This year's statistics trends

Last year I made a trending graph showing the ratio of winner to unforced errors for the top players in a slam... tracking their progression and consistency/peaking.

I thought I'd solicit some opinions based on comments made last year.

This year I planned a slightly more detailed chart which has a couple of trends:
- winners to unforced error ratio

and

- winners to unforced error ratio excluding aces (some said last year that this artificially adds to the ratio for some players)

and

- winners per game played ratio.

Although it isn't overly indicative of anything yet, looking at the top four player's opening matches here are a few comparisons.

Winners to unforced error ratio (excluding serves)
Djokovic 2.7 : 1
Murray 2.3 : 1
Nadal 2.2 : 1
Federer 1.8 : 1

Winners per game (including aces)
Federer 1.7
Murray 1.5
Nadal 1.3
Djokovic 1.0

Winners per game (excluding aces)
Federer 1.3
Nadal 1.1
Murray 1.0
Djokovic 0.7

Extending this out over a number of matches will be more indicative of how people are winning than a pure win/ufe ratio. Djokovic as you can see had the biggest winners to unforced error ratio... but also the lowest amount of winners per game. This could mean a number of things: he is tanking more of his opponents service games when he gets a few points behind or that his opponent was making more errors than Federer's, Nadal's and Murray's. This is where the stats start getting interpreted with opinions.

You can also see that Murray served generally well as his winners per game with and without serves changes the most out of the top four players. (Either that or his opponent was poor returner)

Any suggestions on ratios which you think show improving form over the course of multiple matches?

FYI, previous year's charts plotting the winners to unforced errors ratio after the first 4 rounds showed who would be the eventual finalists in 2 of 3 slams I tracked. That said, it's not exactly hard to guess at least a couple of the last 4 at a slam.

so can I conclude that Fed is serving well and shanking as usual?

sunnyIce said:

so can I conclude that Fed is serving well and shanking as usual?

Click to expand...

Winners to shank ratio would be an interesting one.

It was really windy during Federer's match and he didn't seem to shank any more than usual.

I know one match is hardly indicative of what would happen during the tournament. But it's fun to analyze nonetheless. IMO Based on the R1 performance of the big 4: It's Djokovic > Fed > Nadal .> Murray

Djokovic - is far away playing the best tennis of the four. His serve is incredibly solid. He's crushing his forehand, and hardly missing. He had single digit UFEs in 3 sets,, and not may of those looked unforced to me. Basically playing far better on grass than expected. The serve of 2011 vs serve of 2010 - difference is like night and day. With a more offensive serve, Djokovic's all round game has improved. He's being more offensive overall. Looks like a totally different player compared to the one who lost to Berdych last yr.

Fed - Decent. Very good to excellent with serving. Good with the forehand. But average with the defense and hitting shots on the run. I've noticed he's missing a lot when he's trying to hit a wide forehand or defend a ball in the corner of his forehand side. STILL, Fed's serve ALONE can make him impossible to beat on the surface. Plus he just "gets" the surface. His point construction is as good as it gets on grass.

Nadal - Forehand looked good in parts, and so did the footwork. However the backhand and serve were ho hum. He was rolling in the second serve at 89 mph average and many times had to pay for it. The ROS was also average (or below) at best. Still, he improved as the match progressed and towards the end, hit well with the off-forehand (inside out/DTL). Not a bad match considering it's only R1.

Murray - Worst of the top 4. Very uninspired set 1. Set 2 had more to do with his opponent going AWOL than Murray raising his level. Still Murray got the wakeup call in set 3 and 4, and proceeded to administer 2 tasty bagels. I guess the roof bothers Murray, but I would like to see him be more aggressive and get some heat on the serve. He can easily go 135 mph+ with the first delivery..

Let's see what happens in R2. The Big 4 are definitely looking good, with Djokovic looking especially strong..

Bobby Jr said:

Last year I made a trending graph showing the ratio of winner to unforced errors for the top players in a slam... tracking their progression and consistency/peaking.

I thought I'd solicit some opinions based on comments made last year.

This year I planned a slightly more detailed chart which has a couple of trends:
- winners to unforced error ratio

and

- winners to unforced error ratio excluding aces (some said last year that this artificially adds to the ratio for some players)

and

- winners per game played ratio.

Although it isn't overly indicative of anything yet, looking at the top four player's opening matches here are a few comparisons.

