Category: Wild cards

Houston and the Swarm of American Men

Italian translation at settesei.it

Of the 28 men in the ATP Houston main draw this week, 15 have a “USA” next to their names. The Americans include three of the top four seeds (John Isner, Sam Querrey, and Jack Sock), two of the four qualifiers (Stefan Kozlov and Denis Kudla) and one of the three wild cards (Mackenzie McDonald). The home-country dominance at the US Clay Court Championships hearkens back to earlier eras of professional tennis, when a few countries–the USA often first among them–dominated the ranks.

Those days are long gone, but this week’s turnout in Texas is the latest sign of an American resurgence. Sure, many top players are taking the week off, and plenty of European contenders opted for a similarly valuable event in Marrakech, so US players hardly represent half of the best ATPers. But 15 of 28–a main draw made up of such a high percentage of USAs–is something the tennis world hasn’t seen in a long time.

Going back five decades, there have been just over 400 ATP-level tournaments in which one country represented more than half of main draw entrants–an average of about eight events per year. The average is misleading, though: Houston is the first time it has happened since 2004, and there are only two previous instances in the last two decades. To find another draw so packed with Americans, we need to go back to 1996. Here are the last 20 tournaments in which one country represented more than half of main draw players:

Date      Tourney         Draw  Country  Count      %  
20040412  Valencia        32    ESP         20  62.5%  
19990913  Mallorca        32    ESP         18  56.3%  
19970908  Marbella        32    ESP         18  56.3%  
19960930  Marbella        32    ESP         18  56.3%  
19960212  San Jose        32    USA         17  53.1%  
19951002  Valencia        32    ESP         18  56.3%  
19950206  San Jose        32    USA         18  56.3%  
19940214  Philadelphia    32    USA         18  56.3%  
19940131  San Jose        32    USA         17  53.1%  
19930802  Los Angeles     32    USA         17  53.1%  
19930201  San Francisco   32    USA         19  59.4%  
19920803  Los Angeles     32    USA         17  53.1%  
19910708  Newport         32    USA         17  53.1%  
19910506  Charlotte       32    USA         17  53.1%  
19910401  Orlando         32    USA         20  62.5%  
19900730  Los Angeles     32    USA         19  59.4%  
19900507  Kiawah Island   32    USA         24  75.0%  
19900402  Orlando         32    USA         17  53.1%  
19900219  Philadelphia    48    USA         27  56.3%  
19900212  Toronto Indoor  56    USA         30  53.6%

The four most recent tournaments took place in three different places, but were instances of the same event. The rest of the draws on this list suggest just how many good tennis players were produced in that era by the United States. In about 85% of the tournaments in which one country made up half or more of the field, the dominant nation was the USA. Australia accounts for another 50, all at tournaments in Oz, most of them before 1980. The US is the only country to fill up more than half of a draw outside of its own borders.

What makes this week’s feat in Houston even more remarkable is that the tournament’s organizers gave only one of the three wild cards to a local player. (The other two went to 4th seed Nick Kyrgios, who didn’t bother to enter via conventional means, and fan favorite Dustin Brown.) In other words, Americans would have accounted for half of the draw even without the aid of wild cards.

This more specialized feat–non-wild cards from one country accounting for half of the draw–is even rarer over the last 25 years or so. Of the 20 tournaments listed above, only nine met this more rigorous standard. The other 11 only cleared the bar with the aid of wild cards. The 2004 Valencia tournament still qualifies, but for the most recent instance on American soil, we need to go back more than 25 years, to the 1993 event in San Francisco. That tourney had good reason to retain at least one wild card for a foreigner, as the organizers managed to attract Bjorn Borg. Borg lost in the first round, and Andre Agassi took the championship with a final-round win over Brad Gilbert.

It remains to be seen whether the sheer force of numbers will be enough to keep the Houston title in American hands. (Steve Johnson, the sixth seed this week, won it last year.) Of the 400-plus events with more than half of players representing the same flag, the winner has come from that dominant country about 73% of the time. My model suggests it is a toss-up this week, with a 48.9% probability that a US player wins it all. One of the favorites, however, is Australian Nick Kyrgios, with nearly a 45% chance of winning himself. One dark horse is the most interesting of all: Fifth seed Fernando Verdasco won this event four years ago. And fourteen years ago in Valencia, the last time one country made up more than half of an ATP draw, Verdasco was the man who hoisted the trophy.

Should Serena Be Seeded?

Italian translation at settesei.it

Serena Williams returned to professional tennis this month after more than a year of pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery. She took wild cards into both Indian Wells and Miami, competing as an unseeded player for the first time since August 2011. In her initial effort in California, she reached the third round before falling to sister Venus, and this week in Miami, she drew Indian Wells champ Naomi Osaka in her opening match and went home early, losing 6-3 6-2.

Seeing Serena without a number next to her name feels wrong. She left the tour for maternity leave just after winning last year’s Australian Open, a title that moved her back into the No. 1 ranking position. While she is clearly rusty–as she has been after previous absences–there’s little doubt she’ll quickly resume competing at a top-32 level (the threshold for an Indian Wells or Miami seed), if not considerably higher.

