Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Rafa needs an extra set to get through his Barcelona opener, Ashleigh Barty returns to the European clay, and the Sabanov twins are an overnight success–13 years in the making.
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 25, the number of times since 2005 that Rafael Nadal has come back from a one-set deficit on clay to win a best-of-three match. His stumble out of the gates yesterday in Barcelona against 111th-ranked qualifier Ilya Ivashka was only the 47th time in more than one and half decades that Nadal lost the first frame of a three-setter, and his comeback against the Belarussian pushed his record in such situations another tick above .500. Ivashka shouldn’t feel bad about his inability to finish the job—Rafa has come back from a set down on clay against Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray, and early in his career, he strung together seven wins in a row when losing the opener. Like virtually all of Nadal’s numbers on clay, these are impressive feats, though they are hardly the stats a player wants to pad. After last week’s loss to Andrey Rublev and yesterday’s rocky start, it’ll take a few straight-set victories—beginning with a round-of-16 match today against Kei Nishikori–to convince fans that vintage Rafa is alive and well.
Our second number is 8, Ashleigh Barty’s current winning streak on European clay. The Australian world #1 returned to the continental dirt this week for the first time since her 2019 French Open title, and she began her Stuttgart campaign yesterday against a tricky opening opponent, overcoming 2017 champion Laura Siegemund. Barty is known for her aggressive play and low-bouncing slice, adding up to a game that isn’t ideal on a slow surface. Whlie her success at Roland Garros hints that she is capable of much more, with only 40 tour-level matches on the surface, she has barely been tested: She’s 0-3 on clay against top-ten opponents, and remarkably, if we exclude Americans, her highest-ranked victim was Marketa Vondrousova, number 38 at the time of the 2019 French Open final. If this is the week for Barty to prove she can hang with the best, it’ll have to wait for the final four: Her quarter-final opponent will be either the erratic Jelena Ostapenko or the woefully out-of-form Karolina Pliskova, who needed three sets to escape lucky loser Tamara Korpatsch yesterday. The next quarter of the draw features Elina Svitolina, Angelique Kerber, and Petra Kvitova, any of whom would be a respectable scalp for the Australian to add to her limited clay-court CV.
Today’s third and final number is 169, the ATP doubles ranking of Croatian twins Ivan and Matej Sabanov. The Sabanovs are the first duo into the Belgrade final four, a breakthrough for a team that has played only four ATP main draws after more than a decade of climbing the greasy pole of the doubles rankings. Elite players stick around seemingly forever, and top singles players get priority entry when they choose to play doubles, so there aren’t many draw spots for aspiring teams. The 28-year-olds took a huge step forward in 2019, winning several ITFs and a Challenger title, but it took until now for them to string together back-to-back wins in the big leagues. Going even further in possible—they knocked out 3rd seeds Raven Klaasen and Ben McLachlan in the first round, and Berrettini/Vavassori or Bambridge/Inglot are next in the semis. The twins have already secured a likely career-high ranking of 148 next week, and could go as high as the 120s with a title. That wouldn’t be a complete escape from Challenger doubles purgatory, but it would go a long way toward getting the Sabanovs into a few more ATP 250s like Belgrade.