Winners to unforced error ratio (excluding serves)
Djokovic 2.7 : 1
Murray 2.3 : 1
Nadal 2.2 : 1
Federer 1.8 : 1

Winners per game (including aces)
Federer 1.7
Murray 1.5
Nadal 1.3
Djokovic 1.0

Winners per game (excluding aces)
Federer 1.3
Nadal 1.1
Murray 1.0
Djokovic 0.7

Extending this out over a number of matches will be more indicative of how people are winning than a pure win/ufe ratio. Djokovic as you can see had the biggest winners to unforced error ratio... but also the lowest amount of winners per game. This could mean a number of things: he is tanking more of his opponents service games when he gets a few points behind or that his opponent was making more errors than Federer's, Nadal's and Murray's. This is where the stats start getting interpreted with opinions.

You can also see that Murray served generally well as his winners per game with and without serves changes the most out of the top four players. (Either that or his opponent was poor returner)

Any suggestions on ratios which you think show improving form over the course of multiple matches?

FYI, previous year's charts plotting the winners to unforced errors ratio after the first 4 rounds showed who would be the eventual finalists in 2 of 3 slams I tracked. That said, it's not exactly hard to guess at least a couple of the last 4 at a slam.

Click to expand...

Winners per game is not a very useful stat as a game can be anywhere from 4 to x points. The more total points in a game, the more winners a player has a chance to hit. I would hypothesize that the reason Djokovic has the lowest number of winners per game is because his games are the shortest; his opponents aren't getting to the point where they can push him to deuce and beyond. He is dominating quickly and early. His defense also suggests he is reaching many of his opponents' would-be winners, meaning they have to go for more power and better angles, leading to more unforced errors.

TTMR said:

Winners per game is not a very useful stat as a game can be anywhere from 4 to x points. The more total points in a game, the more winners a player has a chance to hit. I would hypothesize that the reason Djokovic has the lowest number of winners..

Click to expand...

But, trend-wise the more winners you hit in a game the shorter they'll be.

I get your point but, as I said, meant for these to have more meaning when the sample size grows over multiple matches. If one person is hitting 1.7 and another 0.7 but they've both won their matches then it would be a fair assumption that the higher rated person is hitting out with more success.

I agree you could do it as winners per point played (to negate the length of the games factor) and it would be statistically more accurate - perhaps it would be an idea to track the ratio of winners to total points won by a player to see how many of their points are being won in such a positive fashion.

The aim of the trends is to find a simple way to demonstrate how they're playing relative to each other despite playing vastly different opponents.

hey pls can any one update this?

So far looks like Novak is play the most defensive game?

Well, as I said at the top these stats will have more merit once they have played more matches but, for now, here are their same stats updated.

*new stats in bold / average in green (all matches to date)
*Re-sorted top to bottom by average to date

Winners to unforced error ratio (excluding aces)
Nadal 4.4 - 3.3
Federer 4.1 - 2.9
Djokovic 1.7 - 2.2
Murray 0.9 - 1.6

Winners per game (including aces)
Federer 1.6 - 1.6
Nadal 1.4 - 1.3
Murray 0.8 - 1.1
Djokovic 1.1 - 1.1

Winners per game (excluding aces)
Federer 1.1 - 1.2
Nadal 1.1 - 1.1
Murray 0.6 - 0.8
Djokovic 0.9 - 0.8

NOTE: if latest match is higher than the average then they're trending up and vice versa.
NOTE 2: rounded to 1 decimal place - before anyone says the averages don't add up.

Once they've all played their 3rd round match I'll make it into a chart for simpler trend viewing. At this stage it's not overly user-friendly.

Interesting to see that of all four players Murray is the one who tracked backwards in multiple metrics. As happened in previous slams I tracked, despite having dominant wins, he rarely manages his peaking/consistency as well as Nadal, Djokovic and Federer.

I took on board TTMR's comment that winner per game may not be the best stat as games can be of any length. I'll look to add a winners per point played stat but, for now, think winners per game is still a more focussed stat than simply winners per match.

Good work. Nice to see some analysis based on actual numbers going on.

Wow, thanks again. We see that Nadal is the second most offensive player.

Updated to include 3rd round matches

*Re-sorted top to bottom by average to date

*latest match in bold / average to date in green (all matches to date)

Winners to unforced error ratio (excluding aces)
Nadal 7.6 - 4.7
Federer 1.6 - 2.0
Murray 2.6 - 1.9
Djokovic 0.9 - 1.7

Winners per game (including aces)
Federer 1.3 - 1.5
Murray 1.3 - 1.2
Nadal 0.9 - 1.2
Djokovic 0.9 - 1.1

Winners per game (excluding aces)
Federer 0.8 - 1.1
Nadal 0.7 - 1.0
Murray 0.9 - 0.8
Djokovic 0.7 - 0.8

NOTE: if latest match is higher than the average then they're trending up and vice versa.
NOTE 2: rounded to 1 decimal place - before anyone says the averages don't add up.