The brutal Miami draw and Serena’s ensuing early exit prompted all sorts of commentary, much of it calling for a rule change, some castigating the WTA for its lack of a maternity leave policy. The latter is not quite true: The WTA rulebook addresses absences for childbirth and treats returning players almost exactly as it handles women coming back from injury. Nevertheless, edge cases–like the greatest player in women’s tennis rejoining the tour without a single ranking point to her name–tend to put rules to the test.

Seedings are not just a convenient way to identify the top players on a printed bracket. They have an effect on the outcome of the tournament. In the March tournaments, seeded players get free passes to the second round. At every event, the seeding system keeps top players away from each other until the final rounds. Even minor differences, like the one between the fourth and fifth seeds, can have a major effect on two players’ potential routes to the title. This is all to say: Seedings matter, not just to returning players like Serena, but also to everyone else in the draw. While granting a seed to Williams right now may be the right thing to do, it would also push another seeded player into the unseeded pool, affecting that competitor’s chances at late-round ranking points and prize money. It’s important to acknowledge how the rules affect the entire field.

In a moment, I’ll outline various approaches the WTA could take to deal with future maternity leaves. I don’t have a strong opinion; there’s merit in each of them, as I’ll try to explain. What is most important to me, as a fan, is that any rules adopted are designed for the benefit of the whole tour, not just patches to handle once-in-a-generation superstars. Serena deserves a fair shake from the WTA, and her peers are entitled to the same.

1. Minor tweaks to the existing rule. The most likely outcome is almost always the status quo, and Osaka notwithstanding, the status quo is not that bad. The WTA rules allow for returning players (whether from injury or motherhood) to use a “Special Ranking” (SR) in eight events, including two slams.  The SR is the player’s ranking at the time she left the tour, and it determines whether she qualifies to enter tournaments upon her return. While Serena used wild cards for her two events thus far (more on that later), she could have used her SR for either or both.

In other words, new mothers are already allowed to pick up where they left off … with the important exception of seeding. Serena’s SR will allow her to enter, say, the French Open as if she were the No. 1 ranked player, but unless Roland Garros invokes their right to tweak seedings (like Wimbledon does), her seed will be determined by her actual ranking at that time. Since it’s only two months away, it’s very possible she’ll be unseeded there as well, making possible another nasty first-round matchup in the vein of the Simona Halep–Maria Sharapova opener at last year’s US Open.

The debate over seeding boils down to “respect” versus “practicality.” Serena’s achievements and her probable quick return to greatness suggest that she “deserves” to be seeded as such. On the other hand, many players (including Sharapova, different as her situation is) have had a hard time returning to their previous level. The post-comeback results of Sharapova or, more recently, Novak Djokovic, indicates that a star’s ranking 12 months ago might not tell you much about how she’ll play now. Seedings exist partly to induce top players to compete, but also to increase the likelihood that the best women will face each other in the final rounds. By the latter criterion, it’s not clear that Serena (or any returning player) should immediately reclaim a top seed.

If the WTA does stick with this basic principle, I would suggest offering a few more SR entries–perhaps 12 instead of 8, and 3 slams instead of 2. Maternity leave necessitates more time on the sidelines than the six-month injury break required to qualify for the SR rule, and it may require still more time to return to form. The WTA might also convince the ITF to offer an additional few SR entries to lower-level events. Kei Nishikori came back from injury by playing a couple of Challengers; women might prefer to get their feet wet with a few ITF $100Ks before using their SR entries on top-tier events.

2. Link seeding to Special Rankings. The second option is essentially what fans wanted when they realized Serena might not make it to the Miami second round. Instead of using current ranking to determine seeding, tournaments could use SR for players who used them to enter the event.

There is a precedent for this: Monica Seles was given a top seeding when she returned from injuries sustained during her 1993 on-court stabbing. More than two years later, she came back as the top seed in Canada and the second seed at the 1995 US Open, where she lived up to that draw placement, winning 11 matches in a row before falling to Steffi Graf in the New York final.

The pros and cons of this route are the opposite of the first proposal. Giving players their pre-break seeding would show respect for their accomplishments, but since most players don’t come back from any length time off court the way Seles did, it’s possible the seedings would appear overly optimistic. (And yes, I realize the irony of saying so during the 2018 Miami tournament, when the top two seeded women won only one match between them.)

3. Devise a time-off-court algorithm. Players usually need some time to resume their former level, but their skill upon return has some relationship to how they played before. When I wrote about Sharapova’s return from her drugs ban last year, I showed that elite players who missed a year or more (for whatever reason), tended to play much worse than their pre-break level for their first five or so matches, and then a moderately lower level for the next 50. I measured it in Elo points: a 200 point drop at first, then a 100 point drop.

