IN-GAME TRADES 3: BREAK POINTS
Break points can be
another possible entry point for in-game trading. Obviously, some players are
better than others at doing so – amongst other qualities needed to be good at
saving break points is mental strength, which some players have much more of than
others.
In April 2013, I
analysed the top 100 ATP and WTA players to assess which players were the best
and worst at break points.
Interestingly the
average percentage of break points saved in the ATP was 59.9%, but the average
server in the sample won 62.7% of points, so the average break point was 2.8%
more likely to be won by the receiver than any ‘normal’ point.
This was almost the
same difference as the WTA. 56.1% of points were won on serve but only 53.8% of
break points were saved, so the average break point was 2.3% more likely to be
won by the receiver than any ‘normal’ point.
So clearly, if a
player saves more break points than ‘normal’ points, they can be considered to
have strong mental strength in this situation. In my opinion, it’s vital to
compare break point save percentages to service won percentages to get this
score, as opposed to purely looking at the player’s break point save
percentages in isolation. If we were to do this, all the players at the top of
the statistics would be the big servers, which would give us no edge because
the market already expects them to win more service points than the average
player.
Best ATP players at
saving break points using the formula “Break Point Save Percentage minus
Average Service Point Percentage” at the end of April 2013:-
(Mean is -2.8%)
Martin Klizan 4.1%
Jesse Levine 4.0%
Nikolay Davydenko 3.3%
Jeremy Chardy 2.7%
Tomas Berdych 2.6%
Radek Stepanek 2.4%
Feliciano Lopez 2.2%
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 2.2%
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
1.5%
Juan Martin Del Potro 1.4%
Rafael Nadal 1.1%
John Isner 1.1%
If we were
to back these players, particularly the ‘non notorious’ big servers or non
top-level players, such as Klizan, Levine, Chardy, Lopez and Garcia-Lopez, and
perhaps the veterans
Davydenko and Stepanek too, we should have a positive expectation
because there will be very few in the market that will anticipate that these
players will be so good at saving break points against the average player
The worst ATP players using the same
formula at end of April 2013:-
Andreas Seppi -5.1%
Sam Querrey -5.4%
Xavier Malisse -5.7%
Blaz Kavcic -5.9%
Tommy Haas -6.0%
Yen-Hsun Lu -6.0%
Florian Mayer -6.1%
Kei Nishikori -6.1%
James Blake -7.0%
Robin Haase -7.3%
David Nalbandian
-7.3%
Go Soeda -8.4%
Alejandro Falla
-8.7%
Michael Llodra -9.3%
Michael Russell
-11.3%
Lukas Lacko -11.5%
Paolo Lorenzi
-12.0%
Simone Bolelli -18.0%
Some of
these figures are clearly horrific and are not from inconsiderable samples.
Even if we focused on the very bad players, for example the ones with
percentages worse than -7%, we would be able to find some great trading
opportunities.
I also did the same research for the WTA.
Best WTA players at
saving break points using the formula “Break Point Save Percentage minus
Average Service Point Percentage” at the end of April 2013:-
(Mean is -2.3%)
Maria Teresa Torro-Flor 4.7%
Lauren Davis 3.9%
Flavia Pennetta 3.5%
Elena Vesnina 3.3%
Tamira Paszek 3.1%
Mandy Minella 3.0%
Camila Giorgi 2.8%
Karolina Pliskova
1.8%
Laura Robson 1.7%
As with the
majority of the men’s players, there is no way that much of the market will
anticipate these players at being good at saving break points. We definitely
have an edge with this type of trade against the average player.
The worst WTA players with the same
formula at the end of April 2013:-
Sabine Lisicki -5.8%
Misaki Doi -5.9%
Ayumi Morita -6.0%
Shuai Peng -6.0%
Monica Niculescu -6.1%
Ana Ivanovic -6.2%
Maria Kirilenko -6.5%
Lourdes Dominguez
Lino -6.5%
Daniela Hantuchova -7.0%
Stefanie Voegele
-7.9%
There were two
players worse than these but from a small sample, Vesna Dolonc (-11.0%) and
Donna Vekic (-15.0%).
Of course,
for balanced analysis, we also need to assess whether the receiving player is
good at converting break points.
Obviously, as the
mean for the ATP for saving break points was -2.8% compared to ‘normal points’,
the mean for converting break points is 2.8% above the ‘normal point’.
Good ATP players at converting break
points at the end of April 2013:-
Leonardo Mayer 12.8%
Michael Russell
11.2%
Jerzy Janowicz 8.0%
Ivan Dodig 7.0%
Guillermo
Garcia-Lopez 6.7%
Fabio Fognini 6.7%
Jarkko Nieminen
6.4%
Tomas Berdych 6.0%
Martin Klizan 5.8%
Albert Ramos 5.8%
Dimitry Tursunov
5.7%
Nikolay Davydenko 5.6%
Philipp Kohlschreiber 5.6%
Aljaz Bedene 5.5%
Jurgen Melzer 5.5%
Interestingly,
Klizan, Berdych, Davydenko and Garcia-Lopez also featured on the top players
for saving break points as well. At this point it is clear that they should be
players that you can rely on more in key points than the average player.
Bad ATP players at converting break
points at the end of April 2013:-
John Isner -0.2%
Feliciano Lopez
-0.4%
Go Soeda -0.4%
Roberto
Bautista-Agut -0.5%
Bernard Tomic -0.7%
Tommy Haas -0.7%
Gilles Simon -1.0%
Joao Sousa -1.1%
Santiago Giraldo -1.1%
Benoit Paire -1.1%
Marcel Granollers -1.7%
Paolo Lorenzi -1.9%
Michael Llodra -2.1%
Victor Hanescu
-2.1%
Tobias Kamke -2.6%
Ricardas Berankis
-3.3%
Again,
there are several names that feature in the list for players bad at converting
break points and also for saving break points. We can therefore assume that
Haas, Soeda, Llodra and Lorenzi are not as good at the key points as average
points.
Good WTA players for converting break
points at the end of April 2013:-
Yulia Putintseva 10.4%
Polona Hercog 10.3%
Aleksandra Wozniak 10.0%
Mandy Minella 7.4%
Bojana Jovanovski 6.0%
Sorana Cirstea 5.6%
Petra Martic 5.6%
Ayumi Morita 5.4%
Lucie Hradecka 5.1%
Maria-Teresa
Torro-Flor 5.0%
Monica Niculescu 5.0%
Bad WTA players for converting break
points at the end of April 2013:-
Maria Sharapova -0.6%
Camila Giorgi -0.7%
Jelena Jankovic
-0.8%
Roberta Vinci -0.8%
Melinda Czink -0.8%
Su-Wei Hsieh -1.1%
Maria Kirilenko
-1.1%
Annika Beck -1.4%
Anabel Medina Garrigues -1.9%
Donna Vekic -2.4%
Flavia Pennetta -3.0%
Ksenia Pervak -3.1%
Stefanie Voegele -3.3%
Lauren Davis -3.5%
Heather Watson -3.6%
Misaki Doi -4.2%
These stats should
give you an overall insight about which players perform better than others in
these key situations. It also should be very useful for you to be able to
perform your own analysis for this in the future, if you want to keep these
statistics up to date.
For me,
trading break points is very simple. I stay in the trade until the game is
either level at deuce or the game is won. As I won’t ever enter at 0-40 because
the risk/reward ratio is very poor, and 15-40 is fairly borderline in this
respect, usually I enter and exit within one point only (either 30-40 or 40-A
and getting out at 40-40 or service break).
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