- You can see when a player like Nadal comes up against a big hitting player who is a terrible mover his winners stats go through the roof. This bodes well for him to have a match where he can hit out a bit more.

- Murray and Djokovic had almost identical length matches in terms of games player (40 vs 39) with Murray hitting not only many more winners 51 vs 38 but also less than half the errors of Djokovic 14 vs 33. Djokovic, by his standards had by far the worst win of the round - all of his numbers dropped significantly. Notably his winner to unforced error ratio was less than half the average of this previous two matches.

- As said in an earlier post it is Murray who goes up and down the most in terms of overall performance. Can he level out as the competition improves in the tournament? Historically he can't (at slams) and, to-date, he's not showing an improvement.

Thank you for keeping this updated Bobby, you da man!

Nadal's winner to unforced error ratio is amazing, and we see that for per game that he is no pusher.

However, his service game could use improvement, but not at the cost of increasing errors.

Most enjoyable thread I've seen on TW in a while. Wonder why the post count is so low?

In any case, great work, keep it up.

Great work Bobby, very interesting!

Thanks to the above posters... Please feel free to give us an interpretation of what the trends may mean. > A different conclusion can often be made from them.

One idea I had was instead of making the winners stats as winners minus aces to make it: winners - (aces minus double faults).

Surely if an ace can be discounted from winners stats then the anti-ace, a double fault, should also be considered in the equation (although then maybe they should be subtracted from the unforced error count to show each player's true rallying error rate)

Federer for example has hit 39 aces but only 1 double fault, a net gain of 38 points - 12.7 per match.

Murray on the other hand has hit 34 aces but 11 double faults, a net gain of 23 points - 7.7 per match.

This is pretty impressive given everyone's 3rd round opponents. Federer played, by far, the most wily and tricky opponent yet arguably had the most dominant win. Nadal's could be considered close but both Djokovic and Murray - both had trouble with generally poorer quality opponents. Murray a couple of times now.

How do non-returned serves work into all that? I think that stat is way more important than aces, also it includes aces.

why exactly didn't you make a statistic with service winners? (just include them?)

beside that, interesting (although nothing surprising imo)

kOaMaster said:

why exactly didn't you make a statistic with service winners? (just include them?)

Click to expand...

I was just trying to focus on one area of the game. Serving only takes up half of each player's match so the aim here is to, roughly, show overall form and a player's improvement/peaking.

I am thinking of including other stats but just trying to figure a way to do them without cluttering the picture with too many metrics.

Interesting note, state-wise, baggy was better than novak, he had a better W to UE ratio (more winners, less unforced error O_O), but Novak ended up winning the important points. Shame :/

Am I reading these figures wrong or something? Murray seems to me to be getting a lot of unwarranted criticism? His serving stats according to these numbers have been pretty impressive to myself atleast. We all know Federer's serve is one of his main weapons but I don't know if everyone would have thought Murray had such a better serve than Djokovic (or have I interpreted the numbers wrong?)

Djokovic's numbers to me are the worst aren't they? They show he's the least aggressive player of the 4.

Murray seems to have gotten quite a lot of hate in many people's posts on this thread. Which is a bit baffling to me when you are looking at facts and stats and not not opinions on who may be playing better. Looking at the stats alone Murray is looking very good I would say. Djokovic has been surprisingly poor for me (relatively speaking of course, we are just looking at the top4 here so it's not like I'm saying he's lucky to still be in the tournament or something)

christos_liaskos said:

Am I reading these figures wrong or something? Murray seems to me to be getting a lot of unwarranted criticism? His serving stats according to these numbers have been pretty impressive to myself atleast...
Murray seems to have gotten quite a lot of hate in many people's posts on this thread. Which is a bit baffling to me when you are looking at facts and stats and not not opinions on who may be playing better....

Click to expand...

My last stats update said:

....with Murray hitting not only many more winners 51 vs 38 but also less than half the errors of Djokovic 14 vs 33. Djokovic, by his standards had by far the worst win of the round - all of his numbers dropped significantly...

- As said in an earlier post it is Murray who goes up and down the most in terms of overall performance. Can he level out as the competition improves in the tournament? Historically he can't (at slams) and, to-date, he's not showing an improvement.

Click to expand...

Murray had a good last match - but also played made hard work for himself.

The objective of these stats are not to show who has the best serve etc but to surmise an overall trending of a player's performance. Murray, for all of his good matches, is the least consistent of the top 4 - now and historically. This makes him dangerous, it doesn't rule him out of contention. It is just that his lesser ability to manage his peaking over the course of a major tournament has historically been his downfall - in my opinion at least. The trending seems to imply this also.

