{"id":4377,"date":"2021-04-13T09:26:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T09:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=4377"},"modified":"2021-04-13T09:26:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T09:26:20","slug":"expected-points-april-13-a-sad-day-for-french-womens-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/13\/expected-points-april-13-a-sad-day-for-french-womens-tennis\/","title":{"rendered":"Expected Points, April 13: A Sad Day For French Women\u2019s Tennis"},"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: Alex De Minaur loses a clay court match, France drops another rung in the WTA power rankings, and women\u2019s tennis returns to Cleveland after almost half a century. <\/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\/415192\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\"><\/iframe>\n<\/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\u2019s episode:<\/p>\n\n\n<p>The first number is .143, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=AlexDeMinaur\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alex De Minaur<\/a>\u2019s career winning percentage in tour-level matches on clay. Yesterday\u2019s first-round loss to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=AlejandroDavidovichFokina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alejandro Davidovich Fokina<\/a> in Monte Carlo was his 12th against only two wins. Australian men generally aren\u2019t known for their clay-court prowess\u2014you have to go back to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=RodLaver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rod Laver<\/a> and Ken Rosewell in 1968 and 1969 to find a Roland Garros winner from down under. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=LleytonHewitt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lleyton Hewitt<\/a>, De Minaur\u2019s model, never progressed past the quarter-finals at the French, and there\u2019s little reason to hope at this point that Demon will do any better. It\u2019s easy to ascribe this sort of surface difference to familiarity or comfort, but it remains head-scratching: De Minaur\u2019s grinding baseline game could work on dirt, and he has a Spanish coach. In two events at Challenger level in 2018, the Australian won seven clay court matches, beating <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=FelixAugerAliassime\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Felix Auger Aliassime<\/a> and a slew of Spanish specialists. He\u2019ll have a few more chances to right the ship before grass season, but at the moment, he\u2019s one of the few guys on tour who can make the Americans look like natural dirtballers.<\/p>\n<p>Our second number is 0, the number of French women in the top 50 of this week\u2019s WTA rankings. According to @AnnaK_4ever on twitter, it\u2019s the first time since 1986. The last Frenchwoman standing was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=FionaFerro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fiona Ferro<\/a>, who dropped twelve spots from 45th to 57th, joining <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=CarolineGarcia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Caroline Garcia<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=KristinaMladenovic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kristina Mladenovic<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=AlizeCornet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alize Cornet<\/a> in the oddly Gallic section of the rankings between #54 and #59. Elo concurs, ranking the same four women between 51st and 63rd. Of the quartet, 24-year-old Ferro is the best long-term hope to regain some national pride, though the only one in action this week is Cornet, fourth seed in Charleston. Her first-round match against Linda Fruhvirtova could hardly be more symbolic: The 30-something representative of a fading, once-great tennis nation attempts to hold on against a 15-year-old from the increasingly strong Czech Republic. While France has a few prospects of its own, notably 20-year-old <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=ClaraBurel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clara Burel<\/a> and 18-year-old <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=DianeParry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Diane Parry<\/a>, irrelevance in the WTA rankings looks like it could become the new normal.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s third and final number is 48, the number of years since a modest group of players descended on the 1973 Marie O. Clark Memorial, a USTA professional event played in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Yesterday brought the news that the WTA has sanctioned a new event in Cleveland, which slots into the calendar between Cincinnati and the US Open, and the tournament is claiming to bring women\u2019s tennis to the city for the first time in history. Not quite\u2014at that 1973 event, an 18-year-old <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=ChrisEvert\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chris Evert<\/a> only lost 9 games in four matches, which earned her $5,000 in prize money and some small print in the record books for the Forest City. The Czechoslovakian government is partly to blame for making the Clark Memorial so forgettable\u2014they required <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/player.cgi?p=MartinaNavratilova\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Martina Navratilova<\/a> to play the Czech International instead, making her a late withdrawal from the Cleveland event. Had she shown up and reached the semi-finals, it would\u2019ve been just the third installment of the greatest head-to-head in tennis history, and perhaps Martina wouldn\u2019t have needed to wait two more years before finally scoring a win against her long-time rival.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-thumbnail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/159.203.141.169\/tennisabstract\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/159.203.141.169\/tennisabstract\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4258\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/epts_logo.jpg 1662w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","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: Alex De Minaur loses a clay court match, France drops another rung in the WTA power rankings, and women\u2019s tennis returns to Cleveland after almost half a century. Scroll down for a transcript. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/13\/expected-points-april-13-a-sad-day-for-french-womens-tennis\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Expected Points, April 13: A Sad Day For French Women\u2019s Tennis<\/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-4377","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\/4377","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=4377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}