{"id":2059,"date":"2016-11-16T10:27:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T10:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=2059"},"modified":"2016-11-16T10:27:50","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T10:27:50","slug":"dominic-thiem-and-the-best-deciding-sets-seasons-in-atp-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/16\/dominic-thiem-and-the-best-deciding-sets-seasons-in-atp-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominic Thiem and the Best Deciding-Sets Seasons in ATP History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian translation at settesei.it<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday at the ATP World Tour Finals, Dominic Thiem<\/a> won a three-set match against Gael Monfils<\/a>, his 22nd deciding-set victory of 2016. Despite losing to Novak Djokovic<\/a> in three sets on Sunday, Thiem is enjoying one of the best deciding-set seasons in ATP history.<\/p>\n

The loss to Djokovic was only Thiem’s\u00a0third<\/em> in 25 deciding sets this year<\/a>. He began the season with 14 consecutive deciding-set wins, including back-to-back third-set tiebreaks in Buenos Aires against Rafael Nadal<\/a> and Nicolas Almagro<\/a>. He strung together another seven straight between May and September, including a grass-court upset of Roger Federer<\/a>\u00a0in Stuttgart.<\/p>\n

Among players who contested\u00a0at least 20 deciding sets in a season, Thiem’s winning percentage of 88% is the fifth-best record in the ATP’s modern era. Not every player reaches the 20-decider threshold–some, like Djokovic, avoid it by winning most of their matches in straight sets–but it’s no statistical oddity. There have been nearly 1,000 player-seasons with at least 20 deciders since the 1970s, including Andy Murray<\/a>\u2019s 17-6 record<\/a> in 2016.<\/p>\n

Outstanding single-season deciding-set records don’t guarantee long-term success. Thiem appears on this list amid a mix of famous and lesser-known names, from Federer to Onny Parun<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Player           Year  Deciders  Wins  Win Perc  \nMario Ancic      2006        24    22     91.7%  \nIlie Nastase     1971        23    21     91.3%  \nTom Okker        1974        20    18     90.0%  \nRoger Federer    2006        20    18     90.0%  \nDominic Thiem    2016        25    22     88.0%  \nKei Nishikori    2014        24    21     87.5%  \nStan Smith       1972        22    19     86.4%  \nJoakim Nystrom   1984        22    19     86.4%  \nGuillermo Vilas  1977        29    25     86.2%  \nOnny Parun       1975        34    29     85.3%<\/pre>\n
Parun’s 1975 season<\/a> is particularly notable, as no other player has won so many deciding sets in a single year. In 1996, Yevgeny Kafelnikov<\/a> came close, winning 28. One gets the idea he was trying: He played 105 matches<\/a> that year, 40 of which<\/a> went the distance. In more recent years, big names have played more limited schedules, and Thiem is the only active player to win at least 22 deciding sets in a single season. Dmitry Tursunov<\/a> gave it a shot in 2006, playing 37 deciders<\/a>, but he won only 20.<\/p>\n
Like so many tennis stats, this one can be fluky. For every Kei Nishikori<\/a>–who has won an incredible 77% of deciding sets<\/a> at tour level, including some record-setting streaks-<\/a>-there is a Grigor Dimitrov<\/a>, who won 18 of 22 deciding sets<\/a> in 2014, then barely broke even the following year, claiming only 11 of 21<\/a>. Of the 27 players who have posted a 20-decider, 80% winning percentage season, not a single one\u00a0managed an 80% winning percentage the following year.<\/p>\n
For all of his talents, Thiem probably won’t follow in Nishikori’s footsteps. The Austrian won only half of his 40 deciding sets<\/a> before this season. But a more modest\u00a0record in these matches is hardly insurmountable.\u00a0In 1996, Pete Sampras<\/a> put together his best deciding-sets record, winning 83% of his 24 deciders<\/a>. The following year, his record fell to a pedestrian 56%<\/a>, which didn’t keep him from winning two Grand Slams and finishing the season at the top of the rankings.<\/p>\n
If Thiem is to continue climbing the rankings, he’ll be better off taking Djokovic’s path, winning most of his deciding sets, but playing them much less frequently. In the last decade, Novak has played 20 deciding sets in a season only three times, and he has only gone the distance 10 times in 2016. Even Nishikori would have to agree: Djokovic’s method is working just fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Italian translation at settesei.it Yesterday at the ATP World Tour Finals, Dominic Thiem won a three-set match against Gael Monfils, his 22nd deciding-set victory of 2016. Despite losing to Novak Djokovic in three sets on Sunday, Thiem is enjoying one of the best deciding-set seasons in ATP history. The loss to Djokovic was only Thiem’s\u00a0third … Continue reading Dominic Thiem and the Best Deciding-Sets Seasons in ATP History<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddities","category-records"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059","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=2059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}