As you say, I tend to think Djokovic is the most at-risk player of the four.

Bobby Jr said:

My last stats update said:


Murray had a good last match - but also played made hard work for himself.

The objective of these stats are not to show who has the best serve etc but to surmise an overall trending of a player's performance. Murray, for all of his good matches, is the least consistent of the top 4 - now and historically. This makes him dangerous, it doesn't rule him out of contention. It is just that his lesser ability to manage his peaking over the course of a major tournament has historically been his downfall - in my opinion at least. The trending seems to imply this also.

As you say, I tend to think Djokovic is the most at-risk player of the four.

Click to expand...

Again I may be missing something here, but how do these stats show Murray is the least consistent of the four? Or is that just your view/opinion and not actually drawn from the stats? Not saying you are wrong in saying that, just wondering how you are coming to that conclusion. As I said previously, to me the stats seem to show Murray is playing very well and more aggressively than many people may have thought.

I don't quite get what you mean about the serve either? Why are you now seeminlgy dismissing what the serve stats show? Again I may be wrong, but to me it looks like Murray is hitting more aces than Novak and I don't see why we should ignore that?

Bobby Jr said:

Thanks to the above posters... Please feel free to give us an interpretation of what the trends may mean. > A different conclusion can often be made from them.

One idea I had was instead of making the winners stats as winners minus aces to make it: winners - (aces minus double faults).

Surely if an ace can be discounted from winners stats then the anti-ace, a double fault, should also be considered in the equation (although then maybe they should be subtracted from the unforced error count to show each player's true rallying error rate)

Federer for example has hit 39 aces but only 1 double fault, a net gain of 38 points - 12.7 per match.

Murray on the other hand has hit 34 aces but 11 double faults, a net gain of 23 points - 7.7 per match.

This is pretty impressive given everyone's 3rd round opponents. Federer played, by far, the most wily and tricky opponent yet arguably had the most dominant win. Nadal's could be considered close but both Djokovic and Murray - both had trouble with generally poorer quality opponents. Murray a couple of times now.

Click to expand...

I would avoid adopting the bolded approach because when a player's double fault count is higher than their ace count (for any number of matches) then the formula you've suggested would necessitate that you add to the winners count. For example, a player hits 30 non-service winners, 0 aces, and 2 double faults (not a particulary unusual stat). Per your suggested formula, we should proceed thusly: 30 minus (0 minus 2). Which is 30 minus -2 = 32. It seems very strange to think that the non-service winner count should be increased in this case.

Go with the second suggestion, which was to deduct double faults from the unforced error count. This is more in keeping with your focus on form off the ground.

christos_liaskos said:

Again I may be missing something here, but how do these stats show Murray is the least consistent of the four? Or is that just your view/opinion and not actually drawn from the stats?

Click to expand...

Because, while the other three generally maintain a ballpark standard from match to match, Murray doesn't. His slam paths are generally full of performances which are at the opposite end of the spectrum. It doesn't mean he is the worst by any means - just that 3 good matches in a row for him is less indication of how he is likely to play in the next match that is is for Nadal, Federer and Djokovic (recently).

The idea with trending is to spot well... trends. And that is one which Murray distinguishes himself from the others at slams. Well, generally over the past few years.

As an example, last year at Wimbledon Federer was all over the place in the early rounds - significantly more so than you'd expect from him there. And guess what, he lost pretty averagely.

christos_liaskos said:

I don't quite get what you mean about the serve either? Why are you now seeminlgy dismissing what the serve stats show? Again I may be wrong, but to me it looks like Murray is hitting more aces than Novak and I don't see why we should ignore that?

Click to expand...

I'm not ignoring them out of convenience. I'm attempting to mitigate their sway in some ways because how people play during rallys is a good indicator of form, regardless of serving. If you include serve stats you could argue that a player like Isner ends up looking like Sampras when he's actually more of a (respectfully) circus act for tournaments to talk about than a top player.

The idea here is to plot short term historic form and see if there are trends towards likelihood of winning the tournament. As I said earlier, after the 4th round the stats showed the eventual winner in 2 of he 3 slams I tracked. Over time this could get fine-tuned with input from others (ideas on how to rate/scale/average stuff etc).

With regards to specifics I don't think Murray is serving as well as you think.

