Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Ruud barely breaks a sweat to reach the Monte Carlo round of 16, Shelby Rogers excels in a tournament that Ash Barty skipped, and Rafael Nadal chases his 12th Monte Carlo title.
Scroll down for a transcript.
You can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and elsewhere in the podcast universe.
Music: Love is the Chase by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2021. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Ft: Apoxode
The Expected Points podcast is still a work in progress, so please let me know what you think.
Rough transcript of today’s episode:
The first number is 179, the total number of points played by Casper Ruud through his first two rounds in Monte Carlo. Ruud made quick work of Holger Rune and Diego Schwartzman on back-to-back days, beating the Danish 17-year-old 2 and 1 on Tuesday and the 7th seed from Argentina yesterday 3 and 3. The win over Schwartzman is particularly noteworthy—not only is it the first big win of an injury-hampered season, it’s Ruud’s first victory in five meetings. Unlike virtually everyone else the Argentine faces, Ruud never lost his serve, and by the end of the match, Schwartzman couldn’t even control play on his own deal, losing 16 of the last 18 points. Despite being the top-ranked player from Scandinavia, the Norwegian doesn’t get much press, having fallen behind peers such as Stefanos Tsitsipas and younger prospects like Jannik Sinner. But clay is Ruud’s metier, and if he stays healthy, his last two matches should serve as warning to the rest of the tour.
Our second number is 7, the number of events Shelby Rogers has played this year, all without a first-round exit. She’s comfortably into the quarter-finals of her latest tournament, the Charleston 250, with quick wins over Caty McNally and Claire Liu. Rogers, a 28-year-old American ranked 46th on the WTA computer, has flown below the radar so far in 2021, but is unlikely to stay out of view much longer. Three of her six losses have come to Ashleigh Barty, with others to Coco Gauff, Elise Mertens, and Elina Svitolina. Her 14 wins on the season rank her among the leaders on tour, and the high level of the opponents who have beaten her means that she ranks 13th in Tennis Abstract’s single-season Elo metric. McNally and Liu are ranked outside of the top 100, but Rogers faces a tougher test in the quarter-final, drawing last week’s finalist Danka Kovinic. The Montenegrin has gotten more press lately, but when we crunch the numbers, the unheralded American veteran is a narrow favorite to advance.
Today’s third and final number is 35, the number of 6-1 sets that Rafael Nadal has won in his 17 appearances in Monte Carlo. The first 6-1 came in his debut match 18 years ago against Karol Kucera, and the 35th made up half of a routine defeat of qualifier Federico Delbonis yesterday. Counting breadstick sets is just silly trivia next to his 72 match wins and 11 titles, but at this point, what else is there to say? This year’s campaign was a bit different than usual as he entered on a losing streak, having fallen in straight sets to Fabio Fognini in the 2019 final. But he was quick to right the ship, needing just 80 minutes to dispatch Delbonis. Rafa isn’t the type to get ahead of himself, but fans have surely noted that he could face Fognini in the semis, possibly for the chance at a blockbuster final against Novak Djokovic. The Serbian top seed won their last two meetings in Monte Carlo, though they haven’t met here in six years. Before that, Nadal won back-to-back clashes with his long-time rival, finishing both matches with set scores of—you guessed it—six games to one.
