{"id":3619,"date":"2019-07-09T12:41:51","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T12:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=3619"},"modified":"2019-07-09T12:41:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T12:41:51","slug":"introducing-elo-ratings-for-mixed-doubles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/09\/introducing-elo-ratings-for-mixed-doubles\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Elo Ratings for Mixed Doubles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scroll down for Wimbledon updates, including a forecast for the title match.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Andy Murray<\/a> and Serena Williams<\/a> pairing up in this year’s Wimbledon mixed doubles event, more eyes than ever are on tournament’s only mixed-gender draw. Mixed doubles is played just four times a year (plus the Olympics, the occasional exhibition, and the late Hopman Cup), so most partnerships are temporary, and it’s tough to get a sense of who is particularly good in the dual-gender format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s where math comes into play. Over the last few years, I’ve deployed a variation of the Elo rating algorithm for men’s doubles<\/a>. It treats each team as the average of the two members, and after every match, it adjusts each player’s rating based on the result and the quality of the opponent. Doubles Elo–D-Lo–is even better suited for mixed than for single-gender formats, because players rarely stick with the same partner. The main drawback of D-Lo for men’s or women’s doubles is that it doesn’t help us tease out the individual contributions of long-time teams such as Bob and Mike Bryan<\/a>. By contrast, mixed doubles draws often look like a game of musical chairs from one major to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rating game<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s jump right in. The Wimbledon mixed doubles draw consists of 56 teams. Here are the 10 highest-rated of those 112 players, as of the start of the fortnight:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rank  Player                 XD-Lo  \n1     Venus Williams          1855  \n2     Serena Williams         1847  \n3     Bethanie Mattek-Sands   1834  \n4     Jamie Murray            1809  \n5     Ivan Dodig              1793  \n6     Latisha Chan            1785  \n7     Bruno Soares            1776  \n8     Leander Paes            1771  \n9     Heather Watson          1770  \n10    Gabriela Dabrowski      1760<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Serena and Venus Williams<\/a> require a bit of an asterisk, since both are playing mixed for the first time after a long break. Venus last played at the 2016 Olympics, and Serena last competed in mixed at the 2012 French Open. Maybe they’re rusty. My XD-Lo algorithm doesn’t include any kind of adjustment for injuries or other layoffs, so it’s possible that we should expect them to perform at a lower level. On the other hand, they are among the greatest doubles players of all time, and players tend to age gracefully in doubles. Venus lost her opening match, but perhaps we should blame that on Francis Tiafoe<\/a> (XD-Lo: 1,494). The sisters will probably trade places at the top of the list once Wimbledon results are incorporated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murray’s rating is a decent but more pedestrian 1,648, so Murray\/Williams is not the best team in the field. But they’re close. The strongest pair is Jamie Murray<\/a> and Bethanie Mattek Sands<\/a>–3rd and 4th on the list above–followed by Ivan Dodig<\/a> and Latisha Chan, 5th and 6th on the individual list. Due to the vagaries of ATP and WTA doubles rankings and the resulting seedings, Dodig\/Chan entered the event as the narrow favorites, because they got a first-round bye and Murray\/Mattek-Sands did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are the top ten teams in the draw:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rank  Team                                XD-Lo  \n1     Bethanie Mattek-Sands\/Jamie Murray   1822  \n2     Ivan Dodig\/Latisha Chan              1789  \n3     Bruno Soares\/Nicole Melichar         1762  \n4     Serena Williams\/Andy Murray          1748  \n5     Gabriela Dabrowski\/Mate Pavic        1734  \n6     Leander Paes\/Samantha Stosur         1731  \n7     Heather Watson\/Henri Kontinen        1708  \n8     Venus Williams\/Frances Tiafoe        1674  \n9     Abigail Spears\/Marcelo Demoliner     1653  \n10    Neal Skupski\/Chan Hao-ching          1634<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The top five have survived (though Murray\/Mattek-Sands and Pavic\/Dabrowski will complete their second-round match this afternoon, leaving only four), and of the last 18 teams standing, only one other one–John Peers<\/a> and Shuai Zhang<\/a>–is rated above 1,600. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forecasting SerAndy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using my ratings, Murray\/Williams entered the tournament with a 9.8% chance of winning. That made them fourth favorite, behind Dodig\/Chan (17.1%), Murray\/Mattek-Sands (16.3%), and the big-serving duo<\/a> of Bruno Soares<\/a> and Nicole Melichar<\/a> (14.5%). I’ll update the forecast this evening, when the second round is finally complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murray\/Williams’s second-round match is against Fabrice Martin<\/a> and Racquel Atawo<\/a>. They are both excellent doubles players, though neither has excelled in mixed. Atawo, especially, has struggled. Her XD-Lo is 1,304, the third-lowest of anyone who has entered a mixed draw since 2012. (Shuai Peng<\/a> is rated 1,268, and Marc Lopez<\/a> owns last place with 1,252.) A player with no results at all enters the system with 1,500 points, so falling to 1,300 requires a lot of losing. The combined ratings translate into a 89% chance of a Murray\/Williams victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The challenge comes in the third round. Soares\/Melichar are the top seed, and they have already advanced to the round of 16, awaiting the winner of Murray\/Williams and Martin\/Atawo. Thus two of of the top four teams will likely play for a place in the quarter-finals, with Soares\/Melichar holding a narrow, 52% edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historical peaks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Generating these current ratings required amassing a lot of data, so it would be a waste to ignore the history of the mixed doubles format. Here are the top 25 female mixed doubles players, ranked by their peak XD-Lo ratings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rank  Player                   Peak  \n1     Billie Jean King         2043  \n2     Greer Stevens            2035  \n3     Margaret Court           2015  \n4     Rosie Casals             2000  \n5     Martina Navratilova      1998  \n6     Helena Sukova            1991  \n7     Anne Smith               1989  \n8     Betty Stove              1985  \n9     Jana Novotna             1977  \n10    Martina Hingis           1964  \n11    Wendy Turnbull           1956  \n12    Kathy Jordan             1948  \n13    Elizabeth Smylie         1947  \n14    Arantxa Sanchez Vicario  1946  \n15    Serena Williams          1942  \n16    Venus Williams           1937  \n17    Francoise Durr           1934  \n18    Jo Durie                 1929  \n19    Kristina Mladenovic      1922  \n20    Zina Garrison            1901  \n21    Samantha Stosur          1898  \n22    Larisa Neiland           1891  \n23    Lindsay Davenport        1888  \n24    Victoria Azarenka        1887  \n25    Natasha Zvereva          1886 <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Venus really can’t catch a break. She’s one of the best players of all time, and Serena is always just a little bit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the top 25 men:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rank  Player               Peak XD-Lo  \n1     Owen Davidson              2043  \n2     Bob Hewitt                 2042  \n3     Marty Riessen              2016  \n4     Todd Woodbridge            2000  \n5     Frew McMillan              1999  \n6     Kevin Curren               1997  \n7     Jim Pugh                   1995  \n8     Ilie Nastase               1975  \n9     Tony Roche                 1962  \n10    Bob Bryan                  1949  \n11    Rick Leach                 1938  \n12    Mahesh Bhupathi            1933  \n13    Mark Woodforde             1929  \n14    Justin Gimelstob           1929  \n15    Max Mirnyi                 1926  \n16    John Lloyd                 1922  \n17    Emilio Sanchez             1918  \n18    Ken Flach                  1909  \n19    Jeremy Bates               1908  \n20    John Fitzgerald            1906  \n21    Cyril Suk                  1902  \n22    Wayne Black                1889  \n23    Dick Stockton              1881  \n24    Jean-Claude Barclay        1879  \n25    Mike Bryan                 1875<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Owen Davidson<\/a> won eight mixed slams with Billie Jean King<\/a>, plus three more with other partners. Bob Hewitt<\/a> won six, spanning 18 years from 1961 to 1979. (We can’t erase his accomplishments from the history books, but any mention of Hewitt comes with the caveat that he is a convicted rapist who has since been expelled from the International Tennis Hall of Fame.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is interesting to see two famous pairs represented on the men’s list. Bob Bryan<\/a> ranks 10th to Mike’s 25th, and Todd Woodbridge<\/a> comes in 4th to Mark Woodforde<\/a>\u2019s 13th. We probably can’t conclude from mixed doubles results that one member of the team was a superior men’s doubles player, but it is one of the few data points that allows us to compare these partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ignominious Spaniards<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, I can’t spend this much time with mixed doubles ratings without revisiting the case of David Marrero<\/a>. You may recall the 2016 Australian Open, when Marrero’s first-round match with Lara Arruabarrena<\/a> triggered “suspicious betting patterns.” As I wrote at the time<\/a>, the most suspicious thing about it was that Marrero–who was terrible at mixed doubles and admitted that he played differently with a woman across the net–could still find a partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He entered that match with an XD-Lo rating of 1,349–the worst of any man in the draw, though Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova<\/a> was a few points lower–and left it at 1,342. He played his last mixed doubles match at Wimbledon that year, and–surprise!–he lost. One hopes he’ll stick to men’s doubles for the remainder of his career, sticking with an XD-Lo rating of 1,326.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marrero’s only saving grace is that he’s better than his compatriot Marc Lopez. Lopez has been active in mixed doubles more recently, entering the US Open last year with Arruabarrena. After that loss, he fell to his current rating of 1,252, the lowest mark recorded in the Open Era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fortunately for us, this year’s Wimbledon draw includes both Williams sisters, both Murray brothers, a healthy Mattek-Sands … and very few players as helpless in the mixed doubles format as Marrero or Lopez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
