Playing Styles of Top ATP Players

[jack0369]

I'm working on a tennis project and I'm trying to come up with a way of categorizing the different playing styles on the tour. Obviously, this is subjective so I want to have the input of as many people as possible in order to get an average. I am using 5 categories:
1) Serve-and-volleyer
2) Big serving baseliner
3) Defensive baseliner / counterpuncher
4) All-rounder
5) Clay-court specialist

You could just copy paste the list below and add the number 1) to 5). Any input is much appreciated.

Novak Djokovic
Daniil Medvedev
Rafael Nadal
Carlos Alcaraz
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Juan Martin Del Potro
Jannik Sinner
Holger Rune
Nick Kyrgios
Andrey Rublev
Alexander Zverev
Taylor Harry Fritz
Cameron Norrie
Frances Tiafoe
Casper Ruud
Alex De Minaur
Karen Khachanov
Hubert Hurkacz
Matteo Berrettini
Marin Cilic
Jack Draper
Tommy Paul
Grigor Dimitrov
Roberto Bautista Agut
Pablo Carreno Busta
Denis Shapovalov
Borna Coric
John Isner
Brandon Nakashima
Botic Van De Zandschulp
Lorenzo Musetti
Gael Monfils
Tallon Griekspoor
Reilly Opelka
Sebastian Korda
Andy Murray
Emil Ruusuvuori
Yoshihito Nishioka
Daniel Evans
Lorenzo Sonego
Jeffrey John Wolf
Maxime Cressy
David Goffin
Miomir Kecmanovic
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
Mackenzie Mcdonald
Diego Sebastian Schwartzman
Yibing Wu
Richard Gasquet
Mikael Ymer
Dominic Thiem
Jiri Lehecka
Marton Fucsovics
Stanislas Wawrinka

 

[tennislove00]

Novak Djokovic 4
Daniil Medvedev 2
Rafael Nadal 4
Carlos Alcaraz 4
Stefanos Tsitsipas 4
Juan Martin Del Potro 2
Jannik Sinner 2 but without really big serve
Holger Rune 4
Nick Kyrgios 2
Andrey Rublev ballbasher, fits more into 2
Alexander Zverev 2/3
Taylor Harry Fritz 2
Cameron Norrie 3
Frances Tiafoe 4
Casper Ruud 5 lol
Alex De Minaur 3
Karen Khachanov 2
Hubert Hurkacz 2 and 3
Matteo Berrettini 2
Marin Cilic 2
Grigor Dimitrov 4
Roberto Bautista Agut 3
Pablo Carreno Busta 3
Denis Shapovalov brainless
Borna Coric 3
John Isner 1/2
Lorenzo Musetti 4
Gael Monfils 4
Reilly Opelka 2
Sebastian Korda 4
Andy Murray 3
Diego Sebastian Schwartzman 3
Yibing Wu 4
Richard Gasquet 4
Dominic Thiem ballbasher
Stanislas Wawrinka 4

 

[socallefty]

What does clay court specialist mean? Is it very different from defensive baseliner? Also is big-serving baseliner the same as power baseliner? How would you classify Wawrinka?

 

[Sudacafan]

What does clay court specialist mean? Is it very different from defensive baseliner? Also is big-serving baseliner the same as power baseliner? How would you classify Wawrinka?

It must be that tennis on clay is a totally different sport, like Not Real Tennis, as per some acolytes of a moronic school of thought.

 

[game..set..match]

make sure not to forget the "Dirty Grunting Ball Basher" category

 

[Raz11]

Probably easier for you to look at match data at https://www.tennisabstract.com/charting/meta.html. It only has data on some matches but there is enough to categorise the players. Forr the 5 categories, you can

1) Serve-and-volleyer - high % of SnV
2) Big serving baseliner - how % of aces, low average rally length and high % of winners
3) Defensive baseliner / counterpuncher - low % of winners and low net points
4) All-rounder - high % of SnV, high % of net points and high win % for all rally lengths
5) Clay-court specialist - high % of clay matches

 

[jack0369]

What does clay court specialist mean? Is it very different from defensive baseliner? Also is big-serving baseliner the same as power baseliner? How would you classify Wawrinka?