I don’t expect the WTA to adopt Elo anytime soon, but an algorithm of this sort could be based on any ranking system, and it represents a reasonable compromise between the first two positions. For someone as dominant as Serena, it would fulfill most of her fans’ wishes: A 200-point drop from her pre-break level would still leave her roughly even with Halep, meaning that a system of this sort would’ve made her the first or second seed in this month’s draws.

A better illustration of how the algorithm would work requires a player who didn’t so overwhelmingly outclass the rest of the field: If Wozniacki (current Elo: 2156) were to miss the next year, her seeding upon return would use an Elo 200 points lower, of 1956, dropping her to about 30th (assuming all the top players were competing). After the first five matches, when players usually start getting their groove back, her seedings would rise to around 15th. Several months in, her ranking would rise, and her seeding would no longer need to be adjusted.

The obvious flaw here is the level of complexity. My algorithm is approximate at best and would need to be improved for such an important role. The advantage, though, is that if an acceptable formula could be found, it would allow the WTA to offer a perfect compromise between the needs of returning mothers and the rights of the rest of the field.

And about those wild cards… 

I’ve mentioned that Serena used wild cards to enter both Indian Wells and Miami, even though she could have used her Special Ranking. Just about every WTA event would happily hand her a wild card, as they should. So in Serena’s case, the SR rule is largely irrelevant–if it didn’t exist, she could immediately resume a full schedule.

I also wrote that, as a fan, what matters to me is that all tour players are treated equally. Tournament entries are opportunities to gain ranking points, which in turn determine entries and seeding, which affects the likelihood of racking up wins and titles. Wild cards are often thought of as gifts, but we rarely acknowledge the effect that those gifts have on the players who rarely get them. Because tournaments understandably tend to hand out free passes to home-country players (like Donald Young) and marquee personalities (like Eugenie Bouchard), the wild card system introduces systemic bias into rankings and results. Wild cards can’t make a journeyman into a superstar, but they can boost a player from the top 200 to the top 100, or from No. 70 to No. 50. For some tour players, these differences really matter.

Thus, when a superstar or media darling–or just a player from a country that happens to host a lot of tournaments, like the United States–returns from maternity leave, injury, or a suspension, the regular rules don’t apply. Maria Sharapova was wild carded into most of the tournaments she wanted to play last year, while Sara Errani has spent the last six months playing ITFs, $125Ks, and qualifying. Sharapova gets to play matches with 100 ranking points at stake while Errani contests entire tournaments with less on the line.

Wildly different as their cases are, Serena’s situation with regard to wild cards is the same as Sharapova’s. Her allotment of SR entries doesn’t matter. But imagine if, say, Anastasija Sevastova or Magdalena Rybarikova took time off to have a child. They might get a few free entries into European international-level events, or maybe a wild card into a tournament they’ve previously won. But for the most part, a Sevastova or a Rybarikova–despite taking her hypothetical absence while a top-20 player–would be jealously protecting her eight SRs. She would need them.

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to say that Serena doesn’t “deserve” all the wild cards she’s going to get. Her achievements make it obvious that she does. On a tour where events can award draw places at their discretion, no one deserves them more. However, the very existence of those discretionary spots means that maternity leave means something very different for Serena than it would for the more anonymous players near the top of the WTA rankings.

How about this proposal, then: For players coming back from maternity leave, expand the number of SR entries from 8 to 12, and tack on another four free entries to ITFs, so that returning players can have a child knowing that they’ll be able to compete at the top level for nearly a season once they come back. But–they may accept no wild cards during that time. If they take a wild card, they lose their SRs. That proposal would put all players on an even keel: Close to a year of tournament entries at their pre-break ranking. It would give the next Serena-level superstar plenty of time to regain her lost status, and best of all, it would do the same for her lesser-known peers.

Sebastian Ofner and ATP Debuts

This is a guest post by Peter Wetz.

Sebastian Ofner, the still relatively young Austrian, received some media attention this June when he qualified for the Wimbledon main draw at his first attempt and even reached the round of 32 by beating Thomaz Bellucci and Jack Sock. Therefore, some people, including me, had an eye on the 21-year-old when he made his ATP tour debut* at Kitzbuhel a few weeks later, where he was awarded a wild card.

Stunningly, Ofner made it into the semifinals despite having drawn top seed Pablo Cuevas in the second round. Cuevas, who admittedly seems to be out of form lately (or possibly is just regressing to his mean), had a 79% chance of reaching the quarterfinal when the draw came out, according to First Ball In’s forecast.

Let’s look at the numbers to contextualize Ofner’s achievement. How deep do players go when making their debut at ATP level? How often would we expect to see what Ofner did in Kitzbuhel?

The following table shows the results of ATP debutantes with different types of entry into the main draw (WC = wild card, Q = qualifier, Direct = direct acceptance, All = WC + Q + Direct). The data considers tournaments starting in 1990.

Round	WC       Q        Direct    All
R16	14.51%	 26.73%   24.46%    21.77%			
QF	 2.39%	  6.39%    4.32%     4.64%
SF	 0.51%	  2.30%    2.16%     1.59%
F	 0.17%	  0.64%    0.72%     0.46%
W	 0.17%	  0.26%    0.72%     0.27%

Since 1990 there have been 1507 ATP debuts: 586 wild cards (39%), 782 qualifiers (52%) and 139 direct acceptances (9%). Given these numbers, we would expect a wild card debutante to get to the semifinal (or further) every 9 years. In other words, it is a once in a decade feat. In fact, in the 28 years of data, only Lleyton Hewitt (Adelaide 1998), Michael Ryderstedt (Stockholm 2004) and Ernests Gulbis (St. Petersburg 2006) accomplished what Ofner did. Only Hewitt went on to win the tournament.

More than half of the players of all entry types who reached the final won the tournament. Speaking in absolute terms, 4 of 7 finalists (of ATP debutantes) won the tournament. (Due to the small sample size, it is perfectly possible that this is just noise in the data.)

If we exclude rounds starting from the semifinals because of small sample sizes, qualifiers outperform direct acceptances. This may be the result of qualifiers having already played two or three matches and having already become accustomed to the conditions, making it easier for them than it is for debutantes who got accepted directly into the main draw. But to really prove this, more investigation is needed.

For now we know that what Sebastian Ofner has achieved rarely happens. We should also know that by no means is his feat a predictor of future greatness.

* I define Kitzbuhel as Ofner’s ATP tour debut because Grand Slam events are run by the ITF. However, Grand Slam statistics, such as match wins, are included in ATP statistics.

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Peter Wetz is a computer scientist interested in racket sports and data analytics based in Vienna, Austria.

Why Maria Sharapova Should Get a French Open Wild Card

Italian translation at settesei.it

Maria Sharapova has returned from a 15-month doping suspension and hardly missed a step, advancing to the semifinals of her first tournament back, in the WTA Premier event in Stuttgart. While the draw has done her some favors–Ekaterina Makarova knocked out Agnieszka Radwanska, and Anett Kontaveit ousted Garbine Muguruza, Sharapova has shown she’s ready to compete at the highest level, winning about 57% of points against three credible opponents.

Many players have publicly stated that Sharapova doesn’t deserve to get wild cards, often because WCs are a sort of bonus, and a player who broke the rules doesn’t deserve any kind of handout. We’re likely to hear a lot more about it, as we won’t learn her status for the French Open for another two weeks.

However, wild cards are at the discretion of each individual tournament, and barring new regulations for players returning from doping bans, tournaments have their own incentives. Events often choose wild cards from a marketing perspective, granting main draw spots to former stars, young prospects, or local favorites.

Tournaments don’t have an explicit contract with their fans, but if they did, it would have to begin with an obligation to put the highest-quality product on the court. Most of the time, the ATP and WTA ranking and entry systems accomplish this, guaranteeing main draw places to the highest-ranked players. Occasionally, though, the ranking system fails and massively underrates the quality of a player.

Sharapova, obviously, is such a case. Unranked this week, and ranked #262 next week if she loses today to Kristina Mladenovic, she is already performing at the level of a top-20 player. My research suggests she may very soon be the best active player in women’s tennis, even if it takes many months for her official ranking to catch up.

Wild cards are the only mechanism tournaments are given to correct for the limitations of the ranking system. If the French Open (or any other event) wants to improve the quality of their draw, it should give Sharapova a wild card. If I am right that tournaments owe it to the fans to put on court the highest-level competition they possibly can, there are few opportunities so clear-cut as this one to improve the quality of a draw with a single player’s entry.

I can hear the objections already. First, as so many have claimed, Sharapova doesn’t “deserve” this kind of benefit. Yet by definition, wild cards are for players who don’t deserve a main draw entry. If they deserved one, their ranking (or “special” or “protected” ranking, if returning from injury) would guarantee them one. We use the words “deserve” and “earn” rather vaguely in this context, perhaps saying that a former great in his final year deserves a wild card based on his past contributions to tennis, or that a player has earned the free entry because she won a play-off of some sort.

It’s certainly true that some wild cards are more earned than others, but ultimately it’s beside the point. Even if it offends our sense of fairness, the players who most deserve a place in a draw are those who will make it more competitive. Last year, the French Federation gave wild cards to the likes of Alize Lim and Tessah Andrianjafitrimo, who lost in the first round to Qiang Wang without winning a single game. The eight wild cards won a total of three matches–one of them against another wild card. Except by virtue of being French, most of these wild cards didn’t do much to earn their places, and they had almost no impact on the tournament itself.

Beyond the claim that Sharapova, having broken the rules, doesn’t deserve a handout, there is a more extreme position, that her 15-month suspension wasn’t a sufficiently severe punishment. We can group that with another potential objection, that the French Open can’t be seen to endorse a doper. This is one of the many unfortunate side-effects of a weak central authority in tennis. By this argument, every tournament with the option of granting Sharapova an entry is required to re-litigate her doping ban. Even if we sidestep some of the controversial aspects of her ban and stipulate that she knowingly did something very bad, this seems nonsensical.

