{"id":6469,"date":"2023-07-02T15:09:47","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T15:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=6469"},"modified":"2023-07-02T15:09:47","modified_gmt":"2023-07-02T15:09:47","slug":"is-it-ever-better-to-be-unseeded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/02\/is-it-ever-better-to-be-unseeded\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Ever Better To Be Unseeded?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As draw-probability takes go, this one is pretty spicy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">it\u2019s better to be unseeded than 25-32.<br><br>25-32 guarantees 1-8 opponent in the third round.<\/p>&mdash; Ricky Dimon (@Dimonator) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Dimonator\/status\/1671221588757291008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 20, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Satisfyingly counterintuitive if true. Is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few reasons for skepticism: As an unseeded player, you could get a top-eight seeded opponent in the first round. Or the second. Or, after upsetting a lower seed&#8211;you are almost guaranteed to get one in the first or second round&#8211;you could still end up with a top-eight seed in the third round. Going into the draw unseeded is hardly protection against a top-eight opponent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I could theorize further, but why not just delve into the numbers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The men&#8217;s draw<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let&#8217;s look at a few examples from the draw. The 25th seed is Nicolas Jarry, who was drawn to face Carlos Alcaraz in the third round (ouch!). His <a href=\"https:\/\/tennisabstract.com\/reports\/atp_elo_ratings.html\">grass-court Elo<\/a> (gElo)&#8211;the number I use to generate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/current\/2023WimbledonMenForecast.html\">forecasts<\/a>&#8211;is 1698.5. The closest unseeded player to him on the gElo list is Adrian Mannarino, who has a rating of 1700.8. In Elo terms, a difference of 2.3 points is basically just a rounding error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If Ricky&#8217;s theory is correct, on the morning of the draw, it was better to be Mannarino than Jarry. Except&#8211;oops!&#8211;Mannarino was drawn to face third-seed Daniil Medvedev in the <em>second<\/em> round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How does all that good and bad luck shake out in the forecast? Jarry has a 7.5% chance of reaching the round of 16, 2.6% for the quarters, and 1.0% for the semis. Mannarino has 6.3% for R16, 3.2% for the quarters, and 1.1% for the semis. Those are awfully close, just like the near-identical gElo ratings would imply. The luck mostly washed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(If you look at my forecast after the tournament begins, the numbers will no longer be the same. That&#8217;s partly because every result has an effect on many other probabilities, and partly because the gElo ratings will slightly change when I add this week&#8217;s results from Eastbourne and Mallorca, which are not yet in the system.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What about 26th seed Denis Shapovalov? Shapo has a gElo of 1675.1, roughly equal to unseeded Ugo Humbert&#8217;s 1676.1. Would it be better to be Ugo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shapovalov got lucky: His top-eight counterpart in the draw is Casper Ruud, a not-grass specialist who is barely rated higher than the Canadian. Shapo&#8217;s odds of going further than Ruud into the round of 16 are 25.3%. He has a 10.5% chance of making the quarters and a 3.4% shot at the semis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Humbert was not so lucky. Like Jarry, he&#8217;s in Alcaraz&#8217;s section. He has a mere 3.5% shot at the fourth round, 1.1% for the quarters, and 0.4% for the finals. The way the cookie crumbled on draw day, it was much better to be Shapo than Ugo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One more. Dan Evans is the 27th seed, with a gElo of 1693.1. The closest unseeded player in the draw is Sebastian Ofner, gElo-rated 1688.5. Evans lines up for a third-rounder with 8th-seed Jannik Sinner, who is much better than Ruud despite the number next to his name. Despite a tricky first-rounder with Quentin Halys and Sinner looming in the third, Evans&#8217;s chances of making the fourth round are 14.5%, along with 6.8% for the quarters and 3.2% for the semis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By unseeded standards, Ofner got lucky. He drew almost-seeded Jiri Lehecka to open, but the seeds in his section are #18 Francisco Cerundolo and #16 Tommy Paul. With the benefit of that good fortune, his chances of lasting to the second week are 16.0%, with a 4.1% shot at the quarters and a 1.3% chance of a semi-final berth. By the numbers, I&#8217;d take Evans&#8217;s position over Ofner&#8217;s, though it&#8217;s pretty close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So: three anecdotal comparisons, one saying it is definitely better to be the seed, one saying it&#8217;s marginally better, one saying it&#8217;s about even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There&#8217;s one obvious counter-example. Tomas Martin Etcheverry, seeded 29th, landed in Novak Djokovic&#8217;s section. He has a mere 0.8% chance at the fourth round, 0.2% for the quarters, and everything else rounds down to zero. His own rating is part of the problem: He has