I wrote an extensive preview of this week’s Challenger Tour Finals for The Changeover, so you should check that out first. (Also worth a read is the preview at Foot Soldiers of Tennis.)
Because so much less separates players at this level (compared to those at last year’s World Tour Finals), my forecast stops just short of throwing its hands up in dismay. Coming into the event, Italian clay specialist Filippo Volandri was the favorite, with a 15.5% chance of winning the event. He lost today to Alejandro Gonzalez, making it much less likely that he’ll progress out of the round-robin stage.
Today’s other winners were top seed Teymuraz Gabashvili, Oleksandr Nedovyesov, and Jesse Huta Galung. My numbers now consider Huta Galung the favorite, with a better than 20% chance of winning the title. The situation in Grupo Verde will become much more clear after tomorrow’s night match between Gabashvili and Nedovyesov.
Here is the pre-tournament forecast:
Player 3-0 2-1 1-2 0-3 SF F W Gabashvili 12% 38% 37% 13% 49.8% 24.3% 12.0% Volandri 15% 40% 35% 10% 55.3% 29.3% 15.5% Nedovyesov 14% 39% 36% 11% 53.0% 26.9% 13.7% Huta Galung 14% 39% 36% 11% 53.8% 28.2% 14.6% Gonzalez 10% 35% 40% 15% 45.0% 21.8% 10.4% Ungur 10% 35% 40% 15% 45.0% 20.9% 9.8% Martin 11% 36% 39% 14% 46.0% 22.4% 10.7% Clezar 13% 38% 37% 11% 52.2% 26.3% 13.3%
And here is the forecast updated with the results of today’s four matches:
Player 3-0 2-1 1-2 0-3 SF F W Gabashvili 24% 50% 26% 0% 71.5% 35.0% 17.1% Volandri 0% 27% 50% 23% 30.2% 16.2% 8.6% Nedovyesov 28% 50% 22% 0% 75.7% 38.3% 19.5% Huta Galung 27% 50% 23% 0% 74.7% 39.0% 20.5% Gonzalez 23% 50% 27% 0% 70.1% 33.7% 15.8% Ungur 0% 22% 50% 29% 23.1% 10.8% 5.1% Martin 0% 23% 50% 27% 25.1% 12.2% 5.9% Clezar 0% 27% 50% 23% 29.6% 14.9% 7.4%
(My algorithm doesn’t implement the details of the number-of-sets-won tiebreaker, so Guilherme Clezar, the only loser today to win a set, probably has a slightly better chance of advancing than these numbers give him credit for.)
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Challenger charting: The most interesting match of the day–if not the cleanest–was the last one, between Nedovyesov and Clezar. I charted it, so you can check out detailed serve, return, and shot-by-shot stats for that contest.
And if you’re really into this stuff–Challengers and/or charting–here are my stat reports from yesterday’s first-round matches in Champaign between Ram and Giron and Sandgren and Peliwo.