Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: A trio of wild cards are proving that they belong in Dubai and Guadalajara, Dominic Thiem is flying under the radar as the top seed in Doha, and Jessica Pegula has mastered the art of dismissing Karolina Pliskova.
Scroll down for a transcript.
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Music: Love is the Chase by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2021. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Ft: Apoxode
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Rough transcript of today’s episode:
The first number is 3, the number of wild cards who have reached WTA quarter-finals this week in Dubai and Guadalajara. In the gulf, Anastasia Potapova and Coco Gauff have each won three matches despite not quite having the ranking necessary to get into the draw the old-fashioned way. In Mexico, Genie Bouchard recovered from transcontinental jetlag just in time to beat Caroline Dolehide and Kaja Juvan. I’m not a fan of wild cards in general, since they take away a main draw slot from a more deserving player. But these three women have done their tournament directors proud. Each has good chance of going even further, too, as none faces a seed in today’s round of eight. Ironically, this week of WTA wild-card success has coincided with some dire choices made by men’s events. Marseille gave a free entry to 970th-ranked Petros Tsitsipas, who won only 20 of 70 points against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the first round. An even worse choice was the Uzbek player Vaja Uzakov, who was wild carded into the St. Petersburg Challenger. Uzakov hasn’t played a tournament at this level in nearly seven years, and it showed, losing to another wild card in only 32 minutes.
Our second number is 24, the number of tour-level events in which Dominic Thiem has been the top seed. Doha is the first time the Austrian has been the name at the top of the draw in more than a year, and it’s almost impossible for a #1 seed to fly further under the radar. The big story in the Gulf is the return of Roger Federer, whose every move is more newsworthy than a career highlight from Thiem. This week’s nominal favorite doesn’t have the greatest record in the top spot, either. In his previous 23 outings as the #1 seed, Thiem has won 7 events, losing the other 16 in the semi-finals or earlier, including woeful performances against the likes of Laslo Djere, Martin Klizan, and Ramkumar Ramanathan. His week in Doha got off to a rocky start as well. He drew Australian Open surprise Aslan Karatsev, and needed three sets to advance. His quarter-final opponent, Roberto Bautista Agut, could be equally tricky. The Spaniard has won three of their four previous meetings, and while those wins all came in 2015, when Thiem was the lower ranked player, Bautista Agut isn’t going to fear the guy with the #1 next to his name. When that player is Thiem, it seems that no one does.
Today’s third and final number is 53, the number of minutes Jessica Pegula required to defeat Karolina Pliskova for the second week in a row. This should sound familiar: Last week in Doha, the American completed the same upset in 60 minutes. A week later in Dubai, Pegula allowed the second seed only two games, handing Pliskova the second-quickest loss of her career. For the 27-year-old American, it was just another day at the office. In her previous two rounds, against Yaroslava Shvedova and Kristina Mladenovic, she gave up only three games apiece. Her ranking improved to a new career high of 36 this week, while her Tennis Abstract Elo cracked the top 20. Regardless of what happens today in her quarter-final match against Elise Mertens, she’ll gain another few spots next Monday. Pegula is the least well-known of the five Americans in the Elo top 20, but every week she is forcing more fans to take notice.