—<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Update: <\/strong>Murray\/Williams won their second-rounder, setting up the final 16. Mixed doubles isn’t the top scheduling priority, so it didn’t exactly work that way–by the time Muzzerena advanced, two other teams had already secured places in the quarter-finals. Ignoring those for the moment, here is the last-16 forecast:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Team                      QF     SF      F      W  \nSoares\/Melichar        52.5%  44.5%  33.2%  18.8%  \nMurray\/Williams        47.5%  39.7%  29.0%  15.8%  \nMiddelkoop\/Yang        55.5%   9.5%   3.6%   0.8%  \nDaniell\/Brady          44.5%   6.3%   2.1%   0.4%  \nPeers\/Zhang            61.6%  36.9%  13.8%   5.2%  \nLindstedt\/Ostapenko    38.4%  18.7%   5.2%   1.5%  \nSkugor\/Olaru           56.2%  26.3%   8.3%   2.6%  \nMektic\/Rosolska        43.8%  18.0%   4.8%   1.3%  \n                                                   \nPlayer                    QF     SF      F      W  \nKoolhof\/Peschke        42.6%  10.1%   2.4%   0.6%  \nQureshi\/Kichenok       57.4%  16.7%   4.9%   1.5%  \nSitak\/Siegemund        27.4%  16.0%   5.3%   1.8%  \nPavic\/Dabrowski        72.6%  57.2%  30.8%  17.5%  \nDodig\/Chan             75.9%  64.6%  44.1%  28.1%  \nRoger-Vasselin\/Klepac  24.1%  15.5%   6.6%   2.5%  \nHoyt\/Silva             54.1%  11.3%   3.5%   1.0%  \nVliegen\/Zheng          45.9%   8.6%   2.5%   0.6% <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The two teams already in the quarters are Skugor\/Olaru and Hoyt\/Silva. Since both of their matches were close to 50\/50, you can roughly double their odds, and the odds of the other teams are only a tiny bit less. The remaining six third-round matches are scheduled for Wednesday, and I’ll try to update again when those are in the books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Update 2: <\/strong>Murray\/Williams are out, so the number of people interested in mixed doubles has fallen from double digits back to the typical level of single digits. The departure of the singles stars also leaves one clear favorite in each half. Here is the updated forecast:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Team                    SF      F      W  \nSoares\/Melichar      83.4%  64.3%  36.4%  \nMiddelkoop\/Yang      16.6%   6.7%   1.5%  \nLindstedt\/Ostapenko  46.0%  12.6%   3.7%  \nSkugor\/Olaru         54.0%  16.4%   5.2%  \nKoolhof\/Peschke      37.5%   7.3%   1.8%  \nSitak\/Siegemund      62.5%  17.2%   6.0%  \nDodig\/Chan           84.4%  68.3%  43.3%  \nHoyt\/Silva           15.6%   7.2%   2.0%<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
All four quarter-finals are scheduled for Thursday, so I’ll post another update tomorrow evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Update 3: <\/strong>We’re down to four teams. Of the Elo favorites in the quarter-finals, only Dodig\/Chan survived, leaving them as the overwhelming pick to take the title. Here’s the full forecast:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Team                     F      W  \nMiddelkoop\/Yang      42.3%   8.2%  \nLindstedt\/Ostapenko  57.7%  14.1%  \nKoolhof\/Peschke      14.1%   6.3%  \nDodig\/Chan           85.9%  71.4% <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Update 4: <\/strong>Both favorites won in Friday’s semi-finals, so we’ve got a final between Lindstedt\/Ostapenko and Dodig\/Chan. The first team didn’t get an opening-round bye, so they won one more match to get here. They also have a better story, since Ostapenko keeps hitting her partner in the head. Dodig\/Chan entered as the 8th seeds, despite being the second-best team according to XD-Lo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consequently, Dodig\/Chan get the edge here, with an 81% of winning the 2019 Wimbledon Mixed Doubles title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scroll down for Wimbledon updates, including a forecast for the title match. With Andy Murray and Serena Williams pairing up in this year’s Wimbledon mixed doubles event, more eyes than ever are on tournament’s only mixed-gender draw. Mixed doubles is played just four times a year (plus the Olympics, the occasional exhibition, and the late … Continue reading Introducing Elo Ratings for Mixed Doubles<\/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":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,32,53,72,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doubles","category-elo-ratings","category-history","category-mixed-doubles","category-wimbledon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619","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=3619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}