Wimbledon Men’s Draw Predictions

After several days of delays in qualifying, the Wimbledon main draws are finally complete.  As expected, Novak Djokovic is the favorite, with a 21.6% chance of winning.  Federer is next, at 14.3%, and Nadal is close behind, at 13.6%.  It’s Rafa’s turn to line up against dark horse Juan Martin del Potro–they are positioned for a fourth-round clash.

A few other notes about the draw:

  • It’s easy to imagine that all qualifiers are alike, but my system has no respect for Frenchman Kenny De Schepper.  He has less a 10% shot at beating Olivier Rochus.
  • Speaking of qualifiers, Marinko Matosevic drew 25th-seed Juan Ignacio Chela, whose ranking is largely due to his strong performance (and weak draw) in Paris.  Chela is not much of a hard court threat, so while Matosevic is hardly a threat in his own right, the Aussie is favored.
  • The Matosevic/Chela matchup could also benefit an American.  Alex Bogomolov and Donald Young will play for a chance to face the winner of Matosevic/Chela, giving either US player a good chance of reaching the third round.  After that it’s Tomas Berdych, and it’s probably over.
  • Several qualifiers are favored to reach the second round, partly because of a few Q vs. Q (or Q vs. lucky loser) matchups.  One such qualifier is Lukasz Kubot, who I predict will beat wild card Arnaud Clement.
  • Another one?  Ryan Harrison, in as a LL, faces Ivan Dodig.  Dodig has climbed the rankings this season, but my system puts him a tiny margin behind the American.
  • Of the top four, Roger Federer has the easiest route to the semis.  It looks like David Nalbandian in the third, Almagro, Youhzny, or maybe Isner in the fourth, and Ferrer or Tsonga in the quarters.

Here is the full breakdown:

Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(1)Rafael Nadal             92.9%  84.1%  68.2%      13.60%  
Michael Russell              7.1%   3.2%   0.9%       0.00%  
Pablo Andujar               27.8%   2.0%   0.4%       0.00%  
Ryan Sweeting               72.2%  10.7%   4.1%       0.02%  
Gilles Muller               74.2%  21.8%   3.6%       0.01%  
Tommy Haas                  25.8%   3.4%   0.2%       0.00%  
Fabio Fognini               27.5%  16.7%   3.1%       0.02%  
(31)Milos Raonic            72.5%  58.0%  19.4%       0.65%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(24)Juan Martin Del Potro   90.4%  73.9%  57.8%       7.49%  
Flavio Cipolla               9.6%   3.8%   1.2%       0.00%  
Olivier Rochus              90.1%  21.9%  10.4%       0.05%  
Kenny De Schepper            9.9%   0.4%   0.0%       0.00%  
Frederico Gil               42.4%  12.8%   2.4%       0.00%  
Dudi Sela                   57.6%  22.4%   5.2%       0.03%  
Edouard Roger-Vasselin      23.7%  10.1%   2.1%       0.00%  
(15)Gilles Simon            76.3%  54.8%  21.0%       0.52%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(10)Mardy Fish              71.4%  48.3%  33.1%       1.81%  
Marcel Granollers           28.6%  13.0%   6.3%       0.03%  
Philipp Kohlschreiber       64.3%  28.3%  16.1%       0.27%  
Denis Istomin               35.7%  10.3%   4.2%       0.01%  
Robin Haase                 67.8%  21.3%   6.0%       0.01%  
Pere Riba                   32.2%   5.8%   0.9%       0.00%  
Radek Stepanek              39.8%  27.0%  11.7%       0.10%  
(21)Fernando Verdasco       60.2%  45.8%  21.7%       0.45%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(25)Juan Ignacio Chela      44.2%  15.9%   3.6%       0.00%  
Marinko Matosevic           55.8%  24.6%   6.1%       0.00%  
Donald Young                52.5%  31.6%  10.8%       0.02%  
Alex Bogomolov Jr           47.5%  27.9%   8.4%       0.02%  
Ruben Bemelmans             34.4%   7.4%   3.2%       0.00%  
Julien Benneteau            65.6%  21.2%  12.7%       0.06%  
Filippo Volandri             6.3%   1.1%   0.2%       0.00%  
(6)Tomas Berdych            93.7%  70.3%  55.0%       2.47%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(4)Andy Murray              87.9%  77.2%  57.4%       9.55%  
Daniel Gimeno-Traver        12.1%   6.2%   2.0%       0.00%  
Tobias Kamke                47.4%   7.5%   2.2%       0.00%  
Blaz Kavcic                 52.6%   9.0%   2.8%       0.01%  
Sergiy Stakhovsky           83.3%  26.2%   6.6%       0.04%  
Daniel Cox                  16.7%   1.6%   0.1%       0.00%  
Ivan Ljubicic               39.3%  26.1%   9.4%       0.17%  
(27)Marin Cilic             60.7%  46.0%  19.5%       1.02%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(17)Richard Gasquet         70.1%  54.5%  26.9%       0.66%  
Santiago Giraldo            29.9%  17.9%   5.8%       0.01%  
Igor Kunitsyn               47.3%  12.4%   3.0%       0.00%  
Igor Sijsling               52.7%  15.2%   4.0%       0.00%  
Martin Fischer              56.4%  10.6%   3.3%       0.00%  
Simone Bolelli              43.6%   6.5%   1.6%       0.00%  
Potito Starace              10.6%   4.8%   1.2%       0.00%  
(14)Stanislas Wawrinka      89.4%  78.1%  54.2%       3.00%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(9)Gael Monfils             77.0%  61.6%  43.5%       2.31%  
Matthias Bachinger          23.0%  12.1%   5.3%       0.02%  
Grega Zemlja                42.6%  10.0%   3.7%       0.01%  
Lukas Lacko                 57.4%  16.3%   6.9%       0.02%  
Arnaud Clement              42.5%  12.3%   3.1%       0.00%  
Lukasz Kubot                57.5%  19.9%   6.1%       0.01%  
Ivo Karlovic                39.5%  24.6%  10.5%       0.06%  
(23)Janko Tipsarevic        60.5%  43.2%  20.9%       0.28%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(30)Thomaz Bellucci         71.0%  34.8%  13.8%       0.10%  
Rainer Schuettler           29.0%   8.2%   1.9%       0.00%  
Feliciano Lopez             63.3%  39.1%  16.3%       0.16%  
Michael Berrer              36.7%  17.9%   5.9%       0.02%  
Jaroslav Pospisil           26.3%   2.6%   0.4%       0.00%  
Victor Hanescu              73.7%  16.6%   5.9%       0.00%  
Andreas Beck                17.3%   9.6%   3.4%       0.00%  
(8)Andy Roddick             82.7%  71.1%  52.3%       2.71%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(7)David Ferrer             83.8%  59.7%  42.0%       1.80%  
Benoit Paire                16.2%   5.3%   1.8%       0.00%  
Ivan Dodig                  49.2%  17.0%   8.5%       0.04%  
Ryan Harrison               50.8%  18.0%   9.3%       0.07%  
Carlos Berlocq              28.6%   4.2%   0.5%       0.00%  
Karol Beck                  71.4%  20.6%   5.2%       0.00%  
Andrey Golubev              36.1%  24.6%   9.2%       0.04%  
(26)Guillermo Garcia-Lopez  63.9%  50.5%  23.4%       0.35%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(22)Alexandr Dolgopolov     82.7%  70.5%  38.6%       1.21%  
Fernando Gonzalez           17.3%   9.6%   2.4%       0.00%  
Rik De Voest                72.0%  16.7%   3.8%       0.01%  
Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo       28.0%   3.2%   0.4%       0.00%  
Grigor Dimitrov             75.1%  25.1%  11.0%       0.07%  
Cedrik-Marcel Stebe         24.9%   4.1%   1.0%       0.00%  
Go Soeda                    18.0%   7.4%   2.4%       0.00%  
(12)Jo-Wilfried Tsonga      82.0%  63.4%  40.5%       2.10%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(16)Nicolas Almagro         60.6%  32.7%  16.9%       0.19%  
Jarkko Nieminen             39.4%  17.3%   7.5%       0.04%  
John Isner                  71.0%  39.5%  20.5%       0.24%  
Nicolas Mahut               29.0%  10.5%   3.5%       0.00%  
Somdev Devvarman            63.0%  20.5%   8.2%       0.03%  
Denis Gremelmayr            37.0%   8.2%   2.4%       0.00%  
Juan Monaco                 47.6%  33.1%  17.7%       0.24%  
(18)Mikhail Youzhny         52.4%  38.2%  23.2%       0.46%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(28)David Nalbandian        76.7%  58.3%  19.2%       0.53%  
Julian Reister              23.3%  11.1%   1.6%       0.00%  
Florent Serra               53.1%  16.7%   2.5%       0.00%  
Andreas Haider-Maurer       46.9%  13.8%   1.9%       0.00%  
Adrian Mannarino            73.0%  17.0%   9.4%       0.12%  
Conor Niland                27.0%   2.9%   0.9%       0.00%  
Mikhail Kukushkin           13.5%   6.3%   3.0%       0.02%  
(3)Roger Federer            86.5%  73.8%  61.4%      14.27%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(5)Robin Soderling          75.8%  52.9%  36.8%       3.13%  
Philipp Petzschner          24.2%  10.5%   4.8%       0.06%  
Kei Nishikori               57.3%  22.1%  11.6%       0.25%  
Lleyton Hewitt              42.7%  14.4%   6.8%       0.08%  
Igor Andreev                56.6%  19.3%   5.6%       0.02%  
Teymuraz Gabashvili         43.4%  11.9%   2.8%       0.00%  
Bernard Tomic               32.5%  19.2%   6.5%       0.06%  
(29)Nikolay Davydenko       67.5%  49.6%  25.2%       1.28%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(20)Florian Mayer           83.0%  55.7%  33.4%       0.83%  
Daniel Evans                17.0%   5.2%   1.3%       0.00%  
Xavier Malisse              53.4%  21.2%   9.4%       0.05%  
Mischa Zverev               46.6%  17.9%   7.3%       0.02%  
Ernests Gulbis              51.0%  24.1%  11.6%       0.07%  
Dmitry Tursunov             49.0%  22.4%   9.9%       0.06%  
Alejandro Falla             27.8%  11.2%   3.8%       0.01%  
(11)Jurgen Melzer           72.2%  42.3%  23.2%       0.43%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(13)Viktor Troicki          87.5%  56.2%  36.7%       0.74%  
Maximo Gonzalez             12.5%   2.4%   0.5%       0.00%  
Yen-Hsun Lu                 35.6%  11.8%   5.0%       0.01%  
Tommy Robredo               64.4%  29.6%  17.2%       0.10%  
Ricardo Mello               41.9%  11.6%   2.9%       0.00%  
Frank Dancevic              58.1%  20.6%   6.8%       0.01%  
James Ward                  36.7%  21.7%   8.3%       0.02%  
(19)Michael Llodra          63.3%  46.0%  22.5%       0.26%  
                                                             
