{"id":1492,"date":"2014-01-10T16:47:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T21:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1492"},"modified":"2014-01-10T16:47:44","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T21:47:44","slug":"winners-and-losers-in-the-2014-australian-open-mens-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/10\/winners-and-losers-in-the-2014-australian-open-mens-draw\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners and Losers in the 2014 Australian Open Men’s Draw"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every draw carries with it plenty of luck, but even by Grand Slam standards, this year’s Australian Open men’s singles draw seems a bit lopsided. \u00a0The top half makes possible a Rafael Nadal<\/a>–Roger Federer<\/a> semifinal, at least if Federer gets past Andy Murray<\/a> and Nadal beats the likes of Bernard Tomic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Novak Djokovic<\/a>\u00a0is seeded below Nadal, he gets the benefit of a projected semifinal matchup with David Ferrer<\/a>. \u00a0A more substantial challenge may arise one round earlier, as a possible quarterfinal opponent is Stanislas Wwrinka<\/a>, who took Djokovic to a fifth set twice in the last four Grand Slams.<\/p>\n

As I’ve done in the past<\/a>, let’s quantify each player’s draw luck. \u00a0Using my forecast<\/a>, combined with a forecast generated by randomizing the bracket<\/a>, we can see who were the biggest winners and losers in yesterday’s draw ceremony.<\/p>\n

The algorithmic approach is most useful in confirming our suspicions about the draw luck of the top players. \u00a0Djokovic and Ferrer, the top seeds in the bottom half, definitely came out ahead. \u00a0While Djokovic had a respectable 28.0% chance of winning the tournament in the randomized projection, he has a 33.7% chance given the way the draw turned out. \u00a0In turns of expected ranking points, the draw gave him a 10.7% boost, from an expectation of 747 points to one of 827 points. \u00a0In percentage terms, Ferrer’s expectation jumped even more, from 312 to 368 (18.0%).<\/p>\n

Nadal, however, had the worst draw luck of the top ten seeds. \u00a0Before the bracket was arranged, he had a 30.7% chance of winning the title, with an expectation of 763 ranking points. \u00a0Once the draw was set, his title chances fell to 24.9% and his point expectation dropped to 662. \u00a0No one else in the top ten lost more than 7% of their expected ranking points on draw day; Nadal lost 13%.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t take an algorithm, though, to identify the draw’s worst losers. \u00a0They’re placed where you’ll always find them: right next to the top two seeds. \u00a0In the randomized projection, Tomic had a 58% chance of winning his first-round match and a 27% chance of reaching the third round. \u00a0In reality, though, he’ll play Nadal first. \u00a0His slight chance of earning a place in the second round gives him an expectation of 29 ranking points (10 of which he earns simply by showing up). \u00a0In the random projection, his ranking point expectation was 75.<\/p>\n

Lukas Lacko<\/a>, the unlucky man who will play Djokovic in the first round, didn’t suffer quite so much, if only because he didn’t have as high of expectations in the first place. \u00a0Before the draw, he could expect 48 ranking points and a 15% chance of reaching the third round. \u00a0Now, his projection is a mere 24 ranking points, one of the worst in the entire draw.<\/p>\n

The luckiest players are always those who had little chance of progressing far in the draw, but managed to draw someone equally inept. \u00a0At the Australian Open, the four luckiest guys have yet to be identified: all are qualifiers. \u00a0The luckiest man of all will be the one who is placed in the topmost qualifying spot, opposite Lucas Pouille<\/a>. \u00a0At this stage, my rating system doesn’t think much of the Frenchman, so it is likely that the qualifier will be the heavy favorite entering that match.<\/p>\n

In the randomized projection, each qualifier has a 29% chance of winning his first match and a 6% chance of winning his second, for a weighted average of 32 ranking points. \u00a0The man who plays Pouille, however, will enter the field with an expectation of 55 ranking points. \u00a0Other qualifiers with nearly the same happy outcome will be those who draw Federico Delbonis<\/a>, Julian Reister<\/a>, and Jan Hajek<\/a> in the opening round.<\/p>\n

Here are the pre-draw and post-draw expected ranking points of the men’s seeds, along with the percentage of pre-draw points they gained or lost:<\/p>\n

Player                 Seed  Pre  Post  Change  \nRafael Nadal           1     763   662  -13.2%  \nNovak Djokovic         2     747   827   10.7%  \nDavid Ferrer           3     312   368   18.0%  \nAndy Murray            4     473   488    3.1%  \nJuan Martin Del Potro  5     421   393   -6.6%  \nRoger Federer          6     411   397   -3.4%  \nTomas Berdych          7     264   317   20.2%  \nStanislas Wawrinka     8     290   279   -3.9%  \n\nPlayer                 Seed  Pre  Post  Change\nRichard Gasquet        9     186   186    0.1%  \nJo Wilfried Tsonga     10    151   187   23.8%  \nMilos Raonic           11    223   234    5.0%  \nTommy Haas             12    207   222    7.5%  \nJohn Isner             13    176   196   11.2%  \nMikhail Youzhny        14    190   193    1.5%  \nFabio Fognini          15    101    81  -19.3%  \nKei Nishikori          16    172   135  -21.6%  \n\nPlayer                 Seed  Pre  Post  Change\nTommy Robredo          17     71    61  -13.4%  \nGilles Simon           18    116    95  -18.3%  \nKevin Anderson         19     80   107   33.9%  \nJerzy Janowicz         20     99   154   55.3%  \nPhilipp Kohlschreiber  21    125   132    6.2%  \nGrigor Dimitrov        22    136   122  -10.1%  \nErnests Gulbis         23    125   107  -14.1%  \nAndreas Seppi          24     94    49  -47.8%  \n\nPlayer                 Seed  Pre  Post  Change\nGael Monfils           25    147   101  -31.4%  \nFeliciano Lopez        26    100    80  -20.7%  \nBenoit Paire           27     94    89   -5.5%  \nVasek Pospisil         28     82    81   -0.9%  \nJeremy Chardy          29    111   126   13.7%  \nDmitry Tursunov        30    101    80  -21.0%  \nFernando Verdasco      31    106   105   -0.8%  \nIvan Dodig             32    104   106    1.8%<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every draw carries with it plenty of luck, but even by Grand Slam standards, this year’s Australian Open men’s singles draw seems a bit lopsided. \u00a0The top half makes possible a Rafael Nadal–Roger Federer semifinal, at least if Federer gets past Andy Murray and Nadal beats the likes of Bernard Tomic. While Novak Djokovic\u00a0is seeded … Continue reading Winners and Losers in the 2014 Australian Open Men’s Draw<\/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":[9,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australian-open","category-forecasting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492","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=1492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}