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whiskers aren't just for saving a tasty morsel from your lunch I recently re-read the amazing book Full House - The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin by the paleontologist-philosopher Steven Jay Gould. The book was written in 1996 and should really be required reading for anyone in an introductory statistics class or who considers themselves or any part of their job to be analytical. Read it. It's worth your time, and can apply to so much beyond its two main areas of

At Next Level Stats, we just upgraded the more than 150 player benchmarks we use for giving junior players better context for their match stats, and I noticed a few interesting trends in the data. Here are some of the areas that stand out for lower level-players as they move from UTR 4.5 to 11+. WHAT ABOUT WOMEN While the number of women’s matches available didn’t allow for as detailed modeling as with the men, the higher-skilled women follow many of the same patterns as the

At Next Level Stats, we were upgrading the more than 150 player benchmarks we use for giving junior players better context for their match stats, and I noticed a few interesting trends in the data. Here are some of the areas that stand out for lower level-players as they move from UTR 4.5 to 11+. WHAT DOESN'T MATTER Net play does not seem to change much between these levels either in frequency or success. There were relatively few (7) volleys per player per match at all level

At Next Level Stats, we were upgrading the more than 150 player benchmarks we use to give junior players better context for their match stats, and I noticed a few interesting trends in the data. Here are some of the areas that stand out for lower level-players as they move from UTR 4.5 to 11+. SERVE ACCURACY In addition to the patterns in non-professional depth of serve, first and second serve percentages increase reliably as skill level increases. First serves “in” increase

At Next Level Stats, we were upgrading the more than 150 player benchmarks we use to give junior players better context for their match stats, and I noticed a few interesting trends in the data. In an early version, we ran around 30 of these stats for women’s ITA matches to use as a benchmark for non-professional players. But with a much more detailed and comparable database of over 1,500 matches now available, including being able to differentiate by UTR rating and sex, thi

I recommend reading the set-up from my last post if you haven’t already. The take away was that Djokovic’s down the T serve on ad court was devastating against Sinner, and he didn’t overuse it. Since I had already created this analysis for the semifinal, I thought it would be nice to look at the men’s final as a point of reference where Djokovic obviously didn’t have the same success against Alcaraz. On the contrary, on the ad court he won a respectable 71% of first serve po

I can’t trust my eyes. Not only because I have astigmatism and without glasses the shapes on the television look like Super Mario Bros, but patterns only really made sense to me if I can type them into a spreadsheet and play with them for a bit. While watching the second men’s semifinal of the Australian Open last Friday, there was something about Djokovic’s serve on the ad court that nagged at me. A few times he pounded a first serve down the T on that side, and Sinner seeme

A Persistent Pattern Across All Levels Research published in 2023 found that men’s professional tennis players served more like pure theory would predict than women. For pro women's first serves in particular, the researchers showed that 45% of the time women demonstrated different win percentages when serving to their opponents’ left and right sides, compared to essentially never for pro men. Does This Pattern Hold at Lower Levels? At Next Level Stats, we partnered with Swi

The Second Serve Paradox Across nearly every level of tennis that we’ve studied at Next Level Stats via an exceptional dataset made available by SwingVision, one pattern refuses to disappear: servers overwhelmingly favor hitting to the returner’s left side, which usually means returners are forced into a backhand shot. This tendency shows up on most serves, but it becomes especially pronounced on second serves, when pressure rises and margin matters most. (note: earlier rese

The Switching Pattern That Gives You Away In addition to choosing the right balance of wide and T serves, a sophisticated tennis player has to also think about their patterns of serving to each side of the service box. As discussed (here), professional tennis players are hitting wide and T with the right overall balance. But a really good returner (maybe an Andre Agassi or Iga Swiatek) could still exploit detectable patterns–think wide, wide, wide, T, T, T. And indeed, resea

What Gauriot et al. Found in Professional Tennis When researchers analyzed nearly 500,000 professional tennis serves, they discovered something remarkable: professionals (especially the men with more dominant serves) played almost perfectly according to game theory in economics. Specifically, they served both to the left and right side of the returner often enough that they equalized their probabilities of winning the point on either side. From Gauriot, Page and Wooders (2023

This is the last in a series on differences in how tennis matches play out at different levels of the sport. I compare women’s and men’s recreational matches, Division 1 college matches, International Tennis Federation events, and WTA/ATP tour level events. Data can tell great stories: here’s one of them. Four Key Takeaways 1. Rally patterns peak in length at the college level. College matches have longer rallies than both recreational and pro matches: players are skilled en

This is the third in a series on differences in how tennis matches play out at different levels of the sport. I compare women’s and men’s recreational matches, Division 1 college matches, International Tennis Federation events, and WTA/ATP tour level events. Data can tell great stories: here’s one of them. Rally Structure: How Long Are Points, Really? If we zoom out from individual shots to the flow of entire rallies, a similar pattern emerges: as skill rises to the highest l

This is the second in a series on differences in how tennis matches play out at different levels of the sport. I compare women’s and men’s recreational matches, Division 1 college matches, International Tennis Federation events, and WTA/ATP tour level events. Data can tell great stories: here’s one of them. Serve Dynamics: Risk and Reward At every level, the serve is tennis’ first and most direct test of a player’s skill level. It is also a balance of risk versus reward. Thes

This is the first in a series on differences in how tennis matches play out at different levels of the sport. I compare women’s and men’s recreational matches, Division 1 college matches, International Tennis Federation events, and WTA/ATP tour level events. Data can tell great stories: here’s one of them. Point Outcomes What changes in the structure of points as a match level climbs from recreational to professional? We often talk about speed, power, and consistency, but few

Your coach can't always be at your match. And no one can see the difference between a 3% improvement in your serve percentage or a 3%...

Data analytics have been used in professional tennis for years. Aryna Sabelenka might be the most vocal professional about her use of...

Ever compare your first serve speed to the pros? Why?!? Comparing yourself to someone with 15 more years of experience doesn't tell you...

As the world of tennis continues to evolve, data analysis will play an increasingly important role. Players at all levels are beginning...