Italian translation at settesei.it
In theory, tiebreaks are a showcase for big serving, the skill that generates enough holds of serve to push a set to 6-6. But no matter how two players get there, the tiebreak itself doesn’t always work out that way.
Two examples suffice from Wednesday’s Australian Open action. Roger Federer’s second-round match against Daniel Evans opened with twelve straight service holds, threatened by only one break point. Yet in the tiebreak, which Federer won 7-5, the returner claimed 9 of 12 points. Across the grounds in front of a much smaller crowd, Thomas Fabbiano and Reilly Opelka forced a fifth-set super-tiebreak. Through 52 games and 319 points, Opelka hit 67 aces and the pair averaged 2.9 shots per “rally.” In the match-deciding tiebreak, Opelka hit no aces, Fabbiano got all but one of his serves back in play, and they averaged 5.5 shots per point.
When I started researching tiebreaks several years ago, I found that the balance of power shifts away from the server: returners win more points in tiebreaks than at other points during the set. It’s not a huge effect, accounting for about a 6% drop in server winning percentage, possibly due to the fact that players almost always give 100% on each point, unlike weak returners facing 40-0 in the middle of the set. Sure, Federer-Evans and Fabbiano-Opelka are outliers: even if servers suffer a bit in the typical tiebreak, the whole sport doesn’t usually turn upside down. Still, the effect is worth a deeper dive.
Isner isn’t the only conservative
Let’s start with some overall trends. Filtering for men’s matches from 2010-19, I found 831 tiebreaks with shot-by-shot data from the Match Charting Project. For each set that ended in a tiebreak, I tallied several stats for both tiebreak points and non-tiebreak points, calculated the single-set ratio for each stat, and then aggregated all 831 breakers to get some tour-wide numbers. Here’s what happens to stats in tiebreaks:
- Service points won: -6.5%
- Aces: -6.1%
- First serve in: +1.3%
- Returns in play: +8.5%
- Rally length: +18.9%
(Technical note: When aggregating the ratios from all 831 tiebreaks, I weighted by the number of points in each tiebreak, but only up to a maximum of 11. Longer tiebreaks tend to be the ones if which servers are the strongest, like the 17-15 marathon in the first set of Fabbiano-Opelka. If those were weighted for their true length, we’d bias the results towards the best serving performances.)
Judging by the increase in successful first offerings, it looks like servers are a bit more conservative in tiebreaks. The large drop in aces and even bigger increase in returns in play provide additional evidence. Focused returners may be able to erase a small number of aces, but not that many, and they wouldn’t be able to convert so many into successful returns. The nearly 20% increase in rally length can be explained in part by the drop in aces (those one-shot rallies are replaced with more-shot exchanges), but the magnitude of the rally length effect suggests that players are more conservative on both sides of the ball.
More than one way
Not every player handles breakers the same way. Several men, including Federer, serve about as well as usual in these high-pressure situations. Certain others, like Rafael Nadal, appear to be more conservative, but make up for it by feasting on the toned-down offerings of opposing servers. Still others, like the impossible-to-write-about-tiebreaks-without-bringing-up Ivo Karlovic, underperform on both sides of the ball.
Here are the 20 players with the most tiebreaks recorded by the Match Charting Project since 2010. For each one, you can see how their rates of service points and return points won in tiebreaks compare to non-tiebreak situations. For instance, Jo Wilfried Tsonga wins 5.4% more service points in tiebreaks than otherwise, compared to the usual shift of 6.5% in the opposite direction. But Tsonga’s rate of return points won falls 3.4%, while the typical player increases his haul on return by 6.5%.
Player SPW RPW Jo Wilfried Tsonga 5.4% -3.4% Roger Federer 0.4% 3.2% Stan Wawrinka -0.1% 4.2% John Isner -0.6% 6.4% Novak Djokovic -0.8% 11.8% Andy Murray -2.2% 8.7% Alexander Zverev -2.7% 18.7% Juan Martin del Potro -3.3% 5.3% Nick Kyrgios -4.1% 10.5% Dominic Thiem -4.6% 12.1% ----ATP AVERAGE---- -6.5% 6.5% Kevin Anderson -7.1% 8.9% Gilles Simon -8.0% 16.3% Tomas Berdych -8.4% 6.8% Milos Raonic -9.2% 9.1% Rafael Nadal -9.4% 13.6% Marin Cilic -10.2% 5.8% Bernard Tomic -11.3% 4.5% Ivo Karlovic -12.6% -0.9% Grigor Dimitrov -13.8% 5.1% Karen Khachanov -25.1% -5.4%
For most players, the goal appears to be to win enough extra return points to counteract the drop in service success. Nadal is the most extreme example, winning almost 10% fewer service points than usual, but doing even more damage to his opponents. Alexander Zverev is the most impressive of the bunch, dropping his serve level only a bit, while converting himself into a Rafa-like returner. As you might expect, his tiebreak record is outstanding, winning far more than expected last season. We’ll see whether his eye-popping numbers persist.
A winning strategy
Ideally, I would wrap up a post like this with a recommendation. You know, analyzing the various approaches, based on these numbers, we can confidently say that players should….
It’s not that easy. It’s hard enough to identify which players are good at tiebreaks, let alone why. As I’ve written many times before, tiebreak results are closely related to overall tennis-playing skill, but not to serving prowess or excellence in the clutch. In any given season, some players amass outstanding tiebreak records, but their success one year rarely translates to the next. At various times in the past, I’ve highlighted Federer, Isner, Nadal, and Andy Murray as players who defy the odds and consistently outperform expectations in tiebreaks, but even they don’t always manage it. Isner, the poster boy for triumph via tiebreak, won slightly fewer breakers than expected in both 2016 and 2018.
Still, let’s look at these four guys in the light of the shot-by-shot data I’ve shared so far. Federer, Isner, and Murray are in the minority of players who hit more aces in tiebreaks than otherwise. However, it it doesn’t necessarily mean they are much more aggressive; of the the three, only Federer makes fewer first serves than usual. Isner manages to reduce the number of returns in play by 10%, compared to non-tiebreak situations, while the other two do not. Nadal breaks the mold entirely, making 6% more first serves than usual and hitting barely half as many aces.
In other words, there’s no single path to success. Federer and Isner maintain their superlative serving while taking advantage of their opponents’ nerves or conservative tactics. (I’ve previously suggested that the difference in serve points won comes from players like Isner upping their return game in pressure situations. He does, but not any more than the average player.) Nadal plays to his own strengths, forcing players into rallies from both sides of the ball. There may be some quality that ties these four men together (like focus), but we’re not going to find it here.