Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Schwartzman loses another lopsided battle against Aslan Karatsev, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova finally benefits from the luck of the tiebreak, and Rafael Nadal finds new opponents to beat on clay.
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 28, the difference in winner totals between Aslan Karatsev and Diego Schwartzman in their match yesterday in Madrid. Schwartzman is the 7th seed and one of the best players in the world on clay; Karatsev is the year’s surprise story, whose clay resume consists primarily of one shock upset of Novak Djokovic in Belgrade last week. The Argentine took the first set 6-2, but he was steamrolled in the last two frames. Altogether, Schwartzman hit only 3 winners to Karatsev’s 31, an echo of their Australian Open match, when the Russian hit 50 to Diego’s 5. Despite Schwartzman’s size and relative lack of power, he typically hits his share of winners: On clay, 5% of his shots after the serve go for winners, compared to a tour average of 6%. But Karatsev acts early, going for sharply-angled shots while the likes of Schwartzman are still constructing the point. The Russian is carving out a spot for himself near the top of the ATP ranks—after the final in Belgrade, he’s up to 11th in the Tennis Abstract Elo ratings. Yesterday’s upset means that the surprise story of 2021 is likely to enter the Elo top ten next Monday.
Our second number is 53%, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s career won-loss record in tiebreaks. It’s a typical, expected number for a player of Pavlyuchenkova’s caliber, but one that was sagging in 2021. The 29-year-old Russian was 1-6 in breakers entering yesterday’s play, including a painful 1-6 7-6 7-6 loss to 241st-ranked Anastasia Gasanova in St. Peterburg in March. She began her season with a tiebreak loss to Ons Jabeur in Abu Dhabi, and even lost another one on Tuesday to Jennifer Brady, though she advanced to the quarter-finals by winning two other sets. A player’s tiebreak winning percentage rarely stays too high or too low—even John Isner, who won a third-set breaker to knock out Roberto Bautista Agut yesterday, has won barely 60%–so Pavs was due for a correction. It finally arrived yesterday in the form of a 7-6, 7-6 win over Karolina Muchova in the Madrid quarters. It’s a good thing that fortune is finally smiling on the Russian. Her semi-final opponent, Aryna Sabalenka, won another blowout yesterday, dropping only 1 game before Elise Mertens retired. Pavlyuchenkova could use a little luck to simply reach a tiebreak, let alone win one.
Today’s third and final number is 183, the number of players that Rafael Nadal has beaten in a tour-level match on clay. By comparison, Daniil Medvedev has only 175 tour-level wins on any surface over a six-year career. Nadal’s latest victim was Carlos Alcaraz, the Spaniard who started the week the highest-ranking 17-year-old, and after “celebrating” his birthday yesterday to the tune of a 6-1 6-2 loss against the King of Clay, is now the highest-ranking 18-year-old. Rafa, who has been winning at Masters level since before Alcaraz was born, has beaten 183 of the 186 men he’s faced, and the only active player against whom he doesn’t hold a winning record is Andrey Rublev, based on their single match in Monte Carlo last month. Nadal will likely increase the total to 184 today in the round of 16, as he faces another first-time opponent, 21-year-old Australian Alexei Popyrin. 185 is even in the cards, if Dan Evans upsets Alexander Zverev to meet Rafa in the quarters. Fans can be forgiven for looking further ahead—the Madrid draw is lined up to give Nadal a semi-final revenge match against none other than Andrey Rublev.
