2019 Australian Open 2R - [16] Milos Raonic vs. Stan Wawrinka

[abmk]

Oh, I miscommunicated. I didn't mean that most never expected him to grab a major. I meant that later in his career, when his return skills fell, at THAT point it was a surprise. For instance, I don't think anyone expected him to win W the year he won it, and in games won during that W he was close to the bottom of any major in the OE. He skated through by some miracle. Wouldn't you have expected him to be much more likely in previous years, when he did not win?

oh yeah. I agree with that.

In fact, as I went through and looked at all his stats I was surprised at how much more complete his game was earlier in this career than I had realized. Important also is keeping mind that in general there were more DFs in the 90s due to older rackets and strings. You compare Fed and Sampras and it jumps out at you that Sampras's serve was obviously more powerful, so then you think, "But why did he DF way more often?" My answer is PARTIALLY that a lot of his DFs were throw-away, probably, like who cares if you throw in a DF on 40/0, and most of the time it's not too costly at 30/15. But besides that I'm convinced that the biggest change we've seen in serving is not speed, or success on first serve, but the higher margin for error on the 2nd serve, made possible by poly.

yeah, Goran had skills apart from serve. His problem was his inconsistency in those skills.
His return games won was >=19.8% or above from 91-96.

Yes, bigger margin on 2nd serve due to poly is a big factor.
Also Sampras went more for his 2nd serve than Fed does.

 

[Gary Duane]

oh yeah. I agree with that.



yeah, Goran had skills apart from serve. His problem was his inconsistency in those skills.
His return games won was >=19.8% or above from 91-96.

Yes, bigger margin on 2nd serve due to poly is a big factor.
Also Sampras went more for his 2nd serve than Fed does.

I've always read that, don't know what to make of it because of eras. Fed is very conservative about DFing, almost as low as Rafa.

But get this: Someone gave me a list of old players over one year, I think, and I have this:
Denton the leader, at 1.73 aces per game, and that's way higher than Dr. Ivo, if it's correct. That seems very high to me, but lets go with it for a moment. DFs per game were .87, so when you subtract the net is .86, which to me is a very important figure. McEnroe did not ace nearly so often, but his net is .84, and he still shows as acing 1.46 per game, which is higher than anyone today. My takeaway is that these old players DFed way more often because of the rackets, but they could not get their rackets on as many balls, because there is no way that JMac was a better server than Karlovic.

This trend seems pretty obviously to have been moving towards today as the rackets changed. Aces per game actually went down, but DFs went WAY down.

The result is what you see here:

https://www.ultimatetennisstatistics.com/statsLeaders

And I don't know what kind of data they have for the old players. You can see that 1.43 for Karlovic is the gold standard, with Goran at 1.1, very impressive. But what you don't see with this stat is hot these top acers balance out with their DFs, I think the net of aces-DFs is not only more important but tracks better against game% won, so Fed and Sampras are neck and neck on net, with Sampras being much better on aces but DFing more often. But then the question is this: how do they compare across eras? My conclusion is this:

Sampras in this era would win more games. He'd have more pace on the serve, so even more lethal, slightly higher % of aces, but his DF% would be lower, so he would outrank Fed in games won on serve. I don't think that means anything other than we have to handicap stats according to the rackets.

Goran, on the other hand, moves to 13th place on my list, whereas for aces only he is solidly in 7th place. For a modern comparison, Roddick is way down the list of acers, though probably tops for his height, but moves to 8th place for net. On net Sampras is pretty far down for net, but in 1st place for his height.

and there are very few people even now who do much better. But he DFed more often, so his net was below 0.

 

[abmk]

Yup. A few years back I thought he was almost a lock for a major. Again, somewhere around 55% of games seems to be the threshold for good years showing likelihood of winning a major, but for more generally up around 58% or higher. It's a numbers thing. Like this year I'm looking for something like 90/26 from Fed to show a good chance for a major, whereas 91/29 on HC would be almost a lock, with of course the problem that in the past Novak has gone even higher.

That's why it was good to see Fed boost his games tonight against Fritz. Nothing guarantees a major, but games in the mid 60s or higher in the first week is always a very good sign. 70% tonight against Fritz.

Evans played well above his normal level.
Federer played pretty well to beat him in straights. Granted his RoS could've been better and he could've got 1 more break, I didn't have that much of a problem.
vs a lesser performance in Fritz, Fed was able to break more easily (5 times).

As far as Raonic is concerned, I didn't think he was a lock to win a major, but his best tennis at a major came in AO 16 - he was hitting well from the ground, SnVing and volleying well, returning competently and obviously serving well. I thought he'd have a decent shot if he played like that for some more majors.
Not as much impressed by his Wim 16 performance - had to come back from 2 sets to love down vs Goffin, Fed crumbling&then getting injured in the 5th set helped him in the semi. Granted he was clutch to take it, but his level in itself didn't impress me as much.