The whole point of having a central authority for doping enforcement is so that tournaments needn’t all police the players themselves. By issuing a 15-month ban, the ITF essentially spoke for all affiliated tournaments, saying that after 15 months (and exactly one day, as it turned out), Sharapova’s penalty would be paid and she would, in a sense, be rehabilitated. Giving a rehabilitated player a wild card is in no way an endorsement of her behavior, any more than giving a job to an ex-convict is an endorsement of the criminal act that put him in jail.

As a fan–even when I wish Sharapova wouldn’t win so many matches against my favorites–I want to see the best possible level of tennis every week. Now that her suspension is complete, every week that Sharapova wants to compete but can’t enter a top-level event is a missed opportunity for the sport. As great as the French Open is, it would be better with Sharapova than without her.

Podcast Episode 2: Doubles, Wild Cards, and Megastars

In the second episode of the Tennis Abstract Podcast, Carl Bialik and I give some much-deserved top billing to doubles, especially new ATP No. 1 Henri Kontinen and Elo doubles favorite Jack Sock.

We also cover the role of megastars in tennis, and the benefits and challenges they offer to the sport’s promoters. As we discuss, big names may be key to expanding the appeal of doubles, and they are the one major argument for the continuing existence of wild cards–on whichever side of the Maria Sharapova debate you find yourself.

Listen here, subscribe on iTunes, or use our feed to get updates on your favorite podcast software.

 

Regulations for Returning Rule-Breakers

Italian translation at settesei.it

Next month, Maria Sharapova will complete her 15-month doping ban and return to the WTA tour in Stuttgart, where she has been granted a wild card. It’s no surprise that tournaments are eager to invite an extremely marketable former No. 1, and Sharapova has already lined up wild cards for the Premier-level events in Madrid and Rome.

This has generated no small amount of controversy. Many people see wild cards as a sort of reward or gift that is inappropriate for a player caught breaking such a serious rule. Many fans and fellow players think that, even after she has undergone a severe penalty, Sharapova doesn’t deserve this type of advantage.

Crucially, neither the ITF–which handles drug testing and issued the suspension–nor the WTA–which sets the guidelines for tournament entry–has anything to say about the situation. Each event must make its own decision. The French Open may refuse to invite Sharapova this year (and Wimbledon could follow suit) but any other tournament organizer who cares about selling tickets and sponsorships would want her in the draw.

In other words, with the possible exception of Paris and London, Sharapova will be able to pick up where she left off, entering whichever tournaments she wishes. The only disadvantage is that she won’t be seeded, meaning that we could see some draws that will make the Indian Wells quarter of death look like a friendly club tournament. If she plays well and stays healthy, she’ll probably earn her way to some seeds before the end of the season.

I’m not interested the argument about whether Sharapova “deserves” these wild cards. I’m not a fan of tournaments handing prize money and ranking points opportunities to favorites in any case, but on the other hand, Maria’s penalty was already severe. It doesn’t seem right that she would spend months scrambling for points in lower-level ITFs. When Viktor Troicki was suspended for one year in 2013, he was granted only two tour-level wild cards, so he needed six months to regain his former ranking.

My concern is for the Troickis of the tennis world. Both Sharapova’s and Troicki’s comebacks will ultimately be shaped by the decisions of individual tournaments, so Sharapova–an immensely marketable multiple-Slam winner–will get in almost everywhere she wants, while Troicki was forced to start almost from zero. Put another way: Sharapova’s 15-month ban will last 15 months (exactly 15 months, since she’ll play her first-round match in Stuttgart on the first possible day) while Troicki’s 12-month suspension knocked him out of contention for almost 18 months.

The WTA needs a set of rules that determine exactly what a player can expect upon return from a suspension. Fortunately, they already have something in place that can be adapted to serve the purpose: the “special ranking” for those with long-term injuries. (The ATP’s “protected ranking” rule is similar.) If a player is out of action for more than six months, she can use the ranking she held when she last competed to enter up to eight events, including up to two Premier Mandatories and two Grand Slams. Whether the player is iconic or anonymous, she has a fair chance to rebuild her ranking after recovering from injury.

This is my proposal: When a player returns from suspension, treat her like a player returning from injury, with one difference: For the first year back, no wild cards.  Sharapova would get into eight events–she might choose Stuttgart, Rome, Madrid, Roland Garros, Birmingham, Wimbledon, Toronto, and Cincinnati. If she played well in her first two months back, she would probably have a high enough ranking to get into the US Open without help, and the whole issue would cease to matter.

The details don’t need to be exactly the same as post-injury comebacks. I can imagine including two to four additional special ranking entries into ITFs or qualifying, in case a player wants to work her way back to tour level, as a sort of rehab assignment. The important thing here is that the rules would be the same for everyone. As harsh as Sharapova’s penalty is, it pales in comparison to the effect a 15-month ban could have on a less popular tour regular, as Troicki’s example demonstrates.

