup 2         1074   61.0%   23.3%   15.7%  \n\nGRAND SLAMS                                            \nF                 44   40.9%   40.9%   18.2%  \nSF                88   51.1%   29.5%   19.3%  \nQF               173   52.0%   27.2%   20.8%  \nR16              340   49.4%   30.3%   20.3%  \nR32              686   51.5%   30.2%   18.4%  \nR64             1368   49.0%   31.4%   19.6%  \nR128            2754   52.5%   29.4%   18.1%<\/pre>\n
There are good reasons why we believe Davis Cup five-setters to be so much more common. \u00a0At the World Group level, there are never many matches going on, so if two players reach a fifth set–especially if it is the day’s second rubber, after other ties have finished play for the day–it is global tennis news. \u00a0It’s easy to recall Dudi Sela<\/a>‘s five-set battles against Vasek Pospisil<\/a> and Kei Nishikori<\/a> in the 2011 and 2012 World Group playoffs, but how many of us paid a moment’s attention to Sela’s four-hour clash with Andrey Kuznetsov<\/a> in the first round of this year’s US Open?<\/p>\n
Further, the Davis Cup atmosphere leaves the impression that every match is gripping, even when it isn’t. \u00a0Janko Tipsarevic<\/a> beat Pospisil in straight sets yesterday, but thanks to the pair of tiebreaks and the electricity of the Serbian home crowd, we’ll remember that match differently than a typical 7-6 6-2 7-6 victory at a Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, fan enjoyment isn’t measured in sets. \u00a0There is plenty to get excited about–especially the weekend of World Group playoffs–even if upsets and five-set matches aren’t any more frequent than usual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s no denying that Davis Cup gives us some of the most dramatic moments on the men’s tennis calendar. \u00a0It’s easy, then, to fall prey to some mistaken conventional wisdom, such as the canard that upsets are much more common in the international competition. (In fact, upsets are only more common if Amir Weintraub is … Continue reading Are There More Five-Setters in Davis Cup?<\/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":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-davis-cup"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","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=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}