Meles
Bionic Poster
Some recent statistical study of Zverev has convinced me that he will not conform to normal player development patterns.
Serve Points Won:
Zverev will make rapid progress this year and he's already up big on early hard courts and clay, so the real question is will it continue? How good will Zed be? Let's check the other big players:
-Raonic went from winning 65.4% in 2010 to 70.9% in 2011 and has held pretty steady since peaking at 72.9% in 2015.
-Querrey came on tour at a very young age winning 65.4% and has never really improved rapidly, but has been as high as 68.2%
-Soderling bumped between 18 and 19 never getting all that higher than the 68.2% achieved that year
-Berdych in 2007 went from 65.4% the previous year to a career high of 68.8%
-Del Potro had a slow steady rise and was just 66.4% in 2009
Zverev jumped on clay and early hard this year going from 64.2% to 67.7% (up 3.5% but the year is not over). 67.7% is tracking right along with Kyrgios unless Zverev ups that number even more with further play in 2017.
Kyrgios at two years older nearly leads the tour at 72.4% serve points won this year virtually tie with Isner. It will be hard for Zverev not to make similar progress as all the components of his game improve over the next two years and improve his serve points. Zverev should easily be up around Raonic type numbers at the very least (71%).Return Games Won:
-This is where Del Potro excelled and he spiked from a class leading 26.5% in 2007 to a phenomenal 32.6% return games won in 2008, but then back to 26.7% in 2009 at age 21.
-Cilic never matched Delpo's excellent 2008, but he was very close in on 2007 and 2009, but since then it's been a general decline, but still always above 20% return games won.
-Querrey peaked by age 21 at 21.1% return games won and it has been a steady decline until 2017 where same currently has a late peak going with 25.5% games won fueled by his great Acapulco run.
-Raonic has cracked the 20% return game barrier just in the last few years proving that hard work can improve numbers.
-Soderling peaked at age 23 and from age 22 maintained 23.3% games won steadily improving over his last years on tour to 26.6%.
Zverev has been up and down, but so far looks like a worse returning Cilic at the same age. If we were to switch to return points won we'd see how sensitive games won is to points. For Delpo, taking return points from 39% to 42% in 2008 boosted his games won from 26.5% to 32.6%. Cilic fluctuated around 38% with results in the low 20%s for return games won. Zverev was 37.1% last year, but has been a disturbingly low 34.5% so far in 2017.
Looking at these return numbers Zverev may end up being a lesser return player than Cilic on hard courts. If he doesn't get his numbers up later this year. Zverev is tracking towards post peak Roddick type numbers which may be good enough with a Big 4 free field if Zverev ends up with the best serve game on tour.
Around the US Open and the month beyond last year Zverev got to 41% on points for a stretch. He would be unstoppable if he got to 40% or better on return points with a tour leading serve. Even 38 or 39% would be tremendous. 2016 ended up at 37.1%.It's reading tea leaves at this point, but my gut says Zverev will have done well to get around 37% on return points which is on par with current Cilic, but a bit less than Marin's earlier years were around 38%. With his serve numbers expected to be higher than Marin's, Zverev may be a player regularly similar to peak Cilic who won the US Open in 2014. Zverev has shown he can get hot on return, so the combination should be good enough to win quite a few slams as Zverev is equally good on all surfaces.
It's razor thin margins on return points and this one stat has Zverev on the edge of greatness or being a player little better than Roddick. It seems we have a statistical Zedbot on our hands who in his best years may play like a slightly more dangerous and dynamic Raonic2016.
Peak serve may happen as early as 2019 or 2020.
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