Peak level of play (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic & Co.)

[krosero]

Originally Posted by abmk

AM of 4.2 for nadal in the 2010 YEC final ? eh ?

Good catch; I entered one of his numbers incorrectly. I've edited my post.

Federer led in total points 74-56. The graphic displayed at the end had him at 22 UE, Nadal at 19.

[abmk]

I have these UE stats for the final b/w fed and murray at Wimbledon in 2012 :

by set:

federer : 16,9,6,8 - total of 39
murray : 7,5,7,8 - total of 27

wimbledon.org has

federer : 16,8,6,8 - total of 38
murray : 5,4,8,8 - total of 25

going by my UE count :

federer's AM = 29.5%
murray's AM = 24.7%

no of return unforced errors :

I have federer making 8 return unforced errors, murray making 3 return unforced errors ( wimbledon.org has fed at 16 and murray at 9 !! )


The stat about return winners at wimbledon.org is obviously wrong ...(19 for fed and 9 for murray )

when federer hit a return winner at 5-3,15-40 in the 4th set, they showed federer : 3 return winners, murray : 1 return winner ... no other return winners after that ....

[maverick1981]

Generally, I would pick Fed over any player in history, but only when/during that unbelievable run at #1 during 04-08 +/-. Now, altho hes still incredible, just not as incredible .

I never followed the women too closely, but I would pick Serena. Too dominating in almost all qualities.

-I feel a question like this is so contextual, its almost impossible to provide an accurate answer, however. The game is constantly changing in every aspect, so, I think it would be hard to know how a player today or before, would/could be effected and how they would perform. Tough to deny Roger in any situation, altho he did step into the game as the last gen of great(s) left...

[maverick1981]

Altho it pains me to say Fed over my fave ever, Agassi.

[abmk]

I have the AMs for a couple more matches :

federer-srichapan basel 2006 SF :

federer : 31.6%
srichapan : 29%

nalbandian-nadal paris 2007 F :

nalbandian : 31.8%
nadal : 2.3%

[corners]

List of AM's for top 10 men's players (plus a couple) in 2013 men's AO can be found upthread in post 129. Will be updated after each day of the tournament.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by abmk

I did the UE stats for this as well,

wimbledon.org has UEs by set :

federer : 2,3,4,1 - total of 10
djokovic : 5,3,9,5 - total of 22


I have significantly different :

federer : 4,4,9,1 - total of 18
djokovic : 6,3,11,7 - total of 27

which brings their AMs to :

federer : 31.95%
djokovic : 26.4%


funnily enough, I have 4 UEs on the return for fed,7 for djoker
wimbledon.org has 5 for fed and 8 for djoker

so I don't know how lenient the statistician was on strokes apart from the return

My initial impression was justified, there were more unforced errors than what is on the site and difference is non-trivial ..

Originally Posted by abmk

I have these UE stats for the final b/w fed and murray at Wimbledon in 2012 :

by set:

federer : 16,9,6,8 - total of 39
murray : 7,5,7,8 - total of 27

wimbledon.org has

federer : 16,8,6,8 - total of 38
murray : 5,4,8,8 - total of 25

going by my UE count :

federer's AM = 29.5%
murray's AM = 24.7%

no of return unforced errors :

I have federer making 8 return unforced errors, murray making 3 return unforced errors ( wimbledon.org has fed at 16 and murray at 9 !! )


The stat about return winners at wimbledon.org is obviously wrong ...(19 for fed and 9 for murray )

when federer hit a return winner at 5-3,15-40 in the 4th set, they showed federer : 3 return winners, murray : 1 return winner ... no other return winners after that ....

I just put your stats together here for comparing the two matches.

On service returns: by your count Murray made 4 less UE's than Djokovic. That would mean that Murray's superiority over Djokovic as a returner actually cut down the total UE's in the final and raised the AM's of the match.

Overall: using your total count of UE's, the two matches were of similar quality, the semifinal only slightly higher.

I'm glad you took the UE's because it shows how much discrepancy there can be between any two statisticians.

I don't think the problem is the concept of the UE as such. The concept is fine; but there is no standardization of stats in tennis. No universal conception of how UE's should be counted.

