Every week, Tennis Analytics dives deep into the data, bringing you a stat of the week to help you understand tennis better and become a little smarter.
Stat of the Week: 51%
In both the Women’s and Men’s 2020 US Open Finals, the Champion won just 51% of all points played in the finals.
- Osaka won 86 of 170 points = 50.59%
- Thiem won 164 of 322 points = 50.93%
Below is the percentage of points won for each rally length.
We LOVE the points with 27 shot rallies, but that’s not where the majority of the match happened. You can see that over 80% of points ended within 8 shots.
The 2nd serve was the difference!
In fact, both Osaka and Thiem were worse than their opponents on 1st serves.
Winners & Errors
Osaka hit 4 more winners and 2 more errors than Azarenka.
Thiem hit 8 fewer winners than Zverev, but this was offset by 14 fewer errors.
Point of the Week
The above examples validate past stat of the week data:
- 1% makes a huge difference in our sport.
- Winning the 1 to 4 battle is key to winning the match.
- A player is only as good as their 2nd Serve.
- Tennis is a game of errors.
Photo of the Week
Naomi Osaka’s forehand swing path.
Andras Ruszanov says
Congrats to the stats above! I just found a mis : Thiem hit 6 fewer winners than Zverev, but this was offset by 14 fewer errors (44 to 52 is 8 fewer winners).
Warren Pretorius & Will Boucek says
Thanks Andras! This is corrected now 🙂