Like it or not, there will be more doping bans, and unless the tours institute this sort of standardized treatment, there will be more controversies about whether this player or that player deserves wild cards after they return to the tour. The ultimate severity of a penalty will always depend on many factors, but a player’s popularity should never be one of them.

Dodig’s Consistency, IBM’s Offensive, and Hopeless Wild Cards

Ivan Dodig just missed out on a seeding at this year’s US Open.  Ranked 37th when seeds were assigned, he had ascended as high as #35, largely on the strength of his fourth-round showing at Wimbledon.

While the Croatian could have drawn any seed as early as the first round, he got lucky, pulling 27th-seeded Fernando Verdasco.  My forecast underlines his fortune, giving him a 51% chance to advance to the round of 64, then roughly even odds again to make the round of 32 against (probably) Nikolay Davydenko–another player who fell just outside the seed cut.

Making the Dodig-Verdasco comparison more interesting is that in the last 52 weeks, the unseeded player has won more matches (38 to 29) with a higher winning percentage (58% to 56%).  What the Spaniard has done, however, is bunch his wins much more effectively than his first round opponent.  While Dodig achieved a career highlight with his R16 showing in London, Verdasco made the quarters.  Fernando reached the final in Bastad, and earlier in the year, won two matches at the Madrid Masters.

A telling comparison is that while Dodig has lost five opening-round matches in the last year, Verdasco has lost nine.  As Carl Bialik explained two years ago, consistency isn’t such a great thing in tennis.  Certainly, the ATP rankings–and the seedings that utilize them–prefer inconsistency.

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You know there’s a Grand Slam in the offing when the PR pieces from IBM start to appear.  Last week, a particularly bald-faced plant showed up in the New York Times, a publication that–one fervently hopes–should know better.

This particular piece includes such hard-hitting journalism as, “The keys are updated during matches to track any shift in momentum, and they correlate well with the final outcome,” and “These extra features are likely to drive traffic to the event’s Web site, USOpen.org, and its various mobile versions. ”

The Times should be embarrassed.  What makes this particularly frustrating to the statistically-oriented fan is that while IBM speaks the right language, the results of this effort to “fulfill fans’ desire for deeper knowledge” are so disappointing.

The much-vaunted Keys to the Match are frequently arbitrary, often bizarre.  In Kei Nishikori‘s second-round match at Wimbledon, one of his “Keys” was to “Win between 71 and 89 of winners on the forehand side.”  He didn’t do that–whatever it means, exactly. He didn’t meet the goals set by his two other Keys, either, yet he won the match in straight sets.

Most frustrating to those of us who want actual analysis, the underlying data–to the extent it is available at all–is buried almost beyond the possibility of a fan’s use.  IBM–like Hawkeye–is collecting so much data, yet doing so little with it.

Lots of fans do desire more statistical insight. Much more. The raw material is increasingly collected, yet the deeper knowledge remains elusive.

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Stay with me as I leap from one hobby-horse to another.

Wild cards cropped up as a topic of conversation last weekend, largely thanks to Lindsay Gibbs’s piece for Sports on Earth, in which Jose Higueras said, “If it was up to me, there would be no wild cards. Wild cards create entitlement for the kids. I think you should be in the draw if you actually are good enough to get in the draw.”

I don’t object to wild cards used as rewards, like the one that goes to the USTA Boys’ 18s champion, or the ones that the USTA awards based on Challenger performance in a set series of events.  There’s even a place for WCs as a way to get former greats into the draw. James Blake shouldn’t have gotten the deluge of free passes that he has received in the last few years, but it’s probably good for the sport to have him in more top-level events than he strictly deserves.

The problem stems from all the other wild cards, and not just from a player development perspective.  Are fans going to get that much enjoyment out of one or two matches from the likes of Rhyne Williams and Ryan Harrison, Americans who didn’t have a high enough ranking to make the cut?  Of the fourteen Americans in the men’s main draw, six were wild cards, and it would shock no one if those six guys failed to win a single match.

There are further effects, as well.  By exempting Williams, Harrison, Tim Smyczek, and Brian Baker from the qualifying tournament, fans seeking quality American tennis last week barely got to see any.  Donald Young–who has received far too many wild cards himself–was the only American to qualify, largely because the US players at the same level as the other would-be qualifiers didn’t have to compete.  The remaining Americans were in over their heads.

This leads me to a great alternative suggested by Juan José Vallejo on Twitter: Be liberal with free passes in qualifying, and take the opportunity to promote those early rounds much more.  At the Citi Open a few weeks ago, the crowds on Saturday and Sunday for qualifying were comparable to those Monday and Tuesday.  Because qualifying often falls on the weekend, the crowds are there.  But if they want to see Jack Sock play, they’ve got to come back Tuesday night (and spend a lot more money), and they’re much more likely to see him overmatched by a better, more experienced player.

Cut the entitlement, improve the quality of main draw play, and give the fans more chances to watch up-and-coming stars.  I wish there was a chance this would happen.

