{"id":4246,"date":"2021-03-04T09:28:01","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T09:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=4246"},"modified":"2021-03-04T09:28:01","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T09:28:01","slug":"expected-points-march-4-a-trio-of-upsets-shift-the-rotterdam-balance-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/04\/expected-points-march-4-a-trio-of-upsets-shift-the-rotterdam-balance-of-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Expected Points, March 4: A Trio of Upsets Shift the Rotterdam Balance of Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Expected Points<\/strong>, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Up today: Garbine Muguruza and Aryna Sabalenka deliver a high-quality match, all the remaining seeds in the Rotterdam top half are gone, and Sumit Nagal goes where few Indians have gone before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scroll down for a transcript.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"castos-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/601b036c283f30-50244448.castos.com\/player\/375507\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can subscribe on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/expected-points\/id1552064903\">iTunes<\/a>, Spotify, Stitcher, and elsewhere in the podcast universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Music: <a href=\"http:\/\/dig.ccmixter.org\/files\/admiralbob77\/63197\">Love is the Chase<\/a> by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2021. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Ft: Apoxode<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Expected Points podcast is still a work in progress, so please let me know what you think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> <iframe allow=\"autoplay *; encrypted-media *; fullscreen *\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"450\" style=\"width:100%;max-width:660px;overflow:hidden;background:transparent;\" sandbox=\"allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.podcasts.apple.com\/gb\/podcast\/expected-points\/id1552064903\"> <\/p><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rough transcript of today&#8217;s episode:<\/p>\n\n\n<p>The first number is 1.0, the ratio of winners to unforced errors recorded by both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=GarbineMuguruza\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Garbine Muguruza<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=ArynaSabalenka\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> according to the official broadcast stats of yesterday\u2019s monumental second-round clash in Doha. The 1.0 threshold of hitting as many or more winners than unforced errors is often cited as a goal, but in reality, women only hit that mark in about one-quarter of matches. Nine out of ten times, it\u2019s enough to win. Match Charting Project stats for the battle painted an even brighter picture, counting 80 winners in the three setter, with positive ratios of 37 to 30 for Muguruza and 43 to 38 for Sabalenka. The 22-year-old Belarussian\u2019s level dropped occasionally, including in the last several games of the match, but she played well enough to beat just about anyone else, and she can largely blame her early exit on a lousy draw and an in-form opponent.<\/p>\n<p>Our second number is 75%. 75% is the probability that the winner in Rotterdam this week will come from the bottom half of the draw, per the Tennis Abstract tournament forecast entering Thursday\u2019s play. A few days ago, the top half of the bracket looked like the good one, with a pre-tournament likelihood of 59.3% that it would produce the winner. On Wednesday, it was gutted, with all three remaining seeds losing. Most prominent was pre-tournament favorite <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=DaniilMedvedev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Daniil Medvedev<\/a>, who fell to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=DusanLajovic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dusan Lajovic<\/a> to lose consecutive matches for the first time since September, and who must now wait at least one more week to knock <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=RafaelNadal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rafael Nadal<\/a> out of the number two spot in the rankings. Also upset were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=RobertoBautistaAgut\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Roberto Bautista Agut<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=AlexanderZverev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alexander Zverev<\/a>, who somehow allowed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=AlexanderBublik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alexander Bublik<\/a> to break his serve four times. The best remaining hope is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=BornaCoric\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Borna Coric<\/a>, whose 7% chance of winning pales next to bottom-half favorites <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=AndreyRublev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Andrey Rublev<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=StefanosTsitsipas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stefanos Tsitsipas<\/a>, who make up the majority of their section\u2019s 75% chance, at 39% and 26%, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s third and final number is 49, the number of years since an Indian player has reached a quarter-final on South American clay. 150th-ranked qualifier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=SumitNagal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sumit Nagal<\/a> did just that last night in Buenos Aires, ousting 2nd seed Cristian Garin in just his third career tour-level event on dirt. The last time an Indian player made the final eight on South American clay was at the same event in 1972, 49 years ago, when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=JasjitSingh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jasjit Singh<\/a> won a five-setter in the second round against the Australian Barry Phillips-Moore. Despite losing in the quarter-finals, it was one of Singh\u2019s career highlights, though it pales next to his Davis Cup debut in 1974, when he became the first Sikh to play for an Indian side. Back in the present, Nagal is aiming to become known for something other than having a name that looks like Nadal. While he\u2019s not about to remind anyone of his near-namesake on clay, he knows how to handle himself on a slow surface, having won a challenger in Buenos Aires 18 months ago.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport. Up today: Garbine Muguruza and Aryna Sabalenka deliver a high-quality match, all the remaining seeds in the Rotterdam top half are gone, and Sumit Nagal goes where few Indians have gone before. Scroll down for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/04\/expected-points-march-4-a-trio-of-upsets-shift-the-rotterdam-balance-of-power\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Expected Points, March 4: A Trio of Upsets Shift the Rotterdam Balance of Power<\/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":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expected-points-podcast"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4246","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=4246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}