The vastly undervalued strength of pre-puke Sinner

[Rovesciarete]

As most people track results and not performance they easily miss player improvements. Statistically Sinner was from August 2022 to 2023 part of a trio behind dominant Djokovic and trending up. He looks a bit better due to a lower opponent ranking, but also worse due to matching up terribly against Daniil and Novak.*

Weakness from the over-mighty number 1 and the second-best HC player, specific match-up progress and continuing overall improvement would develop into a new era of hardcourt dominance. Much of the future was revealed, for all world to see, in a puke into a sideline bin in far-away Beijing.

Rk	Player	M​	DR​	TPW%​
2	Novak Djokovic [SRB]	64​	1.41​	55.4%​
6	Jannik Sinner [ITA]	67​	1.26​	53.9%​
1	Carlos Alcaraz [ESP]	76​	1.25​	53.8%​
3	Daniil Medvedev [RUS]	78​	1.23​	53.7%​
9	Taylor Fritz [USA]	81​	1.17​	52.4%​
19	Grigor Dimitrov [BUL]	54​	1.15​	52.3%​
7	Stefanos Tsitsipas [GRE]	75​	1.16​	52.3%​

*The later runs of Dimitrov and Fritz started also from a high performance level in this period. From archived Tennis Abstract.

 

[jm1972]

Don't lie to us: Sinner didn't have "continual improvement", he had a massive jump in performance from 2023 to 2024.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Don't lie to us: Sinner didn't have "continual improvement", he had a massive jump in performance from 2023 to 2024.

The word lie comes too easily out of your mouth when confronted by facts. A habit and one way to cope with reality, I guess.

Sinner won the second-highest percentage of points between August 22 and August 23. He had the second-highest dominance ration. Those are facts.

Look at them at least before embarrassing yourself.

 

[Gazelle]

Don't lie to us: Sinner didn't have "continual improvement", he had a massive jump in performance from 2023 to 2024.

His percentages have gradually improved each year from 2020-2024. Not with a bang like Alcaraz, but more slowly and steadily.

 

[jm1972]

His percentages have gradually improved each year from 2020-2024. Not with a bang like Alcaraz, but more slowly and steadily.

2022 - 16 losses
2023 - 15 losses
2024 - 8 losses

 

[Bride of Alcaraz]

So if Sinner has improved, why was he 0-3 vs. Alcaraz in 2024, including an alarming 0-2 on hardcourt... ?
Djokovic got worse (won nothing, outside of the Olympics) and that is probably the biggest difference between Sinner 2024 and previous years
Weak era #1.

 

[Rovesciarete]

His percentages have gradually improved each year from 2020-2024. Not with a bang like Alcaraz, but more slowly and steadily.

Indeed, and many people missed it. I like to start with very simple and basic stats and what could be simpler than the percentage of total point won?

Having such a strong raw performance as Sinner did in this pre-puke period is no guarantee for avoiding certain losses or winning specific titles.
However, over the long-term this underlying strength will bring roughly corresponding results. Improving it in conjunction with that return to the mean can bring big rewards.

Frankly the relative decline of two strongest hardcourt competitors helped him also more than many realised. Most wins against Novak and Daniil have been quite close.

 

[dking68]

@Rovesciarete I wasn’t surprised by his 2024 at all. I told everyone he would win at least 7 titles after that Davis cup win. But in 2023, his results didn’t reflect his true potential.

In 2023 he had some very tight losses:

1. AO 4R against Tsitsipas. He was the better player but was outclutched in 5. Tsitsipas won 5/11 break points while Sinner was 4/26. 62 return points won for Sinner compared to 47. This was coming from the previous year in 2022 where he didn’t even generate a break point against Stef, while Stef was 4/4. DR for Sinner in 2023 was 1.06 compared to 0.77 in 2022 in their QF. So despite the loss, he was statistically the better player but lost.

2. Wimbledon SF against Novak where he lost in straight sets 6-3 6-4 7-6. 35 return points won for Sinner compared to 29 points for Novak. 96 points won for Sinner compared to Novak at 106. Many people thought he played worse in this match, seeing how he pushed Novak to 5 winning the first 2 sets in their QF last year, but this match was statistically closer. 1.03 dominance ratio for Novak. In essence, the gap between Novak and Sinner was closing despite the straight set loss. The DR for Novak in 2022 in their QF match was 1.27. So the numbers were getting better for Sinner and his level was closer to the very best.

I saw the stats, and I knew 2024 was coming of age for Sinner. And he was improving even though people felt he didn’t. It didn’t surprise me.

 

[Rovesciarete]

@Rovesciarete I wasn’t surprised by his 2024 at all. I told everyone he would win at least 7 titles after that Davis cup win. But in 2023, his results didn’t reflect his true potential.

I saw the stats, and I knew 2024 was coming of age for Sinner. And he was improving even though people felt he didn’t. It didn’t surprise me.

Improvement was and is the name of his game. Most say it, many try it, but few do really. If you look at the stats his level on grass and clay was very high but many people just look at the short term results.

 

[gamelovergold]

A small dose of PED taken every day is better than taking heavy dose and get caught.
(Joking)
Sinner improved at constant rate and now is danger of real domination on every slam.
Alcaraz can stop him here and there but rest of the field can not