For clay court specialist I was thinking of players like Nadal, Thiem, Almagro whose main strength are long top-spin rallies. I wouldn't say they are too similar to defensive baseliner since they try to dictate the rallies themselves (even if it doesn't mean going for the winner), but there's definitely some overlap. Other people said the name "clay court specialist" isn't the best, so keep that in mind.

For big-serving baseliner my definition was honestly super easy, just a player whose main weapon is their serve and they don't come to the net as frequently as the serve-and-volleyer. Ultimately, my goal is to use the classification to predict matches and I wanted one category to see how well players perform against big servers and this is the category for that.

Wawrinka I would probably put as an all-rounder. He does have a big serve but I feel like it's not his "main thing".

 

[jack0369]

Probably easier for you to look at match data at https://www.tennisabstract.com/charting/meta.html. It only has data on some matches but there is enough to categorise the players. Forr the 5 categories, you can

1) Serve-and-volleyer - high % of SnV
2) Big serving baseliner - how % of aces, low average rally length and high % of winners
3) Defensive baseliner / counterpuncher - low % of winners and low net points
4) All-rounder - high % of SnV, high % of net points and high win % for all rally lengths
5) Clay-court specialist - high % of clay matches

This is definitely an interesting idea and I thought about doing this - especially for lower rated players who I just haven't watched enough. But I do think if we get a high enough number of responses from actual tennis fans, the average response will be more accurate than the data-driven classification. I might still compare the two approaches in the end though.

 

[L4S10s]

Rafito - clay court specialist

 

[socallefty]

The categories I think of for classifying players are ‘S/Vr or Net Player’, ‘ All-Court’, ‘Power Baseliner’ and ‘Defensive Baseliner’ for pros. For rec players, you could also add a ‘Junkballer’ category. Almost all pros depend on big serves and I wouldn’t define a category based on that.

 

[spottishwood]

Seems interesting. I'm gonna give it a go.

Novak Djokovic 4
Daniil Medvedev 2
Rafael Nadal 5
Carlos Alcaraz 4
Stefanos Tsitsipas 2
Juan Martin Del Potro 2
Jannik Sinner (Brainless Ball Basher)
Holger Rune 4
Nick Kyrgios 2/Junkballer
Andrey Rublev (Brainless Ball Basher)
Alexander Zverev 3
Taylor Harry Fritz 2
Cameron Norrie 3
Frances Tiafoe 2
Casper Ruud 5
Alex De Minaur 3
Karen Khachanov 2
Hubert Hurkacz 4
Matteo Berrettini 2
Marin Cilic 4
Jack Draper 2
Tommy Paul -
Grigor Dimitrov 4
Roberto Bautista Agut 3
Pablo Carreno Busta 3
Denis Shapovalov (Brainless Ball Basher)
Borna Coric 3
John Isner 1/2
Brandon Nakashima 3
Botic Van De Zandschulp -
Lorenzo Musetti 4
Gael Monfils 4
Tallon Griekspoor -
Reilly Opelka 2
Sebastian Korda 4
Andy Murray 3
Emil Ruusuvuori -
Yoshihito Nishioka 3
Daniel Evans 4
Lorenzo Sonego 5
Jeffrey John Wolf 4
Maxime Cressy 1
David Goffin 3
Miomir Kecmanovic 4
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina -
Mackenzie Mcdonald 3
Diego Sebastian Schwartzman 5
Yibing Wu -
Richard Gasquet 4
Mikael Ymer -
Dominic Thiem (Ball Basher)
Jiri Lehecka -
Marton Fucsovics 2
Stanislas Wawrinka 4