How Much Do Wild Cards Matter?

Last week, I presented a lot of data that demonstrated how American (and to a lesser extent, French, Australian, and British) players receive the bulk of ATP wild cards, mostly because there are so many tournaments in these countries.  That leaves nationals of other countries to fight their way up through the rankings more slowly, earning less money and facing tougher odds.

How bad is it?  Does it really help to get a handful of free entries, especially if most wild cards are doomed to lose in the first round or two?

To get a sense of the effect, let’s take a look at Jack Sock, the most gifted recipient of wild cards in 2012.  He entered seven tour-level events this year, all on free passes.  (He was also wildcarded into another three challengers and the Cincinnati Masters qualifying draw.)  If you take away the wild cards, he would’ve played a couple of challengers, some qualifying draws for US 250s, leaving him to fill most of his calendar with futures.

As it is, Sock has boosted his ranking from 381 to 164 in a single year, earning $137,000 along the way.  About half of that comes from his third-round showing at the US Open, which required him to beat Florian Mayer (who retired) and Flavio Cipolla, not a particularly tall order (as it were).  Another $27,000 came entirely from first-round losses–tournaments that he didn’t earn his way into, and where he failed to win a match.

I don’t mean to pick on Sock.  Kudos to him for winning as many matches as he has this year and establishing himself as one of the better prospects in the game.  But if he weren’t from a Grand Slam-hosting country, he would have been lucky to get a single wild card, perhaps benefiting from two or three freebies at the challenger level.  He would have spent most of 2012 on the futures circuit, hoping to pick up the occasional $1,300 winner’s check.

What would have happened then?  A handy test case is Diego Sebastian Schwartzman, a young Argentine about one month older than Sock.  At the end of last year, Schwartzman was ranked 371 to Sock’s 381.  Schwartzman doesn’t exactly constitute a scientific control group, but as a point of reference, we couldn’t ask for much more.

In terms of on-court performance, Schwartzman may well have had a better 2012 than Sock did.  The Argentine won six Futures events on the South American clay, and he added another four doubles titles at that level.  He wasn’t nearly as successful at the next level, going 5-10 in Challenger and ATP qualifiying matches.  Perhaps he was a bit worn down from his 49 Futures singles matches this year.

It’s an open question whether Sock or Schwartzman had the more impressive year.  Some might prefer the American’s challenger title and handful of top-100 scalps; others would prefer Schwartzman’s 30-match winning streak at the Futures level.

But here’s the kicker: While Sock made $137,000 and raised his ranking to #164, Schwartzman made $17,000 and is currently ranked #245.  By showing up at the Indian Wells Masters and losing in the first round, Sock made about as much money as Schwartzman did by winning six tournaments.

The rankings differential isn’t as striking, but it is just as important for both players in the near future.  Sock was able to earn direct entry in the Tiburon Challenger earlier this month.  A ranking inside the top 200 is good enough to get into almost all Challengers and a substantial number of ATP qualifiers.  245 will get you into many of the Challenger events with lower stakes (read: less money, fewer points on offer) and a much smaller number of ATP qualifiers.

Thus, the favors handed to the American–and never considered for the Argentine–will effect the trajectory of both players’ careers for some time to come.

Andrea Collarini, perhaps you’d like to reconsider?

Which Tournaments Award Competitive Wild Cards?

Italian translation at settesei.it

For the last two days, we’ve looked at tour-level wild cards from various angles.  Many top players never received any; others have gotten plenty but never taken much advantage.  Still others have managed to prop up their rankings with occasional wild cards despite not having the game to take themselves to the next level.

Wild cards are perhaps most interesting from a structural perspective.  Every tournament gets to give away between three and eight free spots in the main draw, and what they do with them is fascinating.  Events must pick from among several priorities: Bring in the best possible players to build a competitive field? Award places to big names, even if they are unlikely to win more than a single match?  Support national objectives (and perhaps invest in future fan interest) by handing the places to the best rising stars the home country has to offer?

Obviously, these priorities conflict.  The Canada Masters events give out most of their wild cards to Canadians–56 of the last 59.  But those local favorites have failed to win even one quarter of their matches, the second worst record for home-country wild cards among the current Masters events.  Wimbledon is the least home-friendly of the Grand Slams, but perhaps it is still too friendly, as British wild cards have won barely one in five matches over the last 15 years.  Lately, it has been even worse.

The dilemma is most pronounced for tournaments in countries without a strong tennis presence.  These events generally hand out most of their wild cards to non-locals, saving a few for the best the homeland has to offer.  Dubai, for instance, has only awarded 10 of its last 42 wild cards to Emiratis.  Unfortunately, those guys have gone 0-10.  The story is similar in Doha and Kuala Lumpur.

A different approach is evident in Tokyo, the only remaining tournament in Japan.  These days, the 32-player draw only gives the event three wild cards to work with.  The tournament isn’t wasting spots on outsiders: Every wild card since 1992 has gone to a Japanese player.  The local wild cards have done better than we might guess, winning almost 30% of their matches, good for 45th among the 65 tournaments I looked at.