Player                        R64    R32    R16           W  
(32)Marcos Baghdatis        79.3%  56.1%  17.8%       1.10%  
James Blake                 20.7%   8.7%   1.2%       0.00%  
Andreas Seppi               49.1%  17.4%   3.1%       0.02%  
Albert Montanes             50.9%  17.8%   3.0%       0.03%  
Kevin Anderson              60.7%  10.8%   4.6%       0.04%  
Illya Marchenko             39.3%   4.5%   1.5%       0.00%  
Jeremy Chardy               13.4%   8.2%   4.1%       0.09%  
(2)Novak Djokovic           86.6%  76.5%  64.7%      21.58%

What are the Odds: Isner-Mahut Redux

Italian translation at settesei.it

We all know what happened when John Isner and Nicholas Mahut played a first-round match at last year’s Wimbledon.  In today’s draw ceremony, it was determined that they will face each other again next week.

What are the odds?  (Thanks to Rick Devereaux for suggesting the question via email.  Judging from some google queries that led people to this site, he’s not the only one that wondered.)

It turns out: Roughly 1 in 142, or 0.7%.  Here’s why:

Before the draw ceremony, we knew that both players were unseeded.  Thus, both Isner and Mahut could have landed in 96 (128 total spots, minus 32 seeds) different places in the draw.  Of those spots, 32 (two-thirds) would’ve pitted an unseeded player against a seed.  If either Isner or Mahut had gone to one of those spots, obviously they could not have faced each other.