On first serves he is winning (on average) 84% of the points compared to Djokovic's 78%. On 2nd serves however he sucks - winning only 51% of points compared to Djokovic's 61%, Federer's 69% and Nadal's 63% (I'm surprised Nadal is that low actually). So, Murray has won barely half of his 2nd serve points to date - and these have all been against pretty low grade opponents compared to what will come in the next few matches.

His 1st serve percentage is also the lowest of the group by some margin, averaging 61% compared to Djokovic's 71%, Federer's 69% and Nadal's 69%.

Now, aces aside, this isn't the form of a potential champion if serving is the be-all end-all of tennis. Thankfully for Murray it isn't.

piece said:

I would avoid adopting the bolded approach because when a player's double fault count is higher than their ace count (for any number of matches) then the formula you've suggested would necessitate that you add to the winners count......

Go with the second suggestion, which was to deduct double faults from the unforced error count. This is more in keeping with your focus on form off the ground.

Click to expand...

Point taken.. ha ha, My thought process clearly wasn't working so well when I conjured that piece of nonsense up.

Thanks.

No worries.

One other suggestion that I don't think has been made but which, again, involves more work for you twisted would be to include not just the average of the relevant stats next to those from the most recent match, but include the stats from all matches in order. The reason being that the fact that a player is improving on their average as they progress through the tournament doesn't necessarily indicate that they're 'trending up' in the most relevant sense. I say this because a player could play horrendously in the first 2 rounds, then excellently in the 3rd and 4th rounds, and OK in the QFs and SFs, and continue to improve upon their average in the latter two rounds even though they've, in fact, peaked early, and are 'trending down' in the relevant sense. But since the average is being improved on, it might seem as though the player is peaking just in time for the finals.

Admittedly one could just backtrack through the thread and clarify this by looking at your previous posts, but since upward and downward trends seem to be key to the information you're trying to get across, you might consider explicitly showing the most detailed and relevant trends that you feasibly can.

OK.. updated to the 4th round matches and now changed slightly to show all matches to date and then the average

*Re-sorted top to bottom by average to date

*rounds in order 1 -4, latest match is in bold and average to date in green (all matches to date)

Winners to unforced error ratio (excluding aces)
Nadal 2.2, 4.1, 7.6, 3.0 = 4.3
Djokovic 2.7, 1.7, 0.8, 3.8 = 2.3
Murray 2.3, 0.9, 1.6, 3.0 = 2.0
Federer 1.8, 2.7, 1.6, 1.6 = 1.9 < Note 1

Winners per game (including aces)
Federer 1.7, 1.5, 1.3, 1.4 = 1.5
Nadal 1.3, 1.4, 0.9, 1.4 = 1.2 < Note 2
Murray 1.5, 0.8, 0.9, 1.5 = 1.2
Djokovic 1.0, 1.2, 1.0, 1,2 = 1.1

Winners per game (excluding aces)
Federer 1.3, 1.1, 0.8, 1.0 = 1.0
Nadal 1.1, 1.1, 0.7, 1.1 = 1.0 < Note 3
Murray 1.0, 0.6, 0.6, 1.0 = 0.8
Djokovic 0.7, 0.9, 0.7, 0.9 = 0.8

(The averages may not seem to calculate quite correctly in some cases - that's because the numbers shown here are all rounded but the average is calculated from the original non-rounded numbers)

Note 1 - Federer has gone from 2nd to last BUT, by far, has stuck to a zone/range the closest. Whether this bodes well for him while Murray and Djokovic are bouncing up and down in their stats is something to consider. Historically, consistency is a much better indicator of overall form than the odd blinder improving your average. If you take out each player's best match then Federer suddenly looks a lot better. If you also look at the opponents to date I believe Federer has had the best quality opponents yet is also winning his matches the fastest (see below about return points won)

Note 2 - Nadal overtook Murray (just) in winners per game stats. Against Del Potro he had to go for a lot more and it seemed to be the right option. Is his strategic planning better than he gets credit for?

Note 3 - Federer and Nadal both have maintained their roughly 25% margin over Murray and Djokovic in winners per game off the ground.

Note 4 - quality of opponents. Until the 4th round Murray struggled against the worst average opponent. But, true to his form, when he comes up against a quality opponent he puts the foot down - beating Gasguet comfortably. However, this has been a common happening in previous slams where he's then gone onto play a particularly poor match in the quarters or semis. Can he keep up his level this year?

Winning on serve/receiving
This is an interesting area. Tracking all four players you see their relative winning % on first serve versus receiving points won Federer comes out tops. While he leads the percentage of points won of 1st serve he also is 2nd best (just) on points won on return.

