Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Ilya Ivashka posts another career-best performance in a losing effort, Barbora Krejcikova has risen the ranks with unusually good clutch play, and Jannik Sinner suffered a dose of his own medicine.
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 90, the ATP ranking of Ilya Ivashka. Ivashka is a 27-year-old from Belarus with four challenger titles to his name, and he’s hovering in the vicinity of his career-high ranking of #80. His best win came in Munich this spring, where he knocked out Alexander Zverev. But his best performance might be either of two matches he’s lost this year. In April, he drew Rafael Nadal in the second round in Barcelona, and he pushed Rafa to a third set, becoming only the 8th man to take a set from Rafa at his almost-home tournament. Challenging the King of clay on his favorite surface wasn’t enough for Ivashka, who won exactly half of the points he played yesterday against Roger Federer on grass. As in Barcelona, the underdog came up short, this time losing 7-6 7-5. Ivashka’s 31-48 career record against the top 100 suggests his modest ranking is about right, but his ability to hang with the best players in the game has made him one of the names that the elites would prefer to see in the other half of the draw.
Our second number is 63.3%, the rate at which Barbora Krejcikova has saved break points since the restart last August. Players in the WTA top 50 average 57.5%, and in the last year, only Naomi Osaka has canceled out her opponents’ break chances at a higher rate. Krejcikova has been clutch—or, if you’re as skeptical of that word as I am, she’s been very, very lucky. The Roland Garros champion ranks 13th among women in overall serve points won, with an even 60%, yet she trails only five other players in the more impactful hold percentage category. It isn’t because Krejcikova serves more effectively in the ad court, where most break points are played. 15 of her matches have been logged by the Match Charting Project, and in those, she wins four percentage points more often in the deuce court. Most players with such disproportionate success on important points eventually fall back to earth. Common sense says Krejcikova will do the same, but after watching her stare down five set points against Coco Gauff and a match point against Maria Sakkari last week, it’s possible for even the most hardened skeptic to believe that clutch is real.
Today’s third and final number is 81, the number of matches Jannik Sinner has played in ATP tour main draws. 81 is also the number of matches he’s played against older opponents. Sinner is two months away from his 20th birthday and the only teenager in the top 60, and it took him until yesterday to finally draw a younger opponent. His first-round foe at Queen’s Club was Jack Draper, a British wild card ranked 309th in the world, and four months younger than the Italian. While Sinner’s record against his elders is a sterling 50-31, his record against younger players started with a loss. Sinner has more top-level match experience than any other man his age, but like many prospects who have emerged in the Covid era, he has barely played on grass. It’s Draper’s 6th career grass-court event to Sinner’s 4th, and young Brits have easier access to grass courts during the three weeks of the year it isn’t raining. In his young career, the Italian has already won tour-level events on indoor and outdoor hard courts, as well a Challenger on clay. A first grass court title may have to wait.