little experience on grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The closest unseeded player in the draw to Etcheverry&#8217;s 1585.5 gElo is Daniel Altmaier at 1587.8. Altmaier ended up in the Sinner\/Evans section, with an unseeded first-round opponent. His chances of reaching the fourth round are 4.8%, with a 1.5 chance of the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we can say one thing for sure: If you know you&#8217;ll be drawn to face Djokovic early, you might want to not do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The general solution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These are all anecdotes, and the forecasts are entirely dependent on this year&#8217;s actual Wimbledon draw. That doesn&#8217;t answer the question in any comprehensive way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We can get closer to a general solution by running two simulations. First, forecast the 2023 Wimbledon field, with the actual seeds, <em>without<\/em> considering how the draw actually played out. So Etcheverry might have landed in Ruud&#8217;s section, or Mannarino might have drawn Djokovic in the first round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Next, forecast the 2023 Wimbledon field, but instead of keeping the actual seeds, assign the 25th to 32nd seeds to the <em>next<\/em> eight players in the rankings. Instead of the 25th seed belonging to Jarry, we give it to Lehecka, and Jarry is unseeded, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By keeping the players constant and varying the seeds, we can see the effect of the seedings on 16 players: the actual seeds 25-32, and the &#8220;next eight&#8221; who just missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here are the chances of those 16 men reaching the fourth round in the two scenarios, seeded and unseeded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre>Player                       R16 Seed  R16 Un  \nNicolas Jarry                   15.3%   13.1%  \nDenis Shapovalov                12.8%   11.0%  \nDaniel Evans                    15.0%   12.8%  \nTallon Griekspoor               30.5%   28.1%  \nTomas Martin Etcheverry          6.1%    4.9%  \nNick Kyrgios                    20.6%   18.3%  \nAlejandro Davidovich Fokina     12.8%   11.0%  \nBen Shelton                      4.4%    3.5%  \nJiri Lehecka                     9.7%    8.0%  \nMatteo Berrettini               33.5%   30.9%  \nUgo Humbert                     13.2%   11.4%  \nAndy Murray                     31.9%   29.4%  \nLorenzo Sonego                  19.8%   17.5%  \nMiomir Kecmanovic                8.1%    6.5%  \nBotic van de Zandschulp         14.0%   11.9%  \nAdrian Mannarino                15.7%   13.6%<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On average, these players have a 16.5% chance of lasting to the second week if they have a seed, 14.5% otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The same thing holds if we care more about other achievements, like reaching the third round, the quarter-finals, or the semis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre>            R32    R16    QF    SF  \nSeeded    40.5%  16.5%  8.4%  3.8%  \nUnseeded  28.7%  14.5%  6.9%  3.1%<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s better to be seeded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Going wide<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This isn&#8217;t a truly general solution, because it is based solely on the 2023 Wimbledon men&#8217;s field. You might think of this group of players as top-heavy, which would make it more valuable to avoid the top seeds. But while Djokovic and Alcaraz are well ahead of the pack, the top eight as a whole is not overwhelming dominant&#8211;just think of Ruud on grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We could construct a variety of other draws with different mixes of ability levels. You could imagine a field in which the top eight players were all outstanding and the rest were not. An extreme example like that might change the results. We&#8217;ll save that for another day. In the meantime, players: Keep chasing those seeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em> *<\/em> * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">S<em>ubscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-subscriptions__supports-newline wp-block-jetpack-subscriptions\">\n\t\t<div>\n\t\t\t<div>\n\t\t\t\t<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<p >\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?post_type=post&#038;p=6469\" style=\"font-size: 16px;padding: 15px 23px 15px 23px;margin: 0; margin-left: 10px;border-radius: 0px;border-width: 1px; background-color: #113AF5; color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; margin-left: 0\">Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As draw-probability takes go, this one is pretty spicy: Satisfyingly counterintuitive if true. Is it? A few reasons for skepticism: As an unseeded player, you could get a top-eight seeded opponent in the first round. Or the second. Or, after upsetting a lower seed&#8211;you are almost guaranteed to get one in the first or second &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/02\/is-it-ever-better-to-be-unseeded\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Is It Ever Better To Be Unseeded?<\/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":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forecasting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469","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=6469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}