Points won on 1st serve (average to date)
Federer - 84.5%
Murray - 84%
Nadal - 79%
Djokovic - 78%

Points won receiving serve (average to date)
Djokovic - 43%
Federer - 42.5%
Murray - 41%
Nadal - 39%

Federer has improved on his points won on return relative to last year by over 10%. That, to me is quite a telling stat of his improvements/intentions to return differently this year. Perhaps because he is also serving better than last year he is more confident to go for his returns.

I'd surmise that unless Djokovic can find his groove on his 1st serve in particular he is going to have a hard time winning the tournament. His return game is keeping him in the money so to speak. Will he be able to maintain this under future opponents who, in theory, will both serve and return better than his opponents to date?

Thanks for the update. Thought Fed was pretty shaky from the baseline today, but the stats don't seem to show anything out of the ordinary.

Then again, I haven't had the chance to watch any of his first 3 matches, so maybe he's been like this all tournament.

piece said:

Thanks for the update. Thought Fed was pretty shaky from the baseline today, but the stats don't seem to show anything out of the ordinary.

Then again, I haven't had the chance to watch any of his first 3 matches, so maybe he's been like this all tournament.

Click to expand...

Ah.. I'm the opposite. I've seen all of them except today's match. He has been pretty solid the whole tournament - has been hitting his forehand particularly deep and hard with good consistency. It feels like he's fine-tuning the strategy to force more short balls and come forward. Cross-court seems to have been working well too.

This is my first post on these boards and I wanted to thank you for a great thread. If anything I am a little surprised by the Djokovic statistics, because we're used to him being the "most solid" player in the past 6 months or so. Yet the statistics show us his form is in flux and as you (rightly) pointed out, he needs to improve to have a chance at winning the tournament.

Another point, which struck me is the quality of Federer's opponents and how they affect his stats. I think this is debatable, but there's certainly a grain of truth to it. He did not like playing on Court No. 1 for certain, and called it slow. I wonder if there is some correlation in player's (top 4) performance when playing on Centre and when playing on the other courts.

regards, RJ

for the tournament:

226 winners for Djokovic in 231 games
265 for Nadal in 241 games

Djokovic hit 214 winners in 184 games at the AO this year

Moose Malloy said:

for the tournament:

226 winners for Djokovic in 231 games
265 for Nadal in 241 games

Djokovic hit 214 winners in 184 games at the AO this year

Click to expand...

Nadal hit more winners than Djoko in the tourney?

I know it's in more games but still, I'm surprised.

namelessone said:

Nadal hit more winners than Djoko in the tourney?

I know it's in more games but still, I'm surprised.

Click to expand...

Nadal was playing great. He hit tons of winners against Delpo. Nadal isn't in some kind of slump or decline or anything. He is making finals of every tournament he enters while healthy. Didn't make one at Queens because he was tired from FO.

Bobby thanks so much for keeping this up and going. We really see the problem here, with Nadal's return of service games. Also, his second service games where terrible against Novak. Really shows Novak too charge on those weak second serves.

Nadal needs to bring his level back up, the back hand is not as good either.

thank again

8PAQ said:

Nadal was playing great. He hit tons of winners against Delpo. Nadal isn't in some kind of slump or decline or anything. He is making finals of every tournament he enters while healthy. Didn't make one at Queens because he was tired from FO.

Click to expand...

LOL at Nadal playing great. He just played great ONE match. Against Delpo, which was quite possibly his best match of the year (although not at 2008/2010 level).

Overall, Nadal has declined massively and has totally lost it mentally against Djoko. Unless he gets a coach, heavier racquet, and some new tactics, can't see him beating Djoko in a big match for the forseeable future.

The Wimb 2011 Final was the worst slam performance of his career. The 2007/2008 Nadal would have obliterated the 2011 Wimb F Nadal in straights. Heck, even the 2006 Nadal would have been this one in 4 sets, maybe..

TennisFan3 said:

The 2007/2008 Nadal would have obliterated the 2011 Wimb F Nadal in straights. Heck, even the 2006 Nadal would have been this one in 4 sets, maybe..

Click to expand...

Not with the serve he had back then he wouldn't. I also don't think he had a clue compared to nowdays on how to hit the ball flatter when he needed to.

I'd say 2011 Nadal would pwn 2007 Nadal - even on clay. Think about it. He's has tougher and tougher competition over the period in between, this year especially. I'd have thought that'd make him a much harder player to beat compared to 3-4 years back.

TennisFan3 said:

LOL at Nadal playing great. He just played great ONE match. Against Delpo, which was quite possibly his best match of the year (although not at 2008/2010 level).

Overall, Nadal has declined massively and has totally lost it mentally against Djoko. Unless he gets a coach, heavier racquet, and some new tactics, can't see him beating Djoko in a big match for the forseeable future.

