Expected Points, my new short, daily podcast, highlights three numbers to illustrate stats, trends, and interesting trivia around the sport.
Up today: Berrettini’s serve-plus-one is made for grass, Sam Querrey has a penchant for narrow margins, and Eastbourne needs to reconsider its prize pools.
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 45%, the fraction of Matteo Berrettini’s service points that he wins with two shots or fewer, based on 10 charted matches in the last 52 weeks. 45% ranks him fourth among men, behind monster servers John Isner, Reilly Opelka, and Milos Raonic. What sets Berrettini apart is that when the serve does come back, he immediately finishes the point more than anyone else on tour. Few stats seem more indicative of grass court potential, and sure enough, Berrettini won the ATP 500 Queen’s Club event last week, his second grass court title in only seven tournaments on the surface. Fast courts not only juice his serve-plus-one game, but they also allow his serve to approach Isner-Raonic levels. At Queen’s, he hit aces on more than one-fifth of his service points, up from 14% in his career on grass and 12% overall. Berrettini is up to 2nd on the Tennis Abstract grass-court Elo ratings, offering Italians a ray of hope that a countryman might finally win a singles title at the All England Club.
Our second number is 20, the number of career matches that Sam Querrey has won in a deciding set tiebreak. #20 came yesterday, as Querrey knocked out qualifier Roberto Carballes Baena in Mallorca, despite winning only 49% of points. Tiebreaks seem like they should be right up the alley of the big-serving American, but in fact, his career record in breakers is worse than 50-50. And despite the raw tally of deciding-set tiebreaks won, his record when the match is on the line is even worse. Against those 20 deciding-set wins, Querrey owns 28 losses, including eight in a row in 2017 and 2018. Squeaking through against Carballes is a step in the right direction, as he had already lost two third-set breakers in the last month, including one in Halle to Ugo Humbert, who he faces again today. At Wimbledon, of course, there is no deciding-set tiebreak at 6-6. But Querrey has already gone beyond 6-all in the final set four times in his career at the All England Club, and with his penchant for extremely narrow margins, his opponents at Wimbledon this year should strap in for a long ride.
Today’s third and final number is $565,530, the total financial commitment of this week’s WTA event in Eastbourne. It sounds like a lot of money, especially for a stop most players use as a warm-up before Wimbledon. But it’s about $80,000 less than the men’s prize pool, and $160,000 less than the total financial commitment of the concurrent ATP event. The men’s and women’s tours are independent entities that happen to play joint events from time to time, so it’s rare that a joint event will have the equal prize money that the slams offer. Sometimes that’s fine. Every year, some people get up in arms about the gender discrepancy at the Citi Open in Washington DC, where the men’s prize pool is much greater. In DC, the men play a 500-level event while the women play a 250, and WTA stars chasing a bigger payday have other choices that week. But in Eastbourne, it’s the women contesting a 500, with five top-tenners in the draw. The men are playing a 250, with no top-15 players participating. Whatever the underlying issues with sponsors and media rights, it’s grossly inappropriate that, with the sole exception of the two finalists, the men will make more money this week at Eastbourne.
