Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Osaka continues to be the only active player with Serena’s number, Jennifer Brady advances to her first major final by the narrowest of margins, and Novak Djokovic is back in his happy place.
If you prefer reading to listening, a transcript is below.
You can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and elsewhere in the podcast universe.
The Expected Points podcast is still a work in progress, so please let me know what you think.
Approximate transcript:
The first number is 2. 2 is the number of players who have faced Serena Williams at least three times and hold a positive head-to-head record against her. Naomi Osaka, who beat her in straight sets today to advance to her second Australian Open final, is one of them. It was her third victory, compared to just one loss, against the 23-time slam winner. Serena has played 116 different women at least three times at tour level, and the only other opponent who managed better than fifty-fifty was Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who won four times in seven tries. The first of those wins came when Serena was 17 years old, and the last was decided by retirement when Williams was 19. It took two decades, but in Osaka, women’s tennis may finally feature a star who is legitimately better than Serena—albeit a Serena who is far past her prime. If Osaka is to match Williams’s accomplishments over a longer span, she has a lot of work to do—and she’ll need to start by straightening out an awful lot of negative head-to-heads.
Our second number is 49.1%, the percentage of total points won today by Jennifer Brady. The American advanced to the final over Karolina Muchova in three sets despite winning 3 fewer points than her opponent. It was one of Brady’s weakest return-of-serve performances in memory, winning only 28.4% of points on Muchova’s deal, the first time in the tournament she’s failed to snatch at least 47% of her opponent’s offerings. Even in her three-set quarter-final match against Jessica Pegula, she won 51.5% on return. Still, she stepped up when it mattered, converting all three of her break point chances against the Czech today, while saving four of the seven against her. It was only the third time in the last year that she has failed to win 30% on return, and the first of those matches she won. Osaka won’t make it any easier: she has one of the most powerful serves in the women’s game, and when the two players met in the US Open semi-finals last year, Brady eked out a mere 27% of return points. At that rate, winning the tournament will require an even more unlikely escape act that the one she pulled off today.
Today’s third and final number is 17. 17 is Novak Djokovic’s undefeated win tally in semi-finals and finals at the Australian Open. On three occasions—none since 2014—he has lost in the quarter-finals, but once in the Melbourne final four, he is unstoppable. That’s exactly how he looked against qualifier Aslan Karatsev in a 1 hour, 55 minute straight set victory today. For the first time since an opening round drubbing of Jeremy Chardy, Djokovic’s route from coin flip to on-court interview was simple, as the top seed tallied 30 winners against only 14 unforced errors. Novak now has an extra day of rest before Sunday’s final against either Daniil Medvedev or Stefanos Tsitsipas, two players who each have multiple wins against him. It is sure to be tougher going than the routine semi-final, but odds are that by the end, the key number will be 18—Djokovic’s undefeated streak in Melbourne semifinals and finals, as well as his updated count of career major titles.