Continuing with our point-by-point player profiles, let’s look at Andy Murray. The Scot finished strong and performed up to expectations at the grand slams despite a dreadful stretch following the Australian Open.
Using all of his grand slam matches from 2011, we can begin to analyze his tendencies on serve and return.
The first table shows the frequency of different outcomes in the deuce court, in the ad court, and on break point, relative to Murray’s average. For instance, the 1.014 in the upper left corner means that Murray wins 1.7% more points than average in the deuce court.
OUTCOME Deuce Ad Break Point% 1.017 0.981 1.020 Aces 1.034 0.963 1.048 Svc Wnr 1.036 0.960 1.043 Dbl Faults 1.104 0.886 0.872 1st Sv In 1.007 0.993 0.957 Server Wnr 1.009 0.990 0.860 Server UE 0.968 1.035 1.013 Return Wnr 0.775 1.246 0.558 Returner Wnr 1.019 0.979 1.012 Returner UE 0.988 1.013 1.003 Rally Len 1.015 0.984 1.037
Like most righties, Murray is a little better in the deuce court. The substantial difference in return winners hints at a larger issue: When he serves cautiously, he serves very cautiously, leading to horrible second-serve results. That’s a topic for another day.
What’s remarkable about the above table, though, is Andy’s results serving against break point. Sure, 2% better than average doesn’t sound like much, but keep in mind that when fighting off breakers, he’s generally playing his best opponents. As we’ve seen, both Nadal and Federer perform serve more than 10% worse than average on break point for this reason; Murray bucks that trend, all the more remarkable because most break points are in the ad court.
Next, this is how he performs on a point-by-point basis. Win% shows what percentage of points he wins at that score; Exp is how many he would be expected to win (given how he performs in each match), and Rate is the difference between the two. A rate above 1 means he plays better on those points; below 1 is worse.
SCORE Pts Win% Exp Rate g0-0 398 66.6% 65.5% 1.02 g0-15 131 58.8% 64.5% 0.91 g0-30 54 61.1% 63.3% 0.97 g0-40 21 66.7% 61.0% 1.09 g15-0 262 62.2% 66.0% 0.94 g15-15 176 68.2% 65.1% 1.05 g15-30 89 65.2% 63.5% 1.03 g15-40 45 66.7% 61.5% 1.08 g30-0 163 69.9% 66.7% 1.05 g30-15 169 60.4% 65.5% 0.92 g30-30 125 64.0% 64.7% 0.99 g30-40 75 65.3% 63.0% 1.04 g40-0 114 64.9% 68.0% 0.96 g40-15 142 66.2% 66.5% 1.00 g40-30 128 72.7% 65.0% 1.12 g40-40 148 60.8% 62.0% 0.98 g40-AD 58 58.6% 59.6% 0.98 gAD-40 90 66.7% 63.5% 1.05
None of the numbers in this table are that extreme, but the overall picture they paint is of a player with better clutch serving abilities than Murray gets credit for. He serves better than expected at both 15-40 and 30-40, and he is barely below average at 30-30, 40-40, or 40-AD. According to these numbers, his game doesn’t change much according to the score–at least at the slams this year.
Serving Against Murray
We can go through the same exercises for Murray’s return points. The next two tables are trickier to read. Look at them as Serving against Murray. Thus, the number in the upper-left corner means that when serving against him, players win 1.5% more points than average in the deuce court; he is a better returner in the ad court. That’s mostly attributable to the fact that righties serve better in the deuce court, regardless of who is returning.
(I’ve excluded return points against lefty servers. Since lefties and righties have such different serving tendencies, limiting the sample to righty servers gives us clearer results, even as the sample shrinks a bit.)
OUTCOME Deuce Ad Break Point% 1.015 0.984 0.977 Aces 1.018 0.980 0.741 Svc Wnr 0.993 1.008 0.979 Dbl Faults 0.956 1.049 1.811 1st Sv In 0.998 1.003 0.974 Server Wnr 1.066 0.927 0.974 Server UE 1.016 0.982 1.148 Return Wnr 0.704 1.324 1.287 Returner Wnr 0.885 1.126 0.883 Returner UE 0.917 1.091 1.170 Rally Len 0.999 1.001 0.920
These numbers continue to challenge the conventional wisdom on Murray. What sticks out is the rally length on break points: 8% shorter than usual. I would have expected that Murray plays extremely cautiously in converting break points, but instead, he hits more return winners, makes more unforced errors, and keeps points shorter.
Here’s more on Murray’s return game, again with numbers from the perspective of players serving against him.
SCORE Pts Win% Exp Rate g0-0 388 59.8% 57.0% 1.05 g0-15 152 52.0% 55.9% 0.93 g0-30 73 49.3% 55.6% 0.89 g0-40 37 51.4% 54.8% 0.94 g15-0 231 60.6% 57.7% 1.05 g15-15 170 53.5% 56.6% 0.95 g15-30 115 54.8% 55.2% 0.99 g15-40 71 53.5% 54.5% 0.98 g30-0 140 57.9% 58.2% 0.99 g30-15 150 60.0% 58.0% 1.04 g30-30 123 56.1% 55.8% 1.01 g30-40 92 56.5% 54.1% 1.04 g40-0 81 56.8% 58.8% 0.97 g40-15 125 59.2% 58.6% 1.01 g40-30 120 50.0% 57.3% 0.87 g40-40 209 56.5% 55.9% 1.01 g40-AD 91 53.8% 54.8% 0.98 gAD-40 118 59.3% 56.8% 1.05
Murray’s results when returning at 40-30 are the only ones that really stick out. He returns much better than expected, winning exactly half of those points. He also appears to string together more streaks than expected at 0-15 and 0-30. Beyond that, he is fairly steady, much like Djokovic in the return game.