{"id":1363,"date":"2013-11-02T20:12:09","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T00:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1363"},"modified":"2013-11-02T20:12:09","modified_gmt":"2013-11-03T00:12:09","slug":"2013-world-tour-finals-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/02\/2013-world-tour-finals-forecast\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 World Tour Finals Forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"

The field for the World Tour Finals next week is set, and the round robin groups are determined. \u00a0That allows us to simulate the event, and–using my player ratings<\/a>–project the outcome. \u00a0(My ratings don’t yet incorporate Paris results. David Ferrer<\/a> and Roger Federer<\/a> may get mild boosts once their showings this week are considered.)<\/p>\n

Obviously, Rafael Nadal<\/a> is your favorite. \u00a0He has a substantial advantage in every category. He’s more likely than any other contender to progress through the round robin stage undefeated, to reach the final four, to play in the title match, and to win the championship.<\/p>\n

Not only is Nadal the best player in the field–even on hard courts–but he was also favored by the draw. \u00a0For all of Ferrer’s success in Bercy, he is a weaker hard-court player than Juan Martin del Potro<\/a>, who will play in Novak Djokovic<\/a>‘s half during the round robin stage. \u00a0Federer, despite his decline, is a still more of a hard-court threat than Tomas Berdych<\/a>–and Nadal drew Berdych. \u00a0The only disadvantage in Nadal’s fortunes is represented by Stanislas Wawrinka<\/a>, who is considerably more dangerous than Richard Gasquet<\/a>. \u00a0As the forecast below shows, Gasquet is very unlikely to be a factor here.<\/p>\n

Here is the complete forecast, showing each player’s chances of winning 3, 2, 1, or 0 matches in the round robin, along with reaching the semis, reaching the final, and winning the event:<\/p>\n

Player     3-0  2-1  1-2  0-3     SF      F      W  \nNadal      35%  44%  18%   3%  81.0%  49.2%  31.1%  \nDjokovic   25%  45%  26%   5%  70.8%  43.0%  25.0%  \nFerrer      8%  34%  42%  16%  42.4%  16.4%   6.0%  \nDel Potro  15%  41%  35%   9%  55.9%  29.4%  14.1%  \nFederer    11%  37%  39%  12%  48.4%  23.8%  10.7%  \nBerdych     7%  32%  43%  18%  39.6%  15.2%   5.4%  \nWawrinka    6%  31%  43%  19%  37.0%  13.7%   4.8%  \nGasquet     4%  22%  45%  29%  24.9%   9.3%   3.1%<\/pre>\n
As I mentioned above, while Nadal (and, to a lesser extent, the other three members of his group) got the fortunate draw, the impact isn’t that great. \u00a0Here is a “draw-neutral” forecast, which randomizes the group assignments with each simulation:<\/p>\n
Player        SF      F      W  \nNadal      77.9%  48.4%  30.2%  \nDjokovic   74.4%  43.8%  25.7%  \nFerrer     40.6%  16.0%   5.9%  \ndel Potro  57.3%  30.2%  14.5%  \nFederer    50.5%  24.4%  10.6%  \nBerdych    37.7%  14.6%   5.3%  \nWawrinka   32.4%  12.4%   4.3%  \nGasquet    29.3%  10.2%   3.4%<\/pre>\n
The biggest losers in the draw ceremony were Djokovic and Gasquet. \u00a0While Novak’s chances of reaching and winning the final are similar, the draw pushed his probability of surviving the round robin stage from 74.4% down to 70.8%. \u00a0The odds are against Gasquet in any scenario, but the specific group assignments determined today knocked his chances of surviving the first three matches from 29.3% down to 24.9%.<\/p>\n
The good news for Gasquet is that he’s a much, much better eight seed than Janko Tipsarevic<\/a> was last year<\/a>. \u00a0And with Richie at the end of what may be his career year<\/a>, it’s that much more likely that anyone in the field of eight could make things interesting this week.<\/p>\n
[update: Thanks to Jovan M. for catching some dodgy numbers in the first table. Due to a coding error, I showed each player’s chances of reaching each win total to be too low. \u00a0The SF\/F\/W columns in both tables are unchanged.]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The field for the World Tour Finals next week is set, and the round robin groups are determined. \u00a0That allows us to simulate the event, and–using my player ratings–project the outcome. \u00a0(My ratings don’t yet incorporate Paris results. David Ferrer and Roger Federer may get mild boosts once their showings this week are considered.) Obviously, … Continue reading 2013 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-1363","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\/1363","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=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}