Imagine that, rather than randomly choosing players for draw positions, we randomly choose draw positions for players.  In other words, we start by saying, “Where will Isner go?” and then pick a number out of a hat, and determine that he’ll be placed in, say, draw position #101.   After that, #101 is not in the hat, and we move on to Mahut.

Here’s the calculation.  If Isner is assigned a position first, there are 96 places to choose from.  32 of them close the door to a Mahut matchup; 64 of them leave open the possibility of a Mahut matchup.  Thus, there is a 64/96 = 2/3 chance that Isner is assigned a position that leaves the door open.

Next, we assign a position to Mahut.  There are 95 non-seeded positions left (128 minus 32 seeds minus Isner’s spot).  Only one of those 95 spots is a first-round matchup with Isner, so if a matchup is possible, the odds of Mahut being assigned that spot are 1 in 95.

Thus, the probability of a matchup occurring is (2/3)*(1/95) = (2/285), or 1 in 142.5.

(Assuming, of course, that the draw is truly random!)

UPDATE: There are many “calculations” floating around online that end up with different results.  Here are some, along with why they are wrong:

  • 127 to 1.  That sounds appealing, since there are 128 men in the draw.  But 127 to 1 is only correct if there is no seeding.  There are only 96 possible places in the draw for unseeded players such as Isner and Mahut, and as described above, not all of them allow two unseeded players to face each other.
  • 95 to 1.  Better, since it acknowledges seeding.  But it doesn’t take into account the possibility that Isner or Mahut would draw a seed.
  • 16,000+ to 1.  Any number this big is talking about the odds of two specific players facing each other two years in a row.  In retrospect, we know that Isner/Mahut turned out to be very interesting, but in May of 2010, no one was asking the question, “What are the odds of Isner and Mahut drawing each other this year, and then drawing each other next year, too?”  The answer to that question is roughly 20,000 to 1, but it’s not the right question.  It’s a given that Isner and Mahut played each other last year–in terms of probability, there’s a 100% chance that they faced each other a year ago.  Since we’re aware of the history, the relevant question is: What were the odds they would draw each other again?  It’s far-fetched, but not 16,000-to-1 far-fetched.  If they draw each other again in 2012, then we can start talking about 20,000 to 1.

Dangerous Draws: Wimbledon Men

The Wimbledon men’s draw won’t be released until tomorrow.  Already, though, we can identify the players that will provide serious challenges in the early rounds.

Low seeds: Three of those are seeds outside of the top 16: Juan Martin del Potro, Milos Raonic, and Richard Gasquet.  Gasquet might be the oddest inclusion here, as the tournament dropped him from #13 (his current ATP ranking) to the #17 seed.  In many case, a drop of four spots wouldn’t matter, but for Gasquet, it means facing a top 16 seed in the third round.  If that’s, say, Nicolas Almagro, it’s no big deal; if it’s Rafael Nadal, it’s a premature threat for both players.

Both Delpo and Raonic are very much mysteries at this point.  At Queen’s Club, Del Potro lost a match in two tiebreaks to Adrian Mannarino–hardly the statement he wanted to make upon returning to grass.  Raonic, playing his first ATP grass-court season, lost a tight contest to Phillipp Petzschner–again, not the kind of result that scares the big boys.  Yet it’s easy to imagine Milos playing into the second week, and Delpo is a legitimate title contender.

Just missed: Regardless of his first-round draw, John Isner will be the man to watch.  His ranking has fallen all the way to #46, meaning that his next record-setting first-round match might be against a seed.  Isner showed how dangerous he can be, pushing Nadal to the brink at Roland Garros, so he’s the man that will make seeds cross their fingers during the draw ceremony.  For all that, my hard-court rankings put Isner behind guys like Janko Tipsarevic and Juan Monaco, so maybe he isn’t so dangerous after all.

Back from the dead: It’s remarkable how many once-great players are back in action for Wimbledon.  Juan Carlos Ferrero had to withdraw, but consider the former top-tenners who are still set to play:

  • David Nalbandian
  • Ivo Karlovic
  • Fernando Gonzalez
  • Lleyton Hewitt
  • Tommy Haas
  • James Blake

As we’ve seen this year, a glorious past doesn’t guarantee a high level of play–Blake and Gonzo have lost matches on the challenger level this year.  But they’ve all been itching to get back to a slam for a long time, and former champions all bring something to the table that, say, Florian Mayer does not.

