{"id":2068,"date":"2016-11-22T13:13:11","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T13:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=2068"},"modified":"2016-11-22T13:13:11","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T13:13:11","slug":"andy-murray-and-the-longest-break-per-match-streaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/22\/andy-murray-and-the-longest-break-per-match-streaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Murray and the Longest Break-Per-Match Streaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Among Andy Murray<\/a>\u2019s many accomplishments in 2016, he achieved an impressive–though obscure–feat. In each one of his 87 matches, he broke serve at least once. He has broken at least once per match\u00a0since failing to do so against\u00a0Roger Federer<\/a> in the 2015 Cincinnati semifinals, for an active streak of 107 matches<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where does that place him among the greats of men’s tennis? Just how unusual is it to break serve in every match for an entire season? As is the case with too many tennis statistics, we don’t know. Someone finds an impressive-sounding stat, and that’s the end of the story. We can’t always fix that, but in this case, we can add some context to Murray’s accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Full break-per-match seasons<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve collected break stats for matches back to 1991, though we need to keep in mind that there are some mistakes in the 1990s data. Further, Davis Cup presents a problem, as it is excluded entirely. Sometimes we can tell from the scoreline that a player broke serve–as with all of Murray’s Davis Cup matches this year–but often we cannot.\u00a0I’ll have more to say about that in specific cases below.<\/p>\n

Since 1991, there have been at least 14, and perhaps as many as 20 instances in which a player broke serve in every match of a season. (Minimum 40 tour-level matches, and I’ve excluded retirements when calculating both minimums and the streaks themselves.) I say “instances” because several players–Andre Agassi<\/a>, Lleyton Hewitt<\/a>, Rafael Nadal<\/a>, and Nikolay Davydenko<\/a>–pulled it\u00a0off more than once. Hewitt’s 2001 season had the most matches–95–of any of them, followed by Murray’s 2016 and Nadal’s 2005, at 87 each.<\/p>\n

Here is the complete list:<\/p>\n

Player                  Season  Matches  (Unsure)  \nAndy Murray               2016       87         0  \nJuan Monaco               2014       41         0  \nNovak Djokovic            2013       83         0  \nRafael Nadal              2010       79         0  \nNikolay Davydenko         2008       73         0  \nNikolay Davydenko         2007       82         0  \nLleyton Hewitt            2006       46         0  \nRafael Nadal              2005       87         0  \nDavid Nalbandian          2005       63         0  \nAndre Agassi              2003       55         0  \nLleyton Hewitt            2001       95         0  \nLleyton Hewitt            2000       76         1  \nHernan Gumy               1997       53         1  \nAlex Corretja             1997       67         0  \nAndre Agassi              1995       81         0  \nMagnus Gustafsson         1994       40         0  \nCarlos Costa              1992       60         0  \nGuillermo Perez Roldan    1991       40         2  \nIvan Lendl                1991       72         0  \nBoris Becker              1991       61         2<\/pre>\n
(The “Unsure” column indicates how many matches are missing stats and may not have included a break of serve.)<\/p>\n
Several more players came close. Federer broke serve in all but one match in three separate seasons. Agassi, Novak Djokovic<\/a>, David Ferrer<\/a>, and Thomas Muster<\/a> all did so twice.<\/p>\n
We shouldn’t be surprised that so many players–especially the greats–have broken so often. It’s very rare to win a match without breaking serve: Of the 2,570 ATP tour-level matches from this season for which I have match stats, the winner broke serve in all but 30 of them. Even losers break serve in more than two out of every three matches: In 2016, the loser broke serve in 1,843 of the 2,570 matches, 72% of the time.<\/p>\n
Still, there are enough dominant servers on tour that it is difficult to last an entire season without being shut out of the break column. In 1995,\u00a0Muster broke serve in 99 matches, but failed to do so when he drew the big-serving (and completely unheralded) qualifier TJ Middleton<\/a> on the carpet in St. Petersburg. Murray’s current streak is all the more impressive because, in his 107 matches, he has faced Milos Raonic<\/a> six times, John Isner<\/a> four times, Kevin Anderson<\/a> and Nick Kyrgios<\/a> twice each, and Ivo Karlovic<\/a> once. Given the chance, he probably would’ve broken TJ Middleton as well.<\/p>\n
Break-per-match streaks<\/strong><\/p>\n
For Murray to surpass the longest streaks in this category, it will take several more months of high-quality returning. As we saw above, Davydenko and Hewitt may have gone two full years breaking serve in every match they played. In both cases, the lack of ITF data makes their records unclear, but regardless of those details, Davydenko has set an extremely high bar.<\/p>\n
Here are all the break-per-match streaks of 100 or more matches since 2000:<\/p>\n
Player             Start   End  Streak  Possible  \nNikolay Davydenko   2006  2009     159       182  \nRafael Nadal        2004  2006     156            \nRafael Nadal        2009  2011     146            \nAndre Agassi        2002  2004     143            \nNovak Djokovic      2012  2014     127            \nLleyton Hewitt      1999  2002     124       230  \nAndy Murray         2015  2016     107         \u221e  \nDavid Nalbandian    2004  2006     104<\/pre>\n
This season, Murray didn’t play his 53rd match until August at the Olympics; he’ll need to break serve at least once in that many matches to reach the top of this list.<\/p>\n
The exact length of Davydenko’s streak hinges on his 2008 Davis Cup semifinal match against Juan Martin del Potro<\/a>, which he lost in straight sets. If he broke serve in that match, his streak stretched into early 2009, spanning 182 matches.<\/p>\n
(Edit: Thanks to Andrew Moss, we now know that Davydenko did break serve in that match, according to this contemporaneous report<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n
Hewitt’s best streak is even more unclear. I don’t have break stats for his 6-3 6-3 loss to Max Mirnyi<\/a> at the 2000 Olympics. If he didn’t break Mirnyi–a definite possibility, given The Beast’s serving prowess–the streak is “only” 124 matches. If he did, the streak is at least 187, and the exact length depends on more unknowns, including both of his singles matches in the 1999 Davis Cup final against France.<\/p>\n
(Edit #2! Thanks to Carl, we know that Hewitt broke Mirnyi, so his streak is at least 187 matches. The next issue is his last match of the 1999 season, a dead rubber against Sebastian Grosjean in that year’s Davis Cup final. Hewitt lost 6-4 6-3, but Grosjean was hardly an overpowering server. Hewitt lost his previous Davis Cup match in straight sets as well, a live rubber against Cedric Pioline, and\u00a0a match report establishes that Hewitt broke serve. If he broke Grosjean, the streak stretches back to April 1999, and numbers the full 230 matches.)<\/em><\/p>\n
In any case, Murray has already earned himself a place among the greatest returners in modern tennis. In 2017, we’ll see just how far he can climb this list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Italian translation at settesei.it Among Andy Murray\u2019s many accomplishments in 2016, he achieved an impressive–though obscure–feat. In each one of his 87 matches, he broke serve at least once. He has broken at least once per match\u00a0since failing to do so against\u00a0Roger Federer in the 2015 Cincinnati semifinals, for an active streak of 107 matches. … Continue reading Andy Murray and the Longest Break-Per-Match Streaks<\/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":[93,97,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-records","category-return-stats","category-streaks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068","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=2068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}