Around the Net is my attempt to provide a clearinghouse for tennis analytics on the web. Each week, you’ll find a summary of recent articles, podcasts, papers, and data sources, as well as trivia and the occasional bit of interesting non-tennis content. If you would like to suggest something for a future issue, drop me a line.
Articles
- All About Albot (hiddengameoftennis.com)
- Top Pressure Performances in March (on-the-t.com)
- WTA Aging Patterns and Bianca Andreescu’s Future (tennisabstract.com/blog)
Multimedia
- Tennis Abstract Podcast Episode 54: Miami At the Half-Way Point
- TEDx Talk: Toni Nadal (in Spanish, English subtitles available)
Data
- Match Charting Project: The dataset has grown by more than 60 matches in the last week, from 5,376 to 5,439. New additions include a near-complete run of 1989-96 WTA Miami finals, plus many men’s and women’s grand slam semi-finals. And, of course, a lot of matches from this year’s Miami event, including the women’s final and both semi-finals.
- I’ve updated the MCP GitHub repository.
Trivia
- Roger Federer could finally become the first ATP player to win multiple titles this season, but the WTA remains a tour of unique winners. In Miami, Ashleigh Barty became the 14th champion in 14 tour-level events.
- To reach the final, Federer needed to beat someone more than 15 years his junior. In fact, both Miami semi-finals involved age gaps of at least one and a half decades. That hasn’t happened at an ATP event since 1979. The closest since then was in Dubai last month, when Fed-Coric and Monfils-Tsitsipas were both at least 11.9 year gaps.
- Speaking of unusual semi-finals… The Bryans beat Kubot/Melo by a score of 7-6(7) 6-7(8) [14‑12], just about as long as a match can be within the constraints of the modern doubles format of no-ad with a third-set super-tiebreak. It lasted 187 points. While match stats are hard to come by for doubles, I do have a reasonably complete set for tour-level doubles since 2017. In that span, 187 points is the longest match under these rules. There was one other 187-pointer in 2018 and a 186-point marathon in 2017.
- Thanks in part to his run in Miami, Felix Auger Aliassime won his first five career matches against top 20 players, something that’s never been done before. Mario Ancic won his first three; Felix is the only guy with more. After the semi-final loss to Isner, FAA falls to 5-1, but still has a chance to set more records. No one has won more than 7 of their first 10 matches against the top 20, a feat accomplished by Gustavo Kuerten and Andrei Medvedev.
Beyond the net
- Free Throws Should Be Easy. Why Do Basketball Players Miss? (wired.com)
- MLB Is Increasingly A Father-Son Game (fivethirtyeight.com)
- First Impressions and Analyst Forecast Bias (ssrn.com)
Thanks to Peter for help with this week’s issue.