G’day from Wimbledon, 🍓
Let’s talk rally length and what it really tells us about how players are doing as they progress through the draw at Wimbledon this year.
The data set is the bottom half of the men’s draw in the round of 32, so that includes 16 players. The three rally lengths we are going to analyze are:
- 0-4 Shots
- 5-8 Shots
- 9+ Shots
Let’s see who is doing better in each rally length and what this means for their chances of continuing to progress through the draw.
0-4 Shots
0-4 Shots Round Of 32 – Bottom Half Of The Draw (16 Players)
This is the beating heart of successful grasscourt tennis. If you are going to make Week 2 at Wimbledon, you need to be dominating the 0-4 rally length, which includes serves, returns, and the two immediate shots that follow, which I like to call Serve +1 and Return +1.
Let’s unpack some meaning from the table above.
The first thing I do is draw a line at 55%. Everyone above that is killing it in the first two rounds. Alexander Zverev seems to be in a class of his own with a dominant 65.3% won. He has played these six sets so far: 6-2, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. Zverev has hit 30 aces and only three double faults. He has made 71% of first serves, which is way above the tournament average of 63%. Zverev next plays Cameron Norrie, who is only at 52% won in this important metric. Things look good for the German.
Holger Rune and Novak Djokovic are also powering forward in this metric, winning 59% of points. If you had any doubts about Novak’s game not being up to par, this should dispel them. He is always controlling this metric, and he is doing the same thing so far this year.
Taylor Fritz, Giovianni Mpetshi Perricard, and Alex De Minaur are also above 55%. Fritz is a threat to go deep, and Perricard came through qualies and has a cannon of a serve. He is a future Top 10 player. Probably sooner rather than later. He will be almost impossible to break and has a great chance to at least make the quarters, if not further. De Minaur sometimes wins the hard way with long, athletic matches, so this is a great sign for him in his first two matches.
The four players under 51% won should all be hearing alarm bells at this stage. Don’t be surprised if all four lose their next match.
The 0-4 rally length is crucial to win at Wimbledon. There is a 17 percentage point gap between the best and worst. It’s so important to be at the top of this table.
LEARN HOW TO MAKE SHORT RALLIES A STRENGTH OF YOUR GAME
Webinar 33: First Strike Tennis
Webinar 17: Return +1 Strategy
5-8 Shots
5-8 Shots Round Of 32: Bottom Half Of The Draw (16 Players)
When rallies extend past 0-4 shots, you want to take control in the next two shots and dominate in the 5-8 shot rally length. Fritz was fourth best in 0-4 shots and is best in 5-8 shots. Fritz leads this list. Fritz plays Alejandro Tabilo in the third round, who is well underwater here, winning only 47.4% in 5-8 shot rallies.
Everyone from Djokovic (53.0%) and above is doing well in this metric. I would have thought De Minaur would have been higher than 50%. Djokovic plays Alexei Popyrin in the next round. There will be a solid amount of points in this rally length in this match. Popyrin will find it hard to have any shot at Novak if he can’t at least break even in this metric.
9+ Shots
9+ Shots 5-8 Shots Round Of 32: Bottom Half Of The Draw (16 Players)
This is by far the least important of the three metrics at Wimbledon (or any other tournament).
It’s interesting to see Fritz drop to last place, with only 16 points played in long rallies. Fritz played 285 in 0-4 shots, and that’s where his focus will be against Tabilo. Longer matches naturally promote more activity in this rally length, with Musetti (74), Comesana (59), Tabilo (55), Djokovic (55), and De Minaur (55) all playing more than fifty points in long rallies of 9+ shots.
These rallies will inevitably happen, but they don’t happen enough to impact the final score.
Below is the percentage breakdown for all players combined.
- 0-4 Shots = 71% (5009 points)
- 5-8 Shots = 21% (1475 points)
- 9+ Shots = Â 8% (606 points)
Slightly north of seven points out of 10 exist in the 0-4 rally length. That’s in another world compared to only 8% in 9+ and greater than three times more than 21% in 5-8 shots.
The players who dominate the short rallies dominate the matches. Let’s pay close attention to these round-three matches to see if past rally length performance is a good indicator of who will make the fourