Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Muguruza’s Dubai title makes her computer ranking look even more outdated, Nikoloz Basilashvili and Cristian Garin reverse their losing streaks in style, and the ATP is putting an impressive amount of prize money in the pockets of its players.
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 13, the grossly inappropriate WTA ranking of Garbine Muguruza. Muguruza won the WTA 1000 event in Dubai on Saturday, her first title in nearly two years, and her biggest win since Cincinnati in 2017. Her six-victory route to the Dubai trophy upped her record on the year to 18-4, with three of those losses coming to Ashleigh Barty, Petra Kvitova, and Naomi Osaka, the latter at the Australian Open, when the Spaniard reached match point against the eventual champion. With Muguruza playing a full schedule and other elites such as Barty and Osaka largely opting out, it’s tough to draw a direct comparison. But a ranking of 13, up three spots with the Dubai title, leaves her behind such names as Elina Svitolina, Karolina Pliskova, Bianca Andreescu, Kiki Bertens, and Belinda Bencic, none of whom would be favored in a head-to-head anytime soon against the former number one. Tennis Abstract Elo ranks Muguruza 4th, behind Osaka, Barty, and Simona Halep. That seems about right.
Our second number is zero, the total of Cristian Garin’s and Nikoloz Basilashvili’s combined top-200 wins in 2021 before this week. Both men turned things around in a big way, with Garin taking the title at home in Santiago, and Basilashvili winning in Doha, with an upset victory over Roger Federer along the way. Garin’s struggles barely merit the name—he’s played just two matches this season, as he skipped last month’s Melbourne bubble. But Basilashvili’s recent record has been truly dire. Playing under the cloud of a domestic violence charge in his native Georgia, he was 2-14 since the restart last August, with both of the wins coming in Antalya against players ranked outside the top 250. In Dubai, he not only withstood a Federer match point, he kept calm amid swirling winds in Saturday’s final that left he and opponent Roberto Bautista Agut struggling to keep shots in the court. Garin didn’t face quite the same quality of competition, earning his trophy with four wins over players ranked outside the top 100, two of them qualifiers. Still, both men got a much-needed confidence boost, and the Chilean returns to the top 20.
Today’s third and final number is 77%, the ATP’s estimate of what percentage of 2019 prize money players will retain in 2021. Pandemic-era tennis has required constant improvisation, with tournaments cancelled, held without fans, and otherwise rearranged to provide continued playing opportunities. In that light, a drop of only 23%–which ATP Chairman Andrea Gaudenzi says could narrow still further with the possibility that more events will be able to host fans later this year—is remarkable. Even more encouraging is the fact that the financial hit has been absorbed almost entirely by top 20 players. While the elites have indeed faced a severe drop in prize money, they have accepted more balanced rewards packages in order to support the rest of the tour. Players outside the top 50 have, on average, earned more than they did two years ago. A similar glimpse at the WTA’s financials would not be quite so rosy, but even still, credit is due to tennis’s governing bodies, which are somehow keeping the carnival running despite enormous and novel challenges.