Young guns: My algorithm has loved Kei Nishikori for months now; he’s up to #24 in my hard-court rankings.  A much bigger surprise is Bernard Tomic, who has climbed into the top 50 (!) on my list.  He has to win one more qualifying match just to reach the main draw, so perhaps he won’t be a factor after all.

A couple more are constant breakthrough candidate Grigor Dimitrov and the first man out of qualifying, Cedrik-Marcel Stebe.  Stebe has played very little on hard courts of any kind, but he’s up two sets on Ryan Harrison in the final round of qualifying (the remainder of the match is delayed until tomorrow).  The German has won an amazing number of matches on the Futures and Challenger levels this season, so perhaps he doesn’t know that he supposed to start losing now that he’s facing even better players.

Check back tomorrow for some draw analysis and a full forecast for the 128 men.

WTA Hard Court Rankings, pre-Wimbledon

Watch out, ladies, this site isn’t just for the ATP anymore.

It was a bit of a struggle, but I was able to assemble a ranking and results database for women’s tennis (both WTA and ITF) going back several years.  That allowed me to apply my ranking algorithm to WTA players.  This is still a work in progress–I’ve had to borrow a few assumptions from my ATP research–but I think the results generally make a lot of sense.

For newcomers, here are a few of the key differences between my rankings and the official WTA rankings:

  • My system considers matches going back two years–not just one.  Incidentally, this helps us better evaluate the Williams sisters, just as it helps us with Juan Martin del Potro in the ATP numbers.
  • The more recent the tournament, the more it counts in the rankings.
  • Points are based almost entirely on the quality of opponents, not on the level of the event.  If you beat Vera Zvonereva, it’s worth the same number of points whether it’s at Indian Wells or in Brussels.  (There is a slight boost for grand slams, on the assumption that players plan their seasons to peak at the slams.)
  • Surface is considered.  For these hard/grass-court rankings, hard-court results are weighted more heavily than clay-court results.  For instance, Francesca Schiavone is #26 here, but #10 in the clay-court rankings.

Here is the HeavyTopspin.com WTA hard-court top 100:

RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
1     Kim Clijsters                  9286  
2     Caroline Wozniacki             7888  
3     Victoria Azarenka              7040  
4     Vera Zvonareva                 6222  
5     Na Li                          5167  
6     Serena Williams                5142  
7     Petra Kvitova                  4854  
8     Maria Sharapova                4596  
9     Svetlana Kuznetsova            3607  
10    Venus Williams                 3551  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
11    Andrea Petkovic                3514  
12    Shuai Peng                     3498  
13    Marion Bartoli                 3332  
14    Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova       3268  
15    Agnieszka Radwanska            3207  
16    Samantha Stosur                3137  
17    Ana Ivanovic                   3129  
18    Flavia Pennetta                3074  
19    Alisa Kleybanova               3005  
20    Dominika Cibulkova             2931  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
21    Jelena Jankovic                2693  
22    Daniela Hantuchova             2505  
23    Yanina Wickmayer               2452  
24    Shahar Peer                    2318  
25    Kaia Kanepi                    2252  
26    Francesca Schiavone            2229  
27    Ekaterina Makarova             2010  
28    Sabine Lisicki                 1997  
29    Julia Goerges                  1970  
30    Maria Kirilenko                1961  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
31    Lucie Safarova                 1913  
32    Elena Vesnina                  1912  
33    Gisela Dulko                   1835  
34    Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez    1764  
35    Nadia Petrova                  1717  
36    Virginie Razzano               1673  
37    Dinara Safina                  1626  
38    Jie Zheng                      1619  
39    Anastasija Sevastova           1484  
40    Klara Zakopalova               1450  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
41    Aravane Rezai                  1420  
42    Kateryna Bondarenko            1370  
43    Bethanie Mattek-Sands          1345  
44    Roberta Vinci                  1320  
45    Anna Chakvetadze               1294  
46    Alona Bondarenko               1277  
47    Jarmila Gajdosova              1263  
48    Melanie Oudin                  1247  
49    Vera Dushevina                 1168  
50    Iveta Benesova                 1166  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
51    Alize Cornet                   1157  
52    Sara Errani                    1102  
53    Magdalena Rybarikova           1048  
54    Timea Bacsinszky               1038  
55    Agnes Szavay                    991  
56    Tsvetana Pironkova              986  
57    Barbora Zahlavova Strycova      953  
58    Bojana Jovanovski               952  
59    Kimiko Date-Krumm               917  
60    Alexandra Dulgheru              905  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
61    Greta Arn                       891  
62    Simona Halep                    889  
63    Tamira Paszek                   868  
64    Vania King                      856  
65    Polona Hercog                   848  
66    Angelique Kerber                820  
67    Jelena Dokic                    818  
68    Christina McHale                800  
69    Elena Baltacha                  784  
70    Sorana Cirstea                  771  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
71    Carla Suarez Navarro            751  
72    Yaroslava Shvedova              749  
73    Kirsten Flipkens                741  
74    Lucie Hradecka                  738  
75    Sybille Bammer                  737  
76    Aleksandra Wozniak              728  
77    Johanna Larsson                 722  
78    Alla Kudryavtseva               716  
79    Regina Kulikova                 693  
80    Monica Niculescu                677  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
81    Petra Martic                    671  
82    Kristina Barrois                656  
83    Ayumi Morita                    654  
84    Urszula Radwanska               638  
85    Olga Govortsova                 635  
86    Sofia Arvidsson                 630  
87    Coco Vandeweghe                 602  
88    Anastasiya Yakimova             592  
89    Anabel Medina Garrigues         590  
90    Kai-Chen Chang                  570  
                                           
