Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Garbine Muguruza leads the remaining pack in Berlin, Philipp Kohlschreiber is the unlikely veteran success story in Halle, and a Belarussian duo preps for Tokyo.
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 37%, the Tennis Abstract forecast probability that Garbine Muguruza will win this week’s WTA event in Berlin. She beat early-round opponents Sorana Cirstea and Elena Rybakina with ease, and seeded 6th, Muguruza is the 2nd-highest-ranked player left in the draw. Like Marin Cilic on the men’s side, Garbine rates well on grass due to fairly old results: She played only five grass-court matches between her 2017 title and her current outing in Berlin. That puts her surface-specific Elo rating behind more recent Wimbledon champions Angelique Kerber and Simona Halep, but the combination of her career-long track record on turf and her solid season on all surfaces makes her one of the stronger picks to win the next slam. A less analytical approach might give Muguruza even more confidence. She’s lost 17 career matches on grass, and due to retirements and collapsing rankings, only four of the women who defeated her are set to appear at the All-England Club. Two of them are Ashleigh Barty and Serena Williams, players that Muguruza would surely like to see land in the other half of the draw.
Our second number is 8 years, the age gap between 37-year-old Philipp Kohlschreiber and the next-oldest player in the quarter-final field at Halle. Tournament organizers surely hoped that the oldest man in the final eight would be 39-year-old Roger Federer, but it’s a year for youth, as Felix Auger Aliassime ousted him in the second round. Kohlschreiber is 17 years older than Auger Aliassime, and he’s 14 years older than Andrey Rublev, his opponent today. Rublev has youth and a sizable ranking gap on his side, but Kohlschreiber has everything else. The veteran won their single prior meeting, albeit a match four years ago on clay. And while grass is the veteran’s best surface, Rublev is still finding his footing. The Russian’s most famous result at Wimbledon is his second-round qualifying loss to Marcus Willis in 2016. Kohlschreiber has a long track record of success at Halle, where he won the title in 2011. It’s been nine years since he beat a top-ten player at the event, and he has a good shot at doing so again today.
Today’s third and final number is 3, the career win total of the Belarussian doubles team of Victoria Azarenka and Aryna Sabalenka. Vika and Aryna paired up for only the fourth time in Berlin this week, and they’ve already tripled their career win total together with two early-round wins. Sabalenka’s doubles prowess is well-known, as she held the #1 ranking as recently as April. Azarenka’s career-high ranking is #8, but her career accomplishments in doubles are even more impressive. She has reached the final of three of the four majors in women’s doubles, and won two slams and an Olympic gold in mixed. It’s the prospect of another medal that brings the Belarussians together, as they prepare as a team for Tokyo. Both women will surely target a place on the singles podium, but without a Belarussian man at the level of retired great Max Mirnyi as a mixed partner, their next-best shot is with each other.