The Wimb 2011 Final was the worst slam performance of his career. The 2007/2008 Nadal would have obliterated the 2011 Wimb F Nadal in straights. Heck, even the 2006 Nadal would have been this one in 4 sets, maybe..

Click to expand...

Nadal is playing great against anyone other than Novak. You have to be blind not to see that. You don't get finals all year long if you are in a slump. This is the best start to a year for Nadal ever as far as getting to finals. Get over it, this year's Novak is simply better than prime Nadal. That's a fact and you know it.

8PAQ said:

Nadal is playing great against anyone other than Novak. You have to be blind not to see that. You don't get finals all year long if you are in a slump. This is the best start to a year for Nadal ever as far as getting to finals. Get over it, this year's Novak is simply better than prime Nadal. That's a fact and you know it.

Click to expand...

No, I think you are saying all of this because of your anti-Nadal stance.
TennisFan3 is not a nutty ******* with his head in the clouds.
I am a Fed fan first and Nadal fan second and I can clearly see that Nadal is not at top form. It does not take away from Djokovic's wins because Djokovic has improved dramatically and is playing better than Nadal but Nadal is not playing his A+ form either.

TTMR said:

Winners per game is not a very useful stat as a game can be anywhere from 4 to x points. The more total points in a game, the more winners a player has a chance to hit. I would hypothesize that the reason Djokovic has the lowest number of winners per game is because his games are the shortest; his opponents aren't getting to the point where they can push him to deuce and beyond. He is dominating quickly and early. His defense also suggests he is reaching many of his opponents' would-be winners, meaning they have to go for more power and better angles, leading to more unforced errors.

Click to expand...

What matters is the winners to UE's ratio. If you hit lots of winners but also tons of UE's, your ratio will be mediocre at best and you will not win as much. If you hit just a few winners but no UE's, your ratio will be infinite. I guess it's more difficult to beat an opponent that never misses than it is to beat an opponent that hits winners and commits UE's equally often.

8PAQ said:

Nadal is playing great against anyone other than Novak. You have to be blind not to see that. Get over it, this year's Novak is simply better than prime Nadal. That's a fact and you know it.

Click to expand...

Come' on dude. Let's be fair here.
On TT, why is that if one points out some flaws with the loser, it's considered as taking credit away from the winner?

It's like Nadal beating Fed in 2008 W or 2009 AO.
Was that Fed at his best? NO. Not by a long shot...
Does that take credit away from Nadal? NO.

So before I reply - let me say this: Novak's level was incredibly and it is quite possible that he would have beaten "any" version of Nadal in all his 5 wins.

STILL, Nadal's game is not up to par. You look at the form. NOT results.
He's lost half a step, which is most obvious on clay. He can't hit his backhand well. Basically he has big problems with the following:

1) Getting depth/pace on cross court backhand - esp on high balls.
2) Hitting a backhand down the line.
3) Hitting passing shots of his backhand.
4) Lapses in intensity

Overall, he's just guarding his backhand all the time and trying to run around it and hit a forehand. The more he uses this tactic, the WEAKER his backhand becomes, because he never uses it consistently in a match.
I mean you can feed Nadal balls in practice on his backhand 10 times, at the same position, and I'm SURE he'll shank at least 2. His footwork, balance and body weight on backhand goes awry all the time. It's PAINFUL to watch really as anyone who's followed his game.

Djoker totally exploits this and exposes Nadal's backhand throughout their matches. Did you watch Nadal's matches against Lorenzi, Isner etc. I have NEVER, NEVER seen Nadal miss sitter backhand passing shots, as he's done this yr.

Look - my ex-GF is a big Fed fan, and mostly watches slams only. Obviously she doesn't give a damn about Nadal or his game. Even she looked at Nadal in F.O and Wimb this year, and said he used to play harder and seemed stronger/faster in the past..

I don't know why Nadal's form has dropped precipitously. It could be because he's aging and his physical game is starting to take it's toll. AND/OR he has lost motivation, and the UsOpen 2010 win came a little too soon.
Personally, I think it's a combination of the two.

All in all, Nadal's best years are finished. He's in a decline - which is not to say that he will never win anything big again. But that he won't dominate the tour EVER again. This is similar to Fed post 2008/2009.

Now I don't know whether Nadal will win more slams, but even if he doesn't, he still has 10 slams and 6 RGs, which is more than he or anyone expected in 2009...

TennisFan3 said:

Come' on dude. Let's be fair here.
On TT, why is that if one points out some flaws with the loser, it's considered as taking credit away from the winner?

