Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
On today’s episode: Rafael Nadal has a fight on his hands to retain a spot just behind Novak Djokovic in the rankings, Naomi Osaka’s second-week performance at slams defies historical precedent, and Coco Gauff is no standard-issue qualifier at this week’s Adelaide International.
Scroll down for a transcript.
Rough transcript of today’s episode:
The first number is 135, the number of ranking points separating new ATP number three Daniil Medvedev from number two Rafael Nadal. At the top of the table, 135 points is barely more a rounding error: Nadal trails Novak Djokovic by more than 2,000 points, and the gap between Medvedev and number four Dominic Thiem is more than 600 points. The big four have maintained a stranglehold on the top two places for 16 years, monopolizing those positions since Nadal pushed Lleyton Hewitt to number three in 2005. However, Medvedev could displace Rafa soon. The pandemic adjustments to the ranking algorithm make the process even more opaque than usual, but according to live-tennis.eu, Nadal has more points dropping than the Russian in the next three weeks. That means that the King of Clay will have to play better than Medvedev in Rotterdam next month to stave off the threat. By one more predictive metric, the deed is already done: Medvedev has taken a narrow 15-point lead over Rafa in the Tennis Abstract hard-court Elo ratings.
Our second number is 280. 280 is the number of Elo points that, according to my estimate, represents how much Naomi Osaka raises her game in the second week of majors. Osaka is 12-0 after reaching the quarterfinals of a grand slam, a level far beyond anything her performance at other tournaments gives reason to expect. My analysis, published yesterday at the Tennis Abstract blog, found that the 23-year-old has played second-week matches as if she had a hard-court Elo rating of 2300, which would be one of the best ever. She’s not the only woman to save her A game for the highest-profile matches: Serena Williams, Billie Jean King, and Monica Seles all boosted their second-week performances by 100 Elo points or more. But Osaka’s dual personality is far more extreme than anything that came before. The 2021 season, with many hard court events on the schedule before a return to the big stage in New York, will give us a glimpse into whether the four-time major winner can play like an all-time great when the stakes are a bit lower.
Today’s third and final number is 2.5%. 2.5% is Cori Gauff’s pre-tournament probability of winning the title at the Adelaide International this week. The tours don’t stop for a post-Australian Open breather, with several top women still competing in Australia and three ATP tour events taking place elsewhere around the world this week. The Adelaide draw is strong enough that 52nd-ranked Gauff needed to go through qualifying, in which she beat British lefty Francesca Jones and Slovenian prospect Kaja Juvan. Her 2.5% chance of overcoming the likes of Ashleigh Barty, Iga Swiatek, Belinda Bencic and Elise Mertens is notable because it is so high for a mere qualifier. Gauff is stronger than her ranking suggests, and according to Elo, she has a better chance of emerging from her section of the draw this week than seeded players Johanna Konta or Petra Martic. She’ll start her main-draw campaign with a much more modest task—an opening-round tilt with fellow qualifier Jasmine Paolini.