As you know, I've seen endless problems even with Winners, which you would think are basically straightforward. I've seen the term used to refer to clean aces and winners the way most of us use it. But I've also seen boxscores, in this era, that use the term to mean the number of groundstroke winners, no volleys included, no service included (as they did at the Olympics in '08 ). RG once used "Winners" to mean all points won on serve. And though most statisticians include service when reporting the total winners, there is still discrepancy because there are multiple definitions of what a service winner is.

Lack of standardization is a major problem in tennis stats.

I don't know what those 'return winners' at Wimbledon.com refer to.

One guess: maybe they refer to all returns that went past the server cleanly (what you counted, ABMK) or forced an error from the server. I would call all those returns "winning returns." It's a little like the concept of the service winner: you're counting all winning serves, whether they go by cleanly or they force the receiver into an error.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by corners

List of AM's for top 10 men's players (plus a couple) in 2013 men's AO can be found upthread in post 129. Will be updated after each day of the tournament.

That's great. Please link to it every day so we can go to it quickly.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

Probably a Navratilova match at Wimbledon, do you have any stats on the '86 or '87 finals? low ue's after the 1st set in both.

Got nothing for those matches.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by abmk

well, that's what's puzzling me , I don't think I was that strict in counting UEs tbh ... many of those were simple unforced errors, there was no doubt that they were in fact unforced, for example, if you remember the epic rally on one BP on djoker's serve in the 3rd set, there was some brilliant hitting and defense in that rally, but ended with a wild forehand miss from federer when he went for a bit too much trying to hit a FH DTL ...

This is the rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...WC1WkI#t=5218s

I wouldn't call that a simple unforced error; I could see it being scored either as forced or unforced.

Djokovic is changing the direction of the ball by going DTL, not a percentage play. He's very good at that particular shot and I'm sure you've seen him do damage to Federer and other players with it. But it's not percentage; and he's trying to make something happen when he uses it. I mean more than throwing in a slice to change the pace a little: I mean trying to make his opponent run after an unexpected shot.

Federer lost his balance there a little and made a wild shot -- possibly because he saw Djoker in that corner ready to receive any DTL shot Federer might give him. So maybe he tried to go too close to the line, or changed his mind at the last minute. Who knows -- but I think Djokovic outmaneuvered Federer on that point. He covered the space where his opponent wanted to put the ball -- kind of like a net player covering the sideline and forcing a defender's passing shot to go wide.

Anyway he did make Federer run, and that's one of the factors usually mentioned when statisticians talk about how to score UE's. I would also consider things like a player changing the direction of the rally to go DTL (not a percentage play).

This to me is a simple UE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...WC1WkI#t=6073s

Any thoughts from others on this?

[corners]

Originally Posted by krosero

This is the rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...WC1WkI#t=5218s

I wouldn't call that a simple unforced error; I could see it being scored either as forced or unforced.

Djokovic is changing the direction of the ball by going DTL, not a percentage play. He's very good at that particular shot and I'm sure you've seen him do damage to Federer and other players with it. But it's not percentage; and he's trying to make something happen when he uses it. I mean more than throwing in a slice to change the pace a little: I mean trying to make his opponent run after an unexpected shot.

Federer lost his balance there a little and made a wild shot -- possibly because he saw Djoker in that corner ready to receive any DTL shot Federer might give him. So maybe he tried to go too close to the line, or changed his mind at the last minute. Who knows -- but I think Djokovic outmaneuvered Federer on that point. He covered the space where his opponent wanted to put the ball -- kind of like a net player covering the sideline and forcing a defender's passing shot to go wide.

Anyway he did make Federer run, and that's one of the factors usually mentioned when statisticians talk about how to score UE's. I would also consider things like a player changing the direction of the rally to go DTL (not a percentage play).

This to me is a simple UE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...WC1WkI#t=6073s

Any thoughts from others on this?

I would have called it an unforced error. Yes, Djoker had him moving. But Fed went for the line and missed. He didn't need to, he could have played it elsewhere. But he went for the line and missed. To me, if a player goes for a winner and hits it out it should be an unforced error. (Is this assumption incorrect?)

Also, although he was moving to the ball his footwork was not what we would see on a very wide ball that he could barely get to. Technically, it was not hit "on the run." Just after hitting that shot he was already back on balance and would have recovered position, ready if Djokovic managed to return the down the line shot.

