Thanks to the dominance of players like Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka, it’s not much of a surprise to see a scoreline like 6-1 6-0 in the first week of a Grand Slam. But when an upset comes with scores like that, we should sit up and take notice.
That’s what Simona Halep did to Maria Kirilenko, and trust me, it wasn’t any closer than the score suggests. Halep has a deceptively big game, content to counterpunch but always looking for an opening for what can be a monster backhand. I charted her match yesterday (along with Vika’s third-rounder against Alize Cornet), so look for some detailed stats from those matches later today.
Even before the first matches were played, it was clear that the Romanian landed in the right part of the draw, in a quarter free of Serena, Vika, Agnieszka Radwanska, and Na Li. With the early upsets of Sara Errani and Caroline Wozniacki, the two highest-ranked women in her quarter, Halep’s position looks even better.
Strangely enough, though, her next two opponents are women she might prefer not to face. Flavia Pennetta, who will play her in the round of 16, was the last woman outside of the top 20 to beat Halep. (Granted, Simona retired in the third set with a lower back injury.) Her likely quarterfinal opponent, Roberta Vinci, is a more interesting case. The pair have already faced off three times this year, and on the first of those occasions, Vinci dished out Halep’s worst loss of the year, a 6-0 6-3 drubbing on the carpet in Paris. Since then, Simona has won two equally lopsided matches, on both clay and grass.
The way Halep was playing yesterday, though, we can safely pencil her into the semifinals, regardless who she draws in the meantime.
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Did you know that, at Grand Slams, men use the challenge system more that women do?
At the Open so far this year, men have made 7.52 challenges per match, while women have made 3.38. The same pattern held at the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year. In general, there are about twice as many challenges in a men’s Slam match than in a women’s slam match.
Of course, a big part of that discrepancy arises because men play best-of-5 matches while women play best-of-3. The more sets, the more points, and the more points, the more potential reasons to challenge.
Still, the structural difference doesn’t entirely account for the gap. For instance, there were roughly 90 men’s matches and 90 women’s matches played on Hawkeye courts in Melbourne this year, and the men’s matches averaged about 60% more points. Men challenged calls once every 32 points, while women challenged once every 37 points.
That’s not quite as dramatic as the 2:1 ratio we started with, but it’s still notable, and it has remained consistent throughout multiple slams this year.
One possibility is that men challenge more because, on average, they hit the ball harder, particularly on the serve. The harder the shot, the tougher it is for everyone to see exactly where it lands, and the greater likelihood of disagreement. To corroborate, it would be interesting to know whether chair umpires are more or less likely to overrule in men’s matches.
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Yesterday I noted that Djokovic had a remarkably easy path to the quarterfinals. If Marcel Granollers beats Tim Smyczek, the Spaniard will be Novak’s highest-ranked opponent en route to the quarters. (That’s assuming Djokovic beats 95th-ranked Joao Sousa today.)
If Granollers advances, Djokovic’s first four opponents will have the following rankings: 112, 87, 95, and 43. In 24 previous Grand Slam quarterfinal runs, Novak has needed to beat someone in the top 40 20 of those times, and someone in the top 30 17 of those times.
If, as all patriotic Americans fervently hope, Smyczek wins today, we’ll venture into more extreme territory. In that case, Djokovic’s highest-ranked opponent will have been 87th-ranked Benjamin Becker. One suspects that a fair number of ATP players could advance to the quarterfinals given this draw.
In the Smyczek scenario, Djokovic will have faced an easier path than Roger Federer ever has in his 36 Slam quarterfinal showings. As Carl Bialik reported during last year’s French Open, Roger’s first four rounds at Roland Garros were the easiest of his career–his highest-ranked opponent was #78 Tobias Kamke.
Federer’s experience leaves it unclear whether such a friendly draw is a good thing. In the quarterfinals of that tournament, he lost his first two sets to Juan Martin del Potro before charging back for the five-set victory. Perhaps we can expect such a thriller from Djokovic and Tommy Haas next week.
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Want to know more about Tim Smyczek? Here’s a good place to start.
Here’s another excellent win probability graph from Betting Market Analytics, this time covering the five-setter between Hewitt and del Potro.