In fact, there is not a strong correlation between home-country favoritism and poor wild-card performance.  Of long-running tournaments, Newport has seen their wild cards have the most success, winning more than half their matches.  Next on the list is Halle, also a bit better than half.  But the two tournaments take drastically different approaches to local players.  Newport only awards 63% of its WCs to Americans–second-lowest among tourneys in the USA.  Halle, on the other hand, gives nearly all of its free spots to Germans.

When discussing the structural biases of the wild card system, it’s easy to pick on the USA.  America hosts far more tournaments than any other country, and thus US events have the most wild cards at their discretion.  Many of those decisions are made by a single organization, the USTA.  But US tournaments are far from consistent in their approach.

The US Open is by far the most nationalistic of the Grand Slams, having awarded about 85% of its WCs in the last 15 years to US players.  The French comes next at 78%, then the Australian at 69%, followed by Wimbledon at 67%.  But even that understates the case.  Take out the French reciprocal wild cards since 2008 and the Australian reciprocals since 2005, and 100 of the last 105 wild cards in Flushing have represented the home nation.

Yet as we’ve seen, Newport shows less home-country favoritism than almost any other ATP event, and the Miami Masters is even more extreme, living up to its billing as the “South American Slam” by giving barely half of its wild cards to US players.  Even the most biased US tournament (aside from the Open) is the clay court event in Houston, which isn’t even in the top third of all events, handing out “only” 86% of wild cards to Americans.

The problem isn’t the behavior of US tournament officials–if anything, they are more international in their thinking than their colleagues in other countries.  Instead, their priorities–put home-country players on the court; amass a competitive field–combined with the sheer number of US events, result in one wild card after another for a small group of Americans and no equivalent advantages for players from countries that do not host tour-level events.

After the jump, find a table with many of the numbers I’ve referred to throughout this post.  All tour-level events that took place in 2011 or 2012 are included, and data goes back to 1998. homeWC% is percentage of WCs that went to home- country players, WCW% is the winning percentage of all wild cards, and hWCW% is win% of all wild cards from the home country.  I’ve excluded wild cards who were seeded, since those are usually just late entries, and don’t reflect tournament priorities in the same way that other WCs do.  For a sortable table with even more data, click here.

Continue reading Which Tournaments Award Competitive Wild Cards?

Who Takes Advantage of Wild Cards?

Yesterday, we saw that ATP tour-level wild cards are the privilege of just a small subset of top pros.  If you play for a Grand Slam-hosting country, or you are a major junior prospect, you’ll get plenty.  If you fit neither of those categories, you’re on your own.  Donald Young gets 27 wild cards while better players work for years to earn their way into as many as 27 ATP main draws.

This discrepancy raises plenty of questions, not least the issue of whether the wild card status quo is good for tennis.

The title of this post raises another: Who used those wild cards to rocket to the top?  Andy Roddick is one, having amassed a 20-9 record, including two titles and one Masters-level quarterfinal, from 11 wild cards spots in 2000 and 2001.  On the flip side is Nicolas Mahut, who received 9 tour-level wild cards before his 25th birthday, winning only one match–and that one by retirement.

When players do take advantage of their wild cards and string a few wins together, what are we to make of them?  Roddick was clearly on his way to the top.  After winning Atlanta and Houston in back-to-back weeks in 2001, he never needed a wild card again.  But other highly-touted Americans, such as Jesse Levine and Ryan Sweeting, never manage to get their ranking fully out of wild card territory.  They’ll both probably receive more, taking opportunities to win a tour-level match or two that gives their rankings a boost.

The ranking effect of a tour-level win or two compounds the effects that keep down players like Grega Zemlja.  First, someone like Levine or Frank Dancevic receives a substantial number of wild cards, consistent opportunities to play in a main draw that other, similarly-ranked players don’t get.  Then, unless they really aren’t that good, or they get a slew of unlucky draws, they win a match or two.  A mere appearance in a Grand Slam main draw is worth 10 ranking points; a single win gets you another 35.  In some challenger events, you need to reach the final to earn that many points.

More ranking points, of course, lead to a higher ranking.  A higher ranking leads to more direct entries into tournaments.  And then, somehow, you have Donald Young in the top 50.

Thus, “taking advantage” of wild cards has strong positive and negative connotations.  Guys like Roddick and Federer were ready to compete at the highest level before their rankings said they were, so they took advantage of their opportunities to the fullest.  But when a player gets 10 wild cards and wins four matches, he’s made the best of his situation in a manner that exploits the inequities of the ATP tour.

After the jump, find a table that shows everyone currently in the top 200 who received at least four tour-level wild cards before their 25th birthday.  (I’m using that age as a cutoff to avoid counting wild cards handed to players on the comeback trail or a retirement tour.)  It’s sorted by number of wild cards received pre-25.  For a sortable table, click here.

Continue reading Who Takes Advantage of Wild Cards?