RANK  PLAYER                       POINTS  
91    Eleni Daniilidou                566  
92    Rebecca Marino                  564  
93    Anastasia Rodionova             560  
94    Melinda Czink                   550  
95    Arantxa Rus                     535  
96    Ksenia Pervak                   527  
97    Michaella Krajicek              522  
98    Vesna Dolonts                   512  
99    Tamarine Tanasugarn             508  
100   Alison Riske                    501

Hard Court Rankings, Post French-Open

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything from my ranking system.  If you’re new around here and don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read up on how my rankings are calculated here.  The short version is that they take into account results, giving you more points for beating good players than beating weaker players.  There are many other factors that go into it, and once the stew is stirred, these rankings do a better job of predicting match results than do the ATP rankings.

One odd thing about surface rankings is that they are most interesting when they are most unreliable.  Right now, we’re shifting gears from clay to grass, and no one has played a match on a hard court since Miami.  But because we’ve switched over, hard court results matter.  (Because there are so few grass-court events, I have to group hard and grass together.)

Without further ado, here is the top 40 through the French Open, rated for current hard-court ability level.

1   Novak Djokovic          6836  
2   Rafael Nadal            5090  
3   Roger Federer           4902  
4   Juan Martin del Potro   4207  
5   Andy Murray             3726  
6   Robin Soderling         2682  
7   Stanislas Wawrinka      2244  
8   Mardy Fish              2072  
9   Gael Monfils            1909  
10  Tomas Berdych           1862  
                                  
11  Andy Roddick            1858  
12  Marin Cilic             1826  
13  David Ferrer            1742  
14  Nikolay Davydenko       1721  
15  Marcos Baghdatis        1603  
16  Milos Raonic            1477  
17  Alexander Dolgopolov    1416  
18  Jo-Wilfried Tsonga      1393  
19  Richard Gasquet         1389  
20  Florian Mayer           1354  
                                  
21  Gilles Simon            1333  
22  Viktor Troicki          1226  
23  Fernando Verdasco       1192  
24  Kei Nishikori           1180  
25  Mikhail Youzhny         1156  
26  Jurgen Melzer           1116  
27  Samuel Querrey          1031  
28  Janko Tipsarevic        1015  
29  Ivan Ljubicic            993  
30  Guillermo Garcia-Lopez   983  
                                  
31  Juan Monaco              967  
32  Michael Llodra           914  
33  John Isner               907  
34  Philipp Kohlschreiber    890  
35  Jeremy Chardy            872  
36  Nicolas Almagro          852  
37  David Nalbandian         846  
38  Feliciano Lopez          784  
39  Radek Stepanek           759  
40  Lleyton Hewitt           753

(The points don’t mean anything concrete, though they do give you an idea of the differences between adjacent players.)