Also, I would call this a fatigue error. I can't find the reference right now, but accuracy is severely impacted due to motor control impairment once a person gets winded. I think Fed was getting fatigued, got a good look at the line and had the choice of staying in the rally and doing some more running or taking a shot at the line. He took it and missed. Unforced error in my book, as a result of fatigue, with deference to the experts.

On the other hand, if the fatigue error hypothesis is correct, one could say that Djokovic made him run in the rally, fatiguing him, and thereby forced the error. But Djokovic was also being made to run, but didn't miss. In my opinion this is one of the reasons Djokovic would prefer to get Fed into long rallies and why Fed would have liked to pull the trigger prior to this.

Haha. Then, to the contrary, one could say that Djoker forced the error by pulling Fed into a long rally where he knew his own fatique would handicap his style less than it would handicap Federer's.

(This may be an example of that player bias we were talking about before. I've seen Fed make that shot before, and miss it before. I expect him to make it off the ball Djokovic gave him in this instance. Maybe that expectation is unrealistic. Maybe this would be a shot where Federer would say, "Man, you don't understand how difficult that is! Yeah, I make it sometimes, but that's because I'm Federer!")

Anyway, my two cents. I'll consider any responses as part of my eduction as a novice box score man. I had no idea errors were this complicated.

[krosero]

Originally Posted by corners

I would have called it an unforced error. Yes, Djoker had him moving. But Fed went for the line and missed. He didn't need to, he could have played it elsewhere. But he went for the line and missed. To me, if a player goes for a winner and hits it out it should be an unforced error. (Is this assumption incorrect?)

Also, although he was moving to the ball his footwork was not what we would see on a very wide ball that he could barely get to. Technically, it was not hit "on the run." Just after hitting that shot he was already back on balance and would have recovered position, ready if Djokovic managed to return the down the line shot.

Also, I would call this a fatigue error. I can't find the reference right now, but accuracy is severely impacted due to motor control impairment once a person gets winded. I think Fed was getting fatigued, got a good look at the line and had the choice of staying in the rally and doing some more running or taking a shot at the line. He took it and missed. Unforced error in my book, as a result of fatigue, with deference to the experts.

On the other hand, if the fatigue error hypothesis is correct, one could say that Djokovic made him run in the rally, fatiguing him, and thereby forced the error. But Djokovic was also being made to run, but didn't miss. In my opinion this is one of the reasons Djokovic would prefer to get Fed into long rallies and why Fed would have liked to pull the trigger prior to this.

Haha. Then, to the contrary, one could say that Djoker forced the error by pulling Fed into a long rally where he knew his own fatique would handicap his style less than it would handicap Federer's.

(This may be an example of that player bias we were talking about before. I've seen Fed make that shot before, and miss it before. I expect him to make it off the ball Djokovic gave him in this instance. Maybe that expectation is unrealistic. Maybe this would be a shot where Federer would say, "Man, you don't understand how difficult that is! Yeah, I make it sometimes, but that's because I'm Federer!")

Anyway, my two cents. I'll consider any responses as part of my eduction as a novice box score man. I had no idea errors were this complicated.

All good points. I think this rally is a good one to talk about because it's one of those baseline rallies that are so characteristic of today's game: a long, fatiguing rally, not like Borg-Vilas, but a rally in which nearly every shot is aggressive and forcing. So you've got this long point where most of the strokes were aggressive, and taking their cumulative effect. Those aggressive blows have to have an effect on the final shot.

I wouldn't say that fatigue, by itself, should make us score an error as forced. But in this rally you've got fatigue plus a rapid-fire series of events. I agree with the way you put it, that technically Federer was not on the run; not on the sprint. But he was rushed; the ball arrived quickly and in a place where Federer did not expect it, since they had been exchanging crosscourt shots.

Of course on another day he makes that shot; but you made a great point about player bias.

