Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Cilic has encouraging histories against his next opponents in Estoril, Roberto Carballes Baena puts the LL in Carballes, and it’s 70 years since Nancy Chaffee nearly beat Maureen Connolly–three times.
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 18.5%, the probability that Marin Cilic will win the title in Estoril this week, according to the Tennis Abstract forecast entering Thursday’s play. That makes him the favorite, though only slightly ahead of Cristian Garin at 18.2%, who has played one fewer round. Cilic, who is far removed from his 2014 US Open or his 2018 peak ranking of #3 in the world, is in just his second quarter-final since the restart, a span that has seen him win less than half of his matches: 13 in 27 tries, only three of them in straight sets. Yesterday in Portugal, he came through his second straight protracted slugfest against a qualifier, taking 2 hours and 23 minutes to get past 331st-ranked qualifier Nuno Borges. History says he’ll do just fine in the quarters—he’s 6-1 against his next opponent, Kevin Anderson, another 30-something who has seen better days. He’s also 2-0 against Garin, his likely semi-final foe, so Cilic may well be headed to his first final in almost three years.
Our second number is 4, the number of consecutive times Roberto Carballes Baena’s path from qualifying to a tour-level main draw has been as a lucky loser. The weird feat dates back to April 2019, when he lucked his way into Barcelona, and did the same at Queen’s Club, and picked up again this month, when he needed last-minute withdrawals to get his shot in Belgrade and Estoril. In that span, the 28-year-old Spaniard played several qualifying draws, but only once did he reach the final qualifying round and not make the main draw as a lucky loser. If that isn’t fortunate enough, consider that this week in Estoril, he got a free pass to the second round, taking the place of Kei Nishikori, who had a bye as the 4th seed. He was similarly extra-lucky in Barcelona two years ago, though you could say it was karma, as he drew 25th-ranked Diego Schwartzman in the final round of qualifying. Eventually, though, you have to make your own luck: Having been gifted a pass into the round of 16 this week, he failed to take a set in yesterday’s match against Kevin Anderson. If a few more players withdraw, Carballes Baena will be back at it tomorrow, ready to get through the Madrid qualifying draw any way he can.
Today’s third and final number is 70, the number of years since Maureen Connolly beat Nancy Chaffee in a thrilling final at the Ojai tournament in California. The 6-2, 3-6, 10-8 decision was the closest of three title matches that went the distance between the two women in April and May of 1951, when Chaffee represented the stiffest competition still available to the 16-year-old Little Mo on the west coast. Connolly would go to win 48 matches against only 3 losses that year, claiming her first major at Forest Hills with victories against Althea Gibson, Shirley Fry, and Doris Hart. From there, she somehow raised her level even higher: In the remaining two and a half years of her accident-shortened career, she went undefeated at majors and won 184 matches against only 5 losses. Chaffee wasn’t half-bad herself, a former national girls’ champion and #4 in Tennis Abstract’s retrospective Elo ratings for the end of the 1951 season. Her spring of almost beating Little Mo might reflect the highest level her game ever reached, while it was a mere stepping stone for Connolly, one of the most dominant players in tennis history.
