Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: An unconverted break point puts Roger Federer’s comeback on pause, Elise Mertens stops the momentum of another lower-ranked player, and Andrey Rublev rests his way into the Doha semi-finals.
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 23, the number of career losses in which Roger Federer has held a match point. The latest near-miss was yesterday’s match in Doha against Nikoloz Basilashvili, the hard-hitting Georgian currently ranked 42nd. Federer earned a break point with Basilashvili serving at 5-4 in the deciding set, but couldn’t convert, then failed to hold his own serve and lost the third set, 7-5. The ATP doesn’t maintain exhaustive historical records of losses from match point, but enough fans keep count that we know that Fed’s 23 losses are more than the tally from Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray combined. Along with some of Roger’s famous failures to convert break points, these are tough pills for fans to swallow. There is a silver lining, however: Earning break points is a sign of solid return play, and earning match points tells us that the match was a near draw. With that tenuous interpretation, we can say that Federer has not only won 1,243 career matches—he has almost won another 23.
Our second number is 31, Elise Mertens’s win total against lower-ranked players since the restart last summer. The Belgian is 31-4 when the computer ranking says she should win, and one of those four losses was at last year’s US Open against Victoria Azarenka when Vika was playing as well as anyone. Yesterday Mertens drew Jessica Pegula, the surging American who just upset Karolina Pliskova for the second time in as many weeks. The Belgian stopped the momentum, dropping the first set 7-5 but coming back to win with a 6-0 score in the decider. The knock on Mertens is that she doesn’t manage to raise her game against stronger opponents. Two years ago in Doha, she gave a glimpse of her potential, beating Kiki Bertens, Angelique Kerber, and Simona Halep in consecutive rounds. But she lost her next 8 straight matches against top-tenners. Her semi-final opponent today is not ranked in the top ten, though she ought to be: Garbine Muguruza is one of the hottest players in the game, and will give us some idea of whether Mertens is ready to rise to a new challenge.
Today’s third and final number is 398, the number of minutes spent on court this week by Taylor Fritz. The 23-year-old American has worked hard to get to the Doha semi-finals, needed two and a half hours and a third-set tiebreak to get past David Goffin, and another tight three-setter yesterday with Denis Shapovalov. 398 minutes—about six and a half hours—isn’t remarkable in and of itself, except in how it compares to Andrey Rublev’s zero-minute route to the same destination. The Russian got a first-round bye, then a walkover from Richard Gasquet in the second round … and then a walkover from Marton Fucsovics in yesterday’s quarters. Consecutive walkovers are common enough in doubles draws at lower levels of the tour, but only because many players prioritize singles. Rublev’s semi-final opponent, Roberto Bautista Agut, better hope that a bit of rustiness will slow down the Russian, because at this type of event, nothing else will. Rublev hasn’t lost a match at the ATP 250 level since September of 2019.