On the assumption you mentioned: in a net point, a defender going for a passing shot winner is always scored as making a forced error. So is that similar in any way to a baseline rally? Well, if a player goes for a winner in a wide open space, in a baseline rally, and he misses -- that's a clear UE. But if he's trying to put the ball into a spot that the opponent has made into a tight space, I think it's ambiguous. In such a case, I'd say UE if the player was not rushed in any way, or it was not a long point. On this Fed-Djok point, I'm honestly going both ways on it

[abmk]

Originally Posted by krosero

This is the rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...WC1WkI#t=5218s

I wouldn't call that a simple unforced error; I could see it being scored either as forced or unforced.

Djokovic is changing the direction of the ball by going DTL, not a percentage play. He's very good at that particular shot and I'm sure you've seen him do damage to Federer and other players with it. But it's not percentage; and he's trying to make something happen when he uses it. I mean more than throwing in a slice to change the pace a little: I mean trying to make his opponent run after an unexpected shot.

Federer lost his balance there a little and made a wild shot -- possibly because he saw Djoker in that corner ready to receive any DTL shot Federer might give him. So maybe he tried to go too close to the line, or changed his mind at the last minute. Who knows -- but I think Djokovic outmaneuvered Federer on that point. He covered the space where his opponent wanted to put the ball -- kind of like a net player covering the sideline and forcing a defender's passing shot to go wide.

Anyway he did make Federer run, and that's one of the factors usually mentioned when statisticians talk about how to score UE's. I would also consider things like a player changing the direction of the rally to go DTL (not a percentage play).

This to me is a simple UE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...WC1WkI#t=6073s

Any thoughts from others on this?

yeah, the thing is in that shot, the pace/depth combo of the BH DTL from djokovic wasn't enough to call it forced .... djokovic had him moving, but it was not a shot on the run, he wasn't off-balance mainly due to djoker's shot, it was sloppy footwork from federer and wrong execution of the FH DTL ...

the 2nd link you gave of course is a simple UE ...

[abmk]

Originally Posted by krosero

I just put your stats together here for comparing the two matches.

On service returns: by your count Murray made 4 less UE's than Djokovic. That would mean that Murray's superiority over Djokovic as a returner actually cut down the total UE's in the final and raised the AM's of the match.

Overall: using your total count of UE's, the two matches were of similar quality, the semifinal only slightly higher.

I'm glad you took the UE's because it shows how much discrepancy there can be between any two statisticians.

I don't think the problem is the concept of the UE as such. The concept is fine; but there is no standardization of stats in tennis. No universal conception of how UE's should be counted.

As you know, I've seen endless problems even with Winners, which you would think are basically straightforward. I've seen the term used to refer to clean aces and winners the way most of us use it. But I've also seen boxscores, in this era, that use the term to mean the number of groundstroke winners, no volleys included, no service included (as they did at the Olympics in '08 ). RG once used "Winners" to mean all points won on serve. And though most statisticians include service when reporting the total winners, there is still discrepancy because there are multiple definitions of what a service winner is.

Lack of standardization is a major problem in tennis stats.

I don't know what those 'return winners' at Wimbledon.com refer to.

One guess: maybe they refer to all returns that went past the server cleanly (what you counted, ABMK) or forced an error from the server. I would call all those returns "winning returns." It's a little like the concept of the service winner: you're counting all winning serves, whether they go by cleanly or they force the receiver into an error.

yeah, even for winners, there can be discrepancies , let alone UEs ...

regarding the return winners,

IMO the service winner analogy isn't appropriate, in a service winner, you normally have the returner barely getting the racquet on the ball ....

forcing an error from the server with the return would be comparable to a forced return error ...

maybe a bit off topic, but aces+forced errors off the return would be a more useful parameter than just aces ....

now coming back to the semi and final matches of Wimbledon 2012, having watched them both again, I think I may have under-estimated the quality of the semi and bit and over-estimated that of the final a bit ... Still think the final was the better quality one, but not by that much ...

on the return unforced errors, yes, murray's better returning did cut down on them, but in total , the semi and final had the same no of UEs on the return - 11 ( due to federer going for more on the murray 2nd serve ) ... murray getting back plenty more 1st serves than djoker did had more of an impact ....

[krosero]

Originally Posted by abmk

yeah, the thing is in that shot, the pace/depth combo of the BH DTL from djokovic wasn't enough to call it forced .... djokovic had him moving, but it was not a shot on the run, he wasn't off-balance mainly due to djoker's shot, it was sloppy footwork from federer and wrong execution of the FH DTL ...

