On Wednesday, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez appeared to give Juan Martin del Potro quite the battle, taking him to four sets, with two tiebreaks along the way. It wasn’t what anyone expected from Delpo’s first-round match against someone ranked outside the top 70.
Looking behind the scoreline, however, it becomes evident that the Argentine dominated the match. Frequent HT commenter Tom Welsh pointed out that del Potro’s Dominance Ratio (DR) was 1.64, a mark that Delpo had not reached in his previous nine matches, and not since posting a 1.68 DR in a routine victory against Bernard Tomic in Washington.
Of course, a stat like DR, which considers the total number of return points won and service points lost, will not capture the ups and downs within a match.. What it does tell you is, over the course of the afternoon, how well both guys were playing. And comparatively speaking, del Potro was playing much better.
Delpo had previously played 29 matches in his career in which he finished with a DR between 1.6 and 1.7, and in all but one of those (a three-setter against Dudi Sela in Washington in 2008) he won in straight sets.
It turns out, though, that in Grand Slam play, dropping a set in the middle of an otherwise routine performance–as measured by DR–isn’t that uncommon. While the average DR in a Slam four-setter is only 1.37, the winner has tallied a DR of 1.64 or better in more than 12% of Slam matches since 1991.
If there’s a takeaway here, it’s something we should already know. In a tennis match-especially one with tiebreaks–some points are tremendously more important than others. Garcia-Lopez saved 9 of 13 break points. Take away one of those in the second set, and we’re not having this discussion. Give Delpo one more of the first 12 points in the second-set tiebreak, and things could’ve turned out differently. One well-timed, high-leverage point has the potential to overturn dozens of points worth of poor play.
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Yesterday I mused on the chaos that is men’s doubles, and the Bryan brothers’ ability to rise above it. Yesterday’s action was surprisingly unchaotic.
By the end of play yesterday, 15 of the 16 men’s doubles seeds had completed their first-round matches. (Sixth seeds Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Rohan Bopanna play today.) Of those 15, 10 reached the second round, including every top-seven seed who has played.
Compare that to men’s singles, in which 10 of 32 seeds crashed out in the first round. For a more direct comparison, consider that 4 of the top 16 men’s singles seeds lost in the first-round. Arguably, the doubles players have a tougher task. Since the field is made up of only 64 teams, the first round can be more challenging in doubles than in singles.
What makes the sticking power of these top seeds surprising is the number of good doubles players who aren’t part of seeded teams. Because the game is less physically demanding, doubles specialists can play on to much more advanced ages than can singles players. One of the teams that executed an upset yesterday, Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, was in 2008 ranked among the top few pairings in the world. Further, plenty of singles players have proven themselves quite adept at doubles, but don’t play enough to amass much of a ranking.
Part of the reason why the seeds have progressed more-or-less intact is the US Open format of three full sets. At other levels, the third-set match tiebreak essentially turns the contest into a coin flip. Both the second- and fifth-seeded pairs were forced into a third set, and at an event with a ten-point tiebreak, the odds would’ve been much higher that one of them would be headed home.
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Jack Sock is playing only his fifth Grand Slam, and his first as a direct entry, having recently gotten his ranking into the top 100. Part of the reason he was able to move into that rarefied air is his lucky path to the third round in last year’s US Open.
In 2012, his first-round draw was Florian Mayer, who retired in the middle of the third set. That gave him a shot at the relatively weak Flavio Cipolla, who he beat in straight sets. He gave Nicolas Almagro a scare in the third round but ultimately lost. Still, he took home 90 ranking points instead of the 10 he would’ve collected had he lost to a healthy Mayer in the first round.
Defending those points, one might expect the young American to take a tumble in the rankings after the US Open. After all, your typical 86th-ranked player doesn’t have much chance to reach the third round, let alone do so two years in a row.
But fortune has favored him again. In the first round, he drew Philipp Petzschner, who retired in the middle of the third set. (Sound familiar?) Yesterday, he defeated the clay-court specialist qualifier Maximo Gonzalez, who did him the huge favor of knocking out Jerzy Janowicz in the first round.
It’s hard to imagine an easier route to a Slam round of 32.
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At his site Betting Market Analytics, Michael Beuoy shows us the trajectory of Vicky Duval’s historic first-round upset, similar to some of the win-probability work I’ve done in the past.
Finally, more Duval: I charted her match last night, and have reams of data to show for it.
“In a tennis match-especially one with tiebreaks–some points are tremendously more important than others”.
Which helps to explain the success of players like Nadal and Ferrer, who seemingly play every single point as if their lives – and their families’ – depended on them. And perhaps the relative lack of success of some very talented players who allow themselves to become despondent, pessimistic, upset, distracted, angry, resentful… I’m beginning to feel that top-flight tennis is a sport for energetic Buddhists.
Have you read The Inner Game of Tennis? It makes a good case for the tennis-players-should-be-zen argument, if not in exactly those terms.
Yes, I read it… let’s see… about 37 years ago, shortly after it was first published in 1974. I thought it was groundbreaking and amazing, and just wondered why so many top players seemed to ignore its advice. (I don’t quite remember on which page Gallwey recommended breaking your racket if you miss a shot…) Borg was an outstanding exception; he probably hadn’t read the book, but seemed to exemplify its teachings naturally. He didn’t bother about mistakes or wrong decisions, just carried on playing.
Jeff- I woke up thinking more deeply about one of you old innovations (Jrank), wishing for the sort of sea change that would transform current annual rankings into Jrank for seedings, with real rankings being done like the Race by calendar year results, tho perhaps done on a monthly basis only. So as not to overly weight any one event’s result (except a Major). The Race – or real ranking – would not affect seedings, and everyone would be clear about the difference.
Or was it a dream?
R
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Actually, that’s something I think would be useful. A version of that (though not as sophisticated as jrank would be) is #2 here: http://tennisabstract.com/blog/2012/03/30/three-simple-ways-to-improve-the-atp-ranking-system/
Hype the race, let it be simple, and have something more sophisticated determine tournament entry and seedings, much the way Wimbledon tweaks seeds according to grass prowess.