Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: The St. Petersburg draw leaves little room for foreign challengers, Cristian Garin prefers to keep his clay court points short, and the upcoming Miami Open will feature a global assortment of IMG clients.
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 74%, the probability that a Russian player will win the title at the WTA 500 event in St. Petersburg this week. St. Petersburg’s awkward spot on the schedule has often meant it has a weaker field than other tournaments at the same level, and this year is even more extreme. The top two seeds are #34 Ekaterina Alexandrova and #36 Veronika Kudermetova, and five of the eight seeds are Russian. The 74% figure, based on Tennis Abstract Elo ratings and reflecting the handful of first-round results from Monday, is due in large part of those seeds, though there are another 6 home-country players in the draw. Still, the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy hasn’t seen a Russian champion since 2005, and there’s no guarantee it will this week. The woman to watch among the foreign contingent is Clara Tauson, the Dane who qualified and won in Lyon two weeks ago. The 18-year-old qualified again this week, and she’ll try to score an opening-round upset today against eighth-seed Daria Kasatkina.
Our second number is 3.4, the average rally length in Sunday’s Santiago final between Cristian Garin and Facundo Bagnis. 3.4 shots per point is unusually low for a clay court event, and can partly be explained by the altitude in Santiago as well as an imperfect surface that created a few winners from otherwise routine shots. Another factor is Garin’s aggressive gamestyle, at least relative to other dirtballers. He has the ability to hit aces—including 14 of them in this match—and finishes many other points with a plus-one winner. While his title match in Cordoba last year was a more typical 5.4 shots per point, Sunday’s 3.4 is hardly unfamiliar territory. When the Chilean beat Gianluca Mager in the 2020 Rio de Janeiro final, the average rally was only 2.6 shots. That’s not quite a record, thanks to Ivo Karlovic reaching a final round in high-altitude Bogota, but it’s extremely unusual. 22 of Garin’s 23 professional finals have come on clay courts, so no matter how fast the points, it’s clear he prefers the slower surface.
Today’s third and final number is 2, the number of main draw wild cards given to Americans for the Miami Open. The total number of wild cards announced yesterday was 12, a reminder that Miami’s organizers don’t play by the usual rule book of handing free entries to a tired list of local names. The tournament is owned by IMG, the global sports conglomerate, and it tends to favor the players that their agents represent. Among those are up-and-coming European men Carlos Alcaraz, Jack Draper, and Hugo Gaston, and women’s prospects Anna Kalinskaya, Wang Xiyu, and Wang Xinyu. The Miami main draw will feature 96 men and 96 women, so plenty of Americans will still be on hand, and IMG is sure to offer qualifying wild cards to more players from the USA. It isn’t the best look for tennis that a top-tier tournament can hand out entries to business associates, but for fans, it’s a great opportunity to see players who might be within a few years of stardom.
