Marco Cecchinato’s stunning run to the semi-finals of Roland Garros can be greatly attributed to improved performance behind his second serve. An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of the 25-year-old Italian’s second serve reveals it has typically been a weak link in his arsenal. He has won only 45 per cent of second-serve points for his career, and just 44 per cent this season. [ALSO LIKE] Through five matches at Roland Garros, that win percentage has jumped to 54 per cent. The tournament average so far is 50 per cent (5347/10668), which highlights just how impressive he has been in this key area compared to the rest of the field. In the deciding fourth set of his quarter-final victory...
Can you identify this Roland Garros dark horse? He is an impressive 15-5 so far in this year’s clay-court swing, including ATP World Tour qualifying and main-draw matches. During the run, he has defeated seven Top 50 players, including four in the Top 20 and two in the Top 10. He reached the final at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, an ATP World Tour 500 event, but is still yet to celebrate his 20th birthday. He is at a career-high No. 39 in the ATP Rankings, so he is not yet on most people’s radar to go deep at Roland Garros. That needs to change. He is the in-form 19-year-old Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas. [ALSO LIKE] An Infosys ATP Beyond The...
Thirty points. Denis Shapovalov is one of the hottest players on tour right now and is poised to possibly break into the Top 25 in the ATP Rankings next week after starting the year ranked No. 51. He is 17-12 this season, and has won six of eight matches the past two weeks at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome. He is on a red-hot tear… and has only won 30 points more than he has lost in 2018. An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of success in our sport uncovers that the margins that winning are built on are razor thin. Shapovalov, 19 years old, has played 4,204 points in 2018, winning 2,117,...
Beaten earth. Another name for red clay is terre battue, but beaten earth sums up the toughness of this natural surface perfectly. Granules of ground red brick and tile grab the felt of a wildly-spinning ball when it pounds into terra firma. It creates different angles, different spins, and different strategies at the elite level of the game. An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of the current Top 10 right-handed players identifies that they overwhelmingly prefer to serve more out wide in the Ad court against right-handed opponents on clay than hard. [ALSO LIKE] First serves are all about power and direction, but the terre battue enhances two more elements for this specific shot – spin and height. For...
Is Rafael Nadal elevating his game to another level at 31 years of age? Our eyes see it, his opponents feel it, and yes, the stats sheet confirms it as well. The golden age of Rafa is happening right here, right now. An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of Nadal’s record-setting 11 titles at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters identifies that the Spaniard has only once (2010) won a higher percentage of total points to take the title than he did this year. [ALSO LIKE] Nadal won 60.9 per cent (298/489) of total points in five matches last week, which is the second highest of any of his 11 victorious campaigns in the Principality. It was more than three percentage...
