![]() ![]() Game, set, match: How to price a tennis match.Ugo Humbert, Marton Fucsovics, Grigor Dimitrov, Milos Raonic and Roberto Bautista-Agut look to have produced better relative stats than their win percentage – essentially, they didn’t win as many matches as they should have based on their underlying data. The graph illustrates that as a player’s combined and service return points won percentage rises, so does their overall win percentage, although there are a few slight outliers. The graph below demonstrates this for the current ATP top 100 players in 2019 (minimum 15 matches played): To see which players have over or underperformed on the court via win percentage compared to their ability displayed, we can look at the relationship between combined service and return points won percentage and win percentage. The links between points won and win percentages Marco Cecchinato, who reached the semi-finals of the French Open in 2018, has experienced a similar decline in ranking after failing to defend his points in what can be deemed a ‘random’ run in a big event. Pouille isn’t an isolated instance of this occurring. He is currently inside the top 30, despite ranking around 80th on tour based on his service and return points won percentage. This would be a much more accurate reflection of the ability which he displayed throughout 2019. Do tennis players perform better at big tournaments?.The Frenchman achieved 1,600 points overall, meaning that in one single tournament he received almost as many points as he managed in the entire rest of the season combined.Īs a result of withdrawing from Melbourne this month, his total points dropped to 880 and his world ranking will likely drop to around 60 as a result. In addition, the bias towards certain events in the calendar – primarily the Grand Slams but also the ATP Masters 1000 and WTA Premier Mandatory events – dictates that an over or underperformance in a specific tournament can have a huge effect on a player’s ranking.įor example, Lucas Pouille reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open last season, earning himself 720 ranking points in the process. Lucas Pouille is currently inside the top 30, despite ranking around 80th on tour based on his service and return points won percentage. This is a shorter time period than in other sports and as a result, injuries are penalised more strongly in tennis. The effects of injury means that the world rankings do not always reflect player ability accurately, largely due to the 12-month rolling ranking point methodology used by both the ATP and WTA tours. In any case, his career high rank is third, meaning it is clear that he is a player of strong ability when in decent physical condition. The real outlier is Milos Raonic, whose current world ranking is 32, although this is mainly due to injury. The top three are in line with the world rankings, while Daniil Medvedev is on the verge of taking fourth place in the rankings well. The eye test on this is pretty reasonable. If we look at the top ten ATP players in 2019 based on this metric, we get the following list: However, this is only a minor consideration as the vast majority of players do not schedule optimally. This methodology does have some slight flaws, because in theory a player could bloat their numbers by entering weaker tournaments than their rivals in order to play lower quality opposition. ![]() ![]() One way to assess the relative strengths of players is to use combined service and return points won percentages. How the top tennis players perform against each other. ![]()
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