Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Marin Cilic keeps winning on his favorite surface, Vandeweghe is deep sleeper pick for Wimbledon, and Sebastian Korda joins an impressive list of multi-faceted stars.
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 2nd, Marin Cilic’s ranking in the Tennis Abstract grass-only Elo ratings. That doesn’t mean that Cilic is the 2nd favorite behind Djokovic for the Wimbledon title—far from it. Grass-only ratings are derived from—you guessed it—only results on grass courts, which have been hard to come by in the last two years. Not only Cilic win the first available tour-level title on turf last week, but his career grass-court credentials are top-notch. In addition to his 2017 Wimbledon final, he has a 31-10 career record at Queen’s Club, where he opened a new campaign last night. Three years ago, a veritable blink of an eye in terms of Covid-era grass-court results, Cilic won the London title, defeated Sam Querrey, Nick Kyrgios, and Djokovic in succession. His win yesterday over qualifier Sebastian Ofner wasn’t exactly a confidence booster, as he needed a third-set tiebreak to reach the second round. Yet aside from a weak showing on break points, Cilic turned in a solid outing. He won 55% of total points, right in line with his usual rate in grass-court wins.
Our second number is 13, CoCo Vandeweghe’s ace total out of only 61 service points on Monday. Vandeweghe qualified for the main draw in Birmingham, and her first-round match was an ace-off with Kristyna Pliskova, who fired 12 of her own. The American came through in straight sets, not just topping Pliskova in the ace column but also outplaying her on the rare points that went beyond the first shot. If you’re looking for a deep sleeper pick for Wimbledon, you could do worse than Vandeweghe. She’s ranked outside the top 200, but she has reached the second week of Wimbledon three times. And this week, Vandeweghe’s serve is at full strength. She cracked 18 aces against Kateryna Kozlova in the final qualifying round, making two straight matches in which about one in five of her first serves was untouchable. The last time she achieved such a high ace rate on grass was six years ago at Wimbledon, when she faced Kristyna Pliskova’s sister, Karolina.
Today’s third and final number is 11, the number of active men who beat a top-25 player on hard, clay, and grass courts before their 21st birthday. Sebastian Korda was the latest to join this elite group with his first-round upset of Roberto Bautista Agut on grass in Halle yesterday. Earlier this year, he knocked out both Fabio Fognini and Diego Schwartzman on hard courts in Miami, and last fall, he beat John Isner at Roland Garros. That’s more than just a list of top-25 scalps for Korda, as a pair of top-tenners are among them. He joins the likes of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Tsitsipas, and Auger Aliassime with about three weeks to spare before he turns 21 next month. Ranked 52nd, Korda is third among under-21s on the ATP computer behind Auger Aliassime and Jannik Sinner, and the Tennis Abstract Elo rankings rate him ahead of Auger Aliassime at 26th overall. However quickly he makes his seemingly inevitable rise to the top, Korda has demonstrated the capability to break through on any surface.