I can see it being called an UE. But something else makes it ambiguous for me: Federer is not in control when he makes the shot. It's not like when he's running around his BH and going for the kill, and misses. Here he's reacting.

That's something else I'm likely to ask when counting UE's... is the player in control, or is he reacting?

Originally Posted by abmk

regarding the return winners,

IMO the service winner analogy isn't appropriate, in a service winner, you normally have the returner barely getting the racquet on the ball ....

forcing an error from the server with the return would be comparable to a forced return error ...

I should have specified what I meant by 'service winner' in this instance. I was just referring broadly to all unreturned serves (including aces). I was not using the more narrow definition of serves barely touched.

Anyway in this case my emphasis is not on the analogy. The "Return Winners" just reminded me of the broad category of "Service Winners". My guess about the "Return Winners" at Wimbledon.com is just that they are a count of all clean return winners + returns that forced an error. Generally speaking, that would be the reverse of 'service winners': instead of counting serves that are 'winners', you're counting returns that are 'winners.'

Just a guess, I could be way off.

[krosero]

Nadal and Djokovic on three different hardcourts.

(As always, winner listed above the loser, regardless of AM).

2010 USO
Nadal - 22.8%
Djokovic - 16.1%

2011 USO
Djokovic - 21.6%
Nadal - 12.7%

2012 AO
Djokovic - 14.4%
Nadal - 9.8%

2011 Miami
Djokovic - 18.1%
Nadal - 11.7%

[krosero]

Nadal and Djokovic on various claycourts

2007 RG
Nadal - 28.7%
Djokovic - 11.6%

2008 RG
Nadal - 32.3%
Djokovic - 23.2%

2012 RG
Nadal - 17.8%
Djokovic - 14.1%

2012 Monte Carlo
Nadal - 22.1%
Djokovic - (3.4%) (negative)

2012 Rome
Nadal - 9.8%
Djokovic - 3.5%

2011 Rome
Djokovic - 11.5%
Nadal - 5.4%

2011 Madrid
Djokovic - 15.0%
Nadal - 5.3%

2009 Madrid
Nadal - 11.2%
Djokovic - 13.1% (Novak leading in total pts. won 125-120)

[abmk]

Originally Posted by krosero

I can see it being called an UE. But something else makes it ambiguous for me: Federer is not in control when he makes the shot. It's not like when he's running around his BH and going for the kill, and misses. Here he's reacting.

That's something else I'm likely to ask when counting UE's... is the player in control, or is he reacting?

yeah, reacting , but only a bit, djoker didn't really hit with that much pace/depth that it would force an error without mistake on the part of fed ...

the error happened in major part because of sloppy footwork and going for too much on the FH ...

if we started counting UEs only when the player was fully in control, then we'd have very few UEs ...

I might post a couple of examples where I think it is ambiguous whether it is an unforced error or a forced error in some time ...

the way I see it :

1) shot that makes you think - that was an unforced error ..

2) shot that make you think - that was an unforced error , looks like ... 'maybe' should think about it, watch it once more ..

3 ) shot that make you think, ah, can't decide whether that was unforced or forced ... not easy to say .. might have to watch it more than once ..

that shot in that rally IMO falls in category 2, still clearly an unforced error ... the link to the other missed FH you gave IMO falls in category 1 ...

Originally Posted by krosero

I should have specified what I meant by 'service winner' in this instance. I was just referring broadly to all unreturned serves (including aces). I was not using the more narrow definition of serves barely touched.

Anyway in this case my emphasis is not on the analogy. The "Return Winners" just reminded me of the broad category of "Service Winners". My guess about the "Return Winners" at Wimbledon.com is just that they are a count of all clean return winners + returns that forced an error. Generally speaking, that would be the reverse of 'service winners': instead of counting serves that are 'winners', you're counting returns that are 'winners.'

Just a guess, I could be way off.

could be, but I didn't really count that ...

[abmk]

Originally Posted by krosero

2009 Monte Carlo
Nadal - 22.1%
Djokovic - (3.4%) (negative)

that's mathematically impossible given nadal won 95 points and djoker won 79 points in that match .... (ATP site ) !

[corners]