Welcome to the first ever Stat of the Week!
Every week, Tennis Analytics will be diving deep into the data to bring you a stat to help you understand tennis better and become a little smarter.
May 27, 2020
Stat of the Week: 7%
It’s break point. Do you go for it? Or just get it in?
When serving on break point, the 1 to 4 rally length accounts for 52% of all points for men’s college players.
When serving on game point? It jumps up to 59%.
That’s a 7% increase!
- When they are serving for the game, they “go for the kill.”
- When down a break point, they just want to “get it in” or play “not to lose.”
Here are the rally lengths broken down by 1st & 2nd serve for NCAA Men during the 2019-2020 season.
| ALL SERVES | 1 to 4 | 5 to 8 | 9 to 12 | 13+ |
| All Points | 56% | 29% | 9% | 6% |
| Break Points | 52% | 29% | 10% | 8% |
| Behind | 54% | 30% | 10% | 7% |
| Game Points | 59% | 27% | 9% | 6% |
| Ahead | 60% | 27% | 8% | 4% |
| 1st Point | 55% | 30% | 9% | 6% |
| Even | 54% | 29% | 10% | 7% |
Point of the Week
We don’t have competitive tennis right now, but this is a great time to get your practice matches in.
It’s also a great time to start getting some baseline statistics for your game.
- Go practice with a friend.
- Film the match.
- Purchase our player package – split it with your friend 😉
We’ll send you a report with dozens of stats from your match, from serve percentages and placements to rally length and winner/error data.
Image of the Week
Bianca Andreescu was one of the top players on the WTA last year, claiming two Masters Titles & the US Open.
Here is her forehand swing path.
Sébastien Lavoie says
Excellent analysis.
When you say « when they are serving for the game, they “go for the kill.”, do you find they go more for the kill on the first serve ? In other words, is there more one shot points or S+one shot points ? The % increase of points 1-4 for both 1st and 2nd serve does not suggest it is the case.
Also, the next natural follow-up could be : does it worth to go more for the kill? The breakdown on the charts of the rally length suggests it could be but I’m not sure.
Best regards from Montreal Canada , Sébastien
Warren Pretorius & Will Boucek says
Thanks Sébastien!
We’ll have to look at more data to find that out. It makes sense that there are more 1 shot rallies on the 1st serve since people naturally go for more. It could also mean the returner is more aggressive when down a game point. There are several potential causes for this gap.
Is it worth going for it? We’ll have to look at the win %. There usually is a higher win % in the 1-4 shot rallies because the server’s advantage tends to go away by the 5th shot.
Without more data, it’s difficult to say. More data is coming soon though 😉