Italian translation at settesei.it
Players and fans tend to look at tiebreaks as a unique part of the sport of tennis, perhaps one susceptible to special skills. The ATP website last week devoted an article to what those skills might be. Players generally seemed to agree that it was nice to have a good serve, and a good return would also be handy. Clearly, more analysis is needed.
Let me give you my hypothesis. Tiebreaks are pressure packed, and pressure can affect any part of a player’s game. But in general, they should impact some parts more than others. You could make the case for either side of the ball–on the one hand, serving is a more “automatic” activity; on the other, there’s more time to think before each serve, and thinking can be dangerous when the pressure is on. This is where it’s nice to have some data.
I found 388 tiebreaks from the last eight ATP slams. For each one, I compared each player’s winning percentage on serve during the first 12 games of the set to his winning percentage on serve during the tiebreak. If players were robots, there might be a difference between the set and the tiebreak for any given match, but in general, the numbers should be the same.
But players aren’t robots. As it turns out, players win more return points than expected during tiebreaks. The difference is noticeable if not enormous: about one more return point than expected every three matches.
Thus, tiebreaks are different from the sets that precede them in one of two ways. Either some players are unable to serve up to their usual standard during tiebreaks, or some players manage to raise their return game in tiebreaks.
A breakdown by tournament suggests the answer. The difference between server winning percentage in sets and tiebreaks is about the same for the Australian Open, the US Open, and Wimbledon, but is less than half as much at the French. It seems, then, that faster courts give returners a bigger boost in the breaker. A more likely interpretation is that servers are unable to hold on to their advantage on faster courts. There’s less of an advantage to lose on clay.
My hypothesis at the outset focused on pressure, and combined with the numbers, it suggests that players are more affected by pressure when serving than when returning. It’s also possible that players find it more difficult to get into a serving rhythm with only two serve points at a time. It’s also possible that returners are less likely to concede aces during tiebreaks, meaning that the same serve quality and return potential results in more return points won.
Whether it is a matter of server timidity or returner aggression, there are certainly fewer aces in tiebreaks. In these 388 tiebreaks, there were 83 fewer aces than would be expected if players kept acing at the rate of their first twelve games. Given the relative infrequency of aces, that’s a more striking decrease than that of service winning percentage in general.
This analysis is hardly the final word. But for aspiring tiebreak masters, it does offer a slightly more specific prescription than “get better at tennis.” Rather than assuming that the tiebreak is all about the serve, recognize that returners have a slight advantage. On serve, players can improve simply by ignoring the pressure (easy, right?) and serving as well as they did during the set. When returning, players can be more aggressive in the knowledge that in general, servers will not be.
After all, a good serve may be the key to tiebreak success, but only if the serve is as good as usual in the breaker.
I have trouble getting 2 and 2 to add up to 4 the way everyone says they do, so I like the fact you tried to put some pressure on the numbers here. And numbers or no, I especially find myself agreeing with your idea that the numbers suggest that players tighten up more when serving in a tiebreak than receiving.
I’d take it a step further and say that it’s obvious why – and not just obvious, but conventional wisdom, so conventional it is frequently punted about by pundits: the serve is the only stroke totally under a player’s control, delivered at the time they wish to deliver it (bounce bounce bounce bounce) – and all that control, especially of time, makes it far easier to start over-thinking, tighten up, or do whatever it is that is least in your own interest.
Whereas returns, difficult though they may be, are 90 percent built around reaction. You may be nervous, or cursing the scoreboard, or beating yourself up for how cruddy you’ve been playing as you watch all those ball bounces, but once the server makes his toss, all thoughts go out of your head & your hands and feet do whatever it is they do. Which doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll perform well – every fan is familiar with weak, limp returns that seem to speak of the player having given up ahead of time.
I guess I should add that my comment assumes that pressure affects the serve more than the return regardless of whether you’re serving in a tiebreak or in a regular game within a set. I think this is true, and that we see it not just in tiebreaks, but even within sets – the weaker player in a match will generally start tightening up the deeper he or she gets into the set. Another truism, of course.
Yep, agreed. It’s on my list to look at how serve/return performance changes at 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, etc., which may tell us more about when that tightening up happens. Sure seems like there are a lot of sets that end in breaks, or a break and a hold, though there is some selection bias there — no one thinks about those sets when a player goes up 3-0 to start, then holds the rest of the way.
Jeff,
This is another cool analysis and gets me to thinking. Let me suggest another aspect of this you could review the data on.
If we look at the tiebreak winning percentage of the top 10 servers, we might find out whether they are better able to sustain their edge on serve than others, even if their edge diminished somewhat in the breakers. In other words, though they too feel the pressure mounting and occasionally succumb to it, practice has made them better at managing that pressure.
My HYPOTHESIS here is that big servers who lack consistent return skills and lead others in tiebreak winning percentages (like Isner and Raonic) may be used to the pressure on their serves and perform up to their usual par.
Of course, it may turn out that these men are better than usual on returns under tiebreak pressure and that explains their success. This would be VERY interesting. It would help explain why a player’s reliance on serving is not a bad thing (think Sampras, Federer), and that the emphasis on the return game – as helpful as it may be in tiebreaks – isn’t the only way to reach the top.
Rick Devereux, intennis.com/blog
Thanks for the feedback, Rick. I’ll ask you to hold those thoughts for a day or two, as a bit more tiebreak research just posted, and I’m writing up some more–which touches in part on some of your points–for tomorrow.
Previewing those results, there are a small number of big servers (and a few others) who are consistently very good in tiebreaks, notably Isner, Sampras, and Fed. But being a big server and/or playing lots of breakers, is nothing close to a guarantee. Even Raonic is barely better than average this year, taking his opponents into account, and Karlovic has been almost exactly average over the course of his career. One of the worst seasons over the last two decades belongs to, of all people, Max Mirnyi.
So it’s very possible your hypothesis is right … though as I hope I get across with tomorrow’s post, tiebreak skill is anything but clear cut. Isner (and to a lesser extent, the other guys) is an outrageous outlier.
My take is that, during a tiebreak, each serve is much more critical for the server than during an ordinary game. A good server can be down 0-30 and blow right past his opponent with a couple of aces and a service winner or two. But a service point dropped in a tiebreak goes right onto the scoresheet – it can’t be wiped out except by breaking the opponent’s serve. Logically, this consideration should make a rational player serve a little more carefully, which makes his service that much easier to get back.
“Logically, this consideration should make a rational player serve a little more carefully, which makes his service that much easier to get back.”
And I’d contend that in this case, “more carefully” is a problem, not a solution, for reasons going beyond just making it easier for the opponent to get the serve back: it also can easily translate into over-thinking and allow pressure to creep in. A relaxed player goes for his serve; a careful, rational player hesitates, and in that hesitation is more prone to error. Just a hunch.
I think there is a combination of servers under performing and returners over performing in tiebreakers. Servers don’t get the steady rhythm that they are used to during a set when they average six consecutive points per game serving and in a tiebreak they never serve for more than 2 points in a row. For returning, I think you look at an Isner or Raonic and they might be less inclined to hit a solid return during a regular game knowing that it will invariably lead to a gruelling physical point, which even if they win, may only give them a small opening in the game. In a tiebreaker if that extra physical and mental effort is converted to a minibreak then there is a more tangible reward.