It's like Nadal beating Fed in 2008 W or 2009 AO.
Was that Fed at his best? NO. Not by a long shot...
Does that take credit away from Nadal? NO.

So before I reply - let me say this: Novak's level was incredibly and it is quite possible that he would have beaten "any" version of Nadal in all his 5 wins.

STILL, Nadal's game is not up to par. You look at the form. NOT results.
He's lost half a step, which is most obvious on clay. He can't hit his backhand well. Basically he has big problems with the following:

1) Getting depth/pace on cross court backhand - esp on high balls.
2) Hitting a backhand down the line.
3) Hitting passing shots of his backhand.
4) Lapses in intensity

Overall, he's just guarding his backhand all the time and trying to run around it and hit a forehand. The more he uses this tactic, the WEAKER his backhand becomes, because he never uses it consistently in a match.
I mean you can feed Nadal balls in practice on his backhand 10 times, at the same position, and I'm SURE he'll shank at least 2. His footwork, balance and body weight on backhand goes awry all the time. It's PAINFUL to watch really as anyone who's followed his game.

Djoker totally exploits this and exposes Nadal's backhand throughout their matches. Did you watch Nadal's matches against Lorenzi, Isner etc. I have NEVER, NEVER seen Nadal miss sitter backhand passing shots, as he's done this yr.

Look - my ex-GF is a big Fed fan, and mostly watches slams only. Obviously she doesn't give a damn about Nadal or his game. Even she looked at Nadal in F.O and Wimb this year, and said he used to play harder and seemed stronger/faster in the past..

I don't know why Nadal's form has dropped precipitously. It could be because he's aging and his physical game is starting to take it's toll. AND/OR he has lost motivation, and the UsOpen 2010 came a little too soon.
Personally, I think it's a combination of the two.

All in all, Nadal's best years are finished. He's in a decline - which is not to say that he will never win anything big again. But that he won't dominate the tour EVER again. This is similar to Fed post 2008/2009.

Now I don't know whether Nadal will win more slams, but even if he doesn't, he still has 10 slams and 6 RGs, which is more than he or anyone expected in 2009...

Click to expand...

Well he obviously made some other adjustments in his game that compensate for whatever weaknesses he developed. His results have been great this year. I think people overestimate his level in 2008 or 2010. Both of those years he lost plenty of matches. This year so far he seems to be losing only to one guy when playing healthy. I think you need to think back to 2008 or 2010 and remember some of the crappy matches he played. If he was perfect wouldn't be losing 10 times each of those years.

Bobby Jr said:

Last year I made a trending graph showing the ratio of winner to unforced errors for the top players in a slam... tracking their progression and consistency/peaking.

I thought I'd solicit some opinions based on comments made last year.

This year I planned a slightly more detailed chart which has a couple of trends:
- winners to unforced error ratio

and

- winners to unforced error ratio excluding aces (some said last year that this artificially adds to the ratio for some players)

and

- winners per game played ratio.

Although it isn't overly indicative of anything yet, looking at the top four player's opening matches here are a few comparisons.

Winners to unforced error ratio (excluding serves)
Djokovic 2.7 : 1
Murray 2.3 : 1
Nadal 2.2 : 1
Federer 1.8 : 1

Winners per game (including aces)
Federer 1.7
Murray 1.5
Nadal 1.3
Djokovic 1.0

Winners per game (excluding aces)
Federer 1.3
Nadal 1.1
Murray 1.0
Djokovic 0.7

Extending this out over a number of matches will be more indicative of how people are winning than a pure win/ufe ratio. Djokovic as you can see had the biggest winners to unforced error ratio... but also the lowest amount of winners per game. This could mean a number of things: he is tanking more of his opponents service games when he gets a few points behind or that his opponent was making more errors than Federer's, Nadal's and Murray's. This is where the stats start getting interpreted with opinions.

You can also see that Murray served generally well as his winners per game with and without serves changes the most out of the top four players. (Either that or his opponent was poor returner)

Any suggestions on ratios which you think show improving form over the course of multiple matches?

FYI, previous year's charts plotting the winners to unforced errors ratio after the first 4 rounds showed who would be the eventual finalists in 2 of 3 slams I tracked. That said, it's not exactly hard to guess at least a couple of the last 4 at a slam.

Click to expand...

@Bobby Jr
Im trying to find W-UE stats on the internet last 8 years or so of Rafa, Roger, Novak and Andy.
Do you have any of these stats stored somewhere?
I can't find much, not even if i search for every tournament from GS-M500, it takes long time. And a lot I can't even find. I was ready to write down every single tournament.
Odd isn't it?