The biggest surprise in the top 10 is Stanislas Wawrinka, and of course, he’s made me look dumb by losing in his first match to British wild card James Ward.  Yikes.  That will probably knock him down a spot or three before next week’s rankings.  Seeing Lleyton Hewitt at the bottom of this list is a reminder that he’s only a year removed from some very good hard-court results, and if healthy, he could generate some upsets at Halle and Wimbledon.

Fun With French Open Rally Length

At the ATP level, the ability to hang around in long rallies seems to be a key to success, especially on clay.  Most of the top players are such good defenders that a one-dimensional serve/forehand game just doesn’t cut it.

One stat you’ll occasionally see on television broadcasts is the number of points that reach a certain length, along with how each player is performing on those points.  The cutoff I’ve seen most frequently is 8 shots, and that seems like a reasonable enough line to draw.

Armed with point-by-point data from (most of) the men’s singles matches at the French Open, we can take a closer look.  The following table shows three numbers for each of the 16 players who reached the 4th round:

  • Average rally length–that’s the total number of shots per point for every point that the player contested.
  • Percentage of points that reached eight or more shots.
  • Percentage of eight-or-more-shot rallies that the player won.
PLAYER              Shots/Pt     8+  8+Wins  
Juan Ignacio Chela       5.3  25.7%   48.0%  
Gilles Simon             5.3  25.7%   59.8%  
Andy Murray              5.1  22.8%   50.5%  
Viktor Troicki           4.7  19.2%   48.9%  
Rafael Nadal             4.6  18.3%   56.5%  
Robin Soderling          4.6  19.5%   55.1%  
David Ferrer             4.5  16.8%   70.7%  
Alejandro Falla          4.5  19.7%   47.9%  
Gael Monfils             4.3  17.3%   44.8%  
Albert Montanes          4.3  15.2%   46.1%  
Fabio Fognini            4.3  15.5%   59.5%  
Novak Djokovic           4.1  16.0%   63.6%  
Richard Gasquet          4.0  13.9%   57.0%  
Roger Federer            3.9  14.0%   49.7%  
Ivan Ljubicic            3.7  11.8%   49.4%  
Stanislas Wawrinka       3.6  11.1%   46.2%

Unsurprisingly, the first two stats correlate quite closely.  The more eight-shot rallies you play, the higher your per-point average will be.  What may be more of a surprise is that the number of eight-shot rallies you play doesn’t appear to have much effect on your success in eight-shot rallies.  Andy Murray may be an instructive example here: He’s good at keeping himself in long points, but not always so good at doing what he needs to do to win them.

These numbers are far from authoritative–none of these stats comprise more than seven matches, and many comprise only four.  With so little data, a single opponent can skew the numbers.  For instance, Nadal was closer to the top of the rally-length leaderboard in the Australian Open, but a disproportionate number of his points came against John Isner, who is normally at the extreme other end.  Matches against Ljubicic and Federer also kept Nadal’s average down.

The same warning should be made about Ferrer’s impressive 70.7% winning percentage on long points.  I don’t doubt that he’s usually quite good in such rallies, but his four matches included two against players who are the exact opposite: Jarkko Nieminen and Sergiy Stakhovsky.

As more data of this sort becomes available, it will be interesting to see what trends emerge.

French Open Odds Update: Quarterfinals

The draw looked odd this morning — Andy Murray and Viktor Troicki were still in the fourth round, while Novak Djokovic was safely in the semis following Fabio Fognini’s withdrawal. (Djokovic’s odds of advancing didn’t change much with Fognini’s withdrawal!)

Now that things are back to normal, we can update the odds. My rankings make Novak the 2-1 favorite to reach the final over Federer–probably a little optimistic for Roger, but you have to admit, the Swiss has looked surprisingly good this week. Largely thanks to Djokovic, there’s a 60% chance that the tournament winner comes from the bottom half.

