IN-GAME TRADES 2 – OPPOSING THE BAD SERVER

IN-GAME TRADES 2 – OPPOSING THE BAD SERVER

In a similar vein, I assessed in-game entry points with a view to opposing those with low projected holds when leading in their service games. Whilst the risk laying the server before the game starts isn’t nearly as high as backing a server before it, reducing that risk further can never be a bad thing.

Because of this lower risk, I was able to be more liberal with my entry points, and I was quite willing to look at situations where the ‘bad’ server was one point ahead. So I looked at the following entry points for my ATP sample:-

30-0, 40-0, 30-15, 40-15, 40-30 and A-40.

As I noted in the previous chapter, the average ATP receiver wins 36.9% of points, and consequently they win the next two return points 13.6% (36.9%*36.9%). In this sample, I looked at players with under a 70% projected hold only.

These were the results:-

30-0: Receiver won the next point 36.2% (-0.7% below average) and the next two points 12.8% (-0.8% below average)

40-0: Receiver won the next point 26.1% (-10.8%) and the next two points 13.6% (exactly average)

30-15: Receiver won the next point 40.9% (+4.0%) and the next two points 16.2% (+2.6%) 40-15: Receiver won the next point 40.0% (+3.1%) and the next two points 17.2% (+3.6%) 40-30: Receiver won the next point 41.3% (+4.4%) and the next two points 19.6% (+6.0%) A-40: Receiver won the next point 38.8% (+1.9%) and the next two points 13.4% (-0.2%).

When I looked at this data, two things stared me in the face.

Firstly, the lack of success here at the 40-0 entry point, which immediately led me to draw parallels to the poor statistics for backing players with a high projected hold at 0-40 in the previous chapter. It makes me believe even more that many tennis players believe that when they are losing 0-40 in a game it is a foregone conclusion and they have less motivation at this scoreline than at other points.

The second thing I noticed is the disparity in success between scorelines where the receiver hadn’t won a point and when they had. It appears from these statistics that the receiver winning at least a point on their opponents serve gives them huge encouragement and this

‘look’ at their opponents service game ensures that they put maximum effort in for that service game.

Clearly we can disregard 30-0 and 40-0 as entry points for laying players with a low projected hold from these statistics. However, doing so at 30-15, 40-15 and 40-30 especially provide us with a decent edge that we should be able to exploit.

Consequently, I focused on the points where the receiver had won at least one point in my similar WTA sample, namely the 30-15, 40-15, 40-30 and A-40 scorelines.

As I noted in the previous chapter, the average WTA player wins 55.8% of service points (hence the average receiver wins 44.2% of points) and consequently the average receiver wins the next point 19.5% of the time (44.2%*44.2%).

These were the results of the WTA sample:-

30-15: Receiver won the next point 46.5% (+2.3%) and the next two points 24.8% (+5.3%) 40-15: Receiver won the next point 41.5% (-2.7%) and the next two points 22.9% (+3.4%) 40-30: Receiver won the next point 52.3% (+8.1%) and the next two points 20.9% (+1.1%) A-40: Receiver won the next point 49.1% (+4.9%) and the next two points 27.3% (+7.8%).

As we can see, all entry points except the 40-15 entry point (interestingly the only entry point I sampled with a two point lead in the game) provided above average results. This definitely backs up the theory that the more success (but of course they are still losing it) a player has previously in the service game the more success they are likely to enjoy for the rest of it. Especially, if we oppose a WTA server with a low projected hold at 40-30 and A-40, we can expect an above average level of success to get the game back on level terms at 40-40 and longer term trades of the next two points work well from 30-15 and A-40.