Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: The draw gods smiled on Filip Krajinovic, while they handed Novak Djokovic an opening match with Jannik Sinner. Also: A tweak to the WTA ranking point structure is a small step in the right direction.
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 29,000 euro, the prize money for a third-round loser in Monte Carlo this week. It’s also the most likely payday for Filip Krajinovic, the ATP #37, who has only played the tournament once before, and is already in the second round. He is the luckiest man in the draw: his first-round opponent, Nikoloz Basilashvili retired with injury after playing only 9 games yesterday. That was supposed to leave Krajinovic with a second-rounder against 2nd-seed Daniil Medvedev, one of the best players on tour if not the sturdiest on clay. Instead, the Russian tested positive for Covid and was replaced by lucky loser Juan Ignacio Londero. Krajinovic has won both previous meetings with the Argentine, and Elo gives him an 80% chance of going three-for-three. His luck will probably run out in the third round against 16th seed and defending champion Fabio Fognini, so it may be odd to celebrate a third-round loser check, especially when prize money is down more than 50% across the board. But for Krajinovic, it represents a giant step forward on the Monaco clay.
Our second number is 84.5%, the Tennis Abstract forecast that Novak Djokovic will win his first career head-to-head with Jannik Sinner today. If Krajinovic is the draw’s luckiest man, his countryman Djokovic is among the unluckiest. As a top-eight seed, he got a first-round bye, and was guaranteed an unseeded opponent in the second round. Sinner is technically unseeded, but the Italian teenager is coming off a Masters 1000 final in Miami and has been playing like a top-tenner all year. Elo rates him 8th overall, and 10th on clay. His powerful groundstrokes and relatively weak serve are well-suited to the dirt, and his last five matches on clay made up a quarter-final run at Roland Garros last year, when he upset David Goffin and Alexander Zverev, then gave a credible performance in a round-of-8 loss to Rafael Nadal. All this doesn’t mean that Djokovic is doomed, of course—the same Elo ratings that love Sinner also consider the world #1 to be almost as dominant on clay as he is on hard courts. It’s likely to be an early exit for the Italian, but it’s hardly the warm-up match Novak would’ve hoped for.
Today’s third and final number is 96, the number of WTA ranking points on offer for the winner of the women’s ITF W60 event in Oeiras, Portugal this week. That represents a 20% increase over the previous ranking-point haul for winners at the $60,000 level, a boost that the ITF and WTA put in place last week to make it easier for ladder-climbing hopefuls to qualify for tour-level events. The pandemic has hit the lower level of women’s tennis particularly hard, so on the rare occasions when ITF events worth $25k or more take place, the player fields are extremely strong. In Oeiras, they draw is expanded to 48, and almost all of the 16 seeds are top-200 players, so it will be a tough fight for those 96 points. Thankfully, the rest of the ranking point rewards were increased by roughly the same rate, so winning just a couple of matches will allow a player to take advantage of the new reward structure. Still, the lack of Challenger-equivalent playing opportunities was a problem in women’s tennis even before the pandemic. As the world slowly returns to normal, let’s hope the number of upper-level ITFs gets back to the pre-Covid status quo—and keeps increasing from there.
