{"id":1384,"date":"2013-11-06T16:46:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T21:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2013-11-06T16:46:50","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T21:46:50","slug":"juan-martin-del-potro-and-return-of-serve-gaps-updated-wtforecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/06\/juan-martin-del-potro-and-return-of-serve-gaps-updated-wtforecast\/","title":{"rendered":"Juan Martin del Potro and Return of Serve Gaps (+Updated WTForecast)"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Juan Martin del Potro<\/a> isn’t known for his return of serve, it isn’t a major hole in his game. \u00a0This year<\/a>, he has won 38.5% of return points, worse than most of the top 10, but better than Stanislas Wawrinka<\/a>, Jo Wilfried Tsonga<\/a>, and about 30 other members of the ATP top 50.<\/p>\n

Where del Potro underwhelms is more specific. \u00a0Despite effectively returning second serves, he’s far worse than average against first serves. \u00a0In 2013, his 28.4% of first-serve-return points won ranked him 36th among the top 50, only 0.1% above Milos Raonic<\/a> and far behind every other member of the top 10. \u00a0Yet Delpo is in the top ten when it comes to second-serve-return points.<\/p>\n

Even for a big server like del Potro, it’s difficult to reach the top five without an effective return game. \u00a0While he breaks serve less often than any other World Tour Finals qualifier this year, he’s within a percentage point of Wawrinka, Tomas Berdych<\/a>, and Roger Federer<\/a>, so it’s clear that statistically, the Argentine is far from being a John Isner<\/a>-style one-trick pony.<\/p>\n

What sets him apart, then, is the enormous gap between first- and second-serve-return effectiveness. \u00a0To illustrate the difference, I calculated the ratio of second-serve-return points to first-serve-return points for all eight men in London this week, plus Andy Murray<\/a>. \u00a0Delpo is third among all players with 40 or more tour-level matches this year, while the bottom five names on this list are all in the opposite third of ATP regulars.<\/p>\n

Player                  v1W%   v2W%  v2\/v1  \nJuan Martin Del Potro  28.4%  53.4%   1.88  \nTomas Berdych          30.6%  54.6%   1.79  \nRichard Gasquet        30.5%  54.2%   1.78  \nStanislas Wawrinka     30.7%  50.3%   1.64  \nDavid Ferrer           34.5%  56.4%   1.63  \nAndy Murray            33.7%  54.7%   1.62  \nRoger Federer          32.9%  51.6%   1.57  \nNovak Djokovic         35.5%  55.4%   1.56  \nRafael Nadal           35.0%  54.6%   1.56<\/pre>\n
An aspect–or perhaps a cause–of del Potro’s first-serve-return woes is his knack for letting aces sail by him. \u00a0In 2013, 10.5% of his opponents’ first serves were aces, more than any other member of the top 50. \u00a0Controlling for opponent serve quality<\/a> (he did play Isner twice this year), he “improves” to third-worst, ahead of Dmitry Tursunov<\/a> and Feliciano Lopez<\/a>. \u00a0After this adjustment, we discover that Delpo allowed 22% more aces than an average player would have against the same set of opponents.<\/p>\n
When aces are removed from the calculation, del Potro still stands out in comparison to other top players, but he is no longer quite so extreme. \u00a0His ratio of second-serve-return points won to first-serve-return points won\u00a0ignoring aces<\/em> is 1.55, just a bit higher than Berdych’s 1.53, Richard Gasquet<\/a>‘s 1.52, and David Ferrer<\/a>‘s 1.51.<\/p>\n
If Delpo gets a racquet on the ball, then, he’s not that much less effective against first offerings than his London competitors. \u00a0But he doesn’t get his racquet on as many balls, and however we might manipulate the numbers for fun and profit, the Argentine doesn’t have the option to ignore aces.<\/p>\n
So, how much does a poor first-serve return matter? \u00a0As with Murray’s infamous second serve, it’s tough to say. \u00a0In both cases, the weakness doesn’t keep its possessor from winning big matches against the game’s best, but it might be what is preventing him from ascending from the very top of the rankings.<\/p>\n
Were del Potro to improve his first-serve return to the level of the next-worst London participant, Gasquet, it would mean a jump this year from 28.3% of first-serve-return points won to 30.5%. \u00a0That would bump up his overall return points won to just short of 40%, and improve his break percentage from its current middle-of-the-pack 23.8% to a nearly-top-ten 26.0%, in the neighborhood of Berdych and Federer.<\/p>\n
An improvement of that nature would make Delpo a much bigger factor at the very top of the men’s game. \u00a0But like Murray’s second serve, it isn’t that easy. \u00a0There’s more than one route to the top–del Potro’s game isn’t so unbalanced to keep him from beating the best players in the world, so perhaps he could more easily improve, say, his second serve than his first-serve return. \u00a0It’s tough to tell from the sideline or, especially, the statsheet.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, if you’re supporting del Potro tomorrow against Novak Djokovic<\/a>, you might consider becoming one of those boorish fans that cheers every first-serve miss off of Novak’s racquet. \u00a0Lots of Djokovic second serves might be Delpo’s best path to victory.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
London forecast:\u00a0<\/strong>With Berdych’s win today, all eight players remain in contention. \u00a0A lot hinges on Friday’s match between Wawrinka and Ferrer, while we won’t gain much clarity on Group B until tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Player     3-0  2-1  1-2  0-3       SF      F      W  \nNadal      70%  30%   0%   0%    98.4%  57.0%  34.1%  \nDjokovic   42%  46%  11%   0%    88.3%  54.9%  30.9%  \nFerrer      0%   0%  54%  46%    14.8%   5.5%   2.0%  \nDel Potro  22%  50%  28%   0%    71.6%  36.3%  16.4%  \nFederer     0%  30%  51%  20%    29.9%  13.1%   5.9%  \nBerdych     0%  30%  70%   0%    36.0%  12.4%   4.0%  \nWawrinka    0%  46%  54%   0%    50.9%  17.4%   5.6%  \nGasquet     0%  10%  44%  45%    10.1%   3.2%   1.0%<\/pre>\n
For the pre-tournament forecast, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Berdych d. Ferrer:\u00a0<\/strong>Click here<\/a> for detailed serve, return, and shot-by-shot stats for today’s evening match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While Juan Martin del Potro isn’t known for his return of serve, it isn’t a major hole in his game. \u00a0This year, he has won 38.5% of return points, worse than most of the top 10, but better than Stanislas Wawrinka, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, and about 30 other members of the ATP top 50. Where … Continue reading Juan Martin del Potro and Return of Serve Gaps (+Updated WTForecast)<\/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":[105,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serve-statistics","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\/1384","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=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}