Here are the odds for the remaining players:

Player                  SF      F      W  
(1)Rafael Nadal      68.9%  49.6%  24.9%  
(5)Robin Soderling   31.1%  17.1%   5.1%  
(4)Andy Murray       86.8%  32.1%  10.0%  
Juan Ignacio Chela   13.2%   1.1%   0.1%  
(3)Roger Federer    100.0%  33.1%  16.2%  
(2)Novak Djokovic   100.0%  66.9%  43.8%

The French Open’s New Balls

Italian translation at settesei.it

Much has been made over the new balls at Roland Garros this year–players have complained that they are lighter, heavier, that they bounce differently.  As far as bounce and spin is concerned, there isn’t much we can glean from the available data.  But we can take a broad look at server dominance to get a sense of how the French is playing this year.

Several months ago, I looked at most of the ATP-level matches from 2010, and determined that the server wins points on different surfaces at the following rates:

  • Clay: 61.5%
  • Hard: 63.7%
  • Grass: 65.9%

The gaps between those numbers may not look very big, but they represent a major indicator in the differences between surfaces.  If the gap between clay and hard is 2.2%, then 2.2% must be a pretty big deal!

I’ve also determined the following regarding ace rates–again, using 2010 data.  “Ace rate” is simply the percentage of serves that are aces:

  • Clay: 5.5%
  • Hard: 8.5%
  • Grass: 10.5%

Now that’s a big difference.

Roland Garros

What about the French?  Taking the 2010 event as a whole, players won 62.4% of service points, and served aces 6.6% of the time.  Thus, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that the courts at RG last year played faster than most other clay-court ATP events.  Weather and–you guessed it–other equipment, such as balls, can also make a difference.

This year, 112 of the 127 men’s matches have already been played, including over 17,000 points, so I think it’s safe to start drawing conclusions.  This year, servers are only winning 62.0% of points–roughly halfway between the clay-court average and the results from last year’s “fast” RG.  More dramatically, players are only scoring aces on 5.6% of points, well below last year’s figure at the French.

I can’t shed any light on the specific quirks shown by the new balls, but for whatever reason, the French is playing more like an average clay-court event than it did last year.

French Open Odds Update: 4th Round

With Juan Martin del Potro out of the way, Novak Djokovic is once again the odds-on favorite to win the French Open. His chances of winning are up to 38.7%, while Rafael Nadal’s haven’t budged much, now sitting at 25.8%.

Djokovic seems set to cruise into the semifinals, at least. Tomorrow he’ll face Richard Gasquet, and then in the quarters it gets even easier, with either Fabio Fognini or Albert Montanes. Things have worked out nicely for another Serbian, as well. Viktor Troicki will play Andy Murray–not the easiest draw, of course, but made easier by Murray’s ankle-twisting today. And whoever comes out of that match should be able to reach a semifinal date with Nadal, as the next opponent will be either Alejandro Falla or Juan Ignacio Chela.

Here are the full odds:

Player                     QF     SF      F      W  
(1)Rafael Nadal         84.4%  61.5%  46.8%  25.8%  
Ivan Ljubicic           15.6%   4.9%   2.0%   0.4%  
(18)Gilles Simon        28.7%   6.4%   2.7%   0.6%  
(5)Robin Soderling      71.3%  27.1%  16.4%   5.9%  
(4)Andy Murray          76.0%  67.0%  27.3%  10.1%  
(15)Viktor Troicki      24.0%  16.9%   3.2%   0.5%  
(q)Alejandro Falla      40.7%   5.4%   0.5%   0.0%  
Juan Ignacio Chela      59.3%  10.7%   1.2%   0.1%  
                                                    
Player                     QF     SF      F      W  
(7)David Ferrer         55.8%  22.4%   6.9%   2.7%  
(9)Gael Monfils         44.2%  15.7%   3.9%   1.3%  
(14)Stanislas Wawrinka  25.6%  10.8%   2.4%   0.7%  
(3)Roger Federer        74.4%  51.0%  21.8%  11.1%  
Fabio Fognini           38.5%   3.0%   0.5%   0.1%  
Albert Montanes         61.5%   6.3%   1.4%   0.2%  
(13)Richard Gasquet     17.5%  13.5%   5.5%   1.8%  
(2)Novak Djokovic       82.5%  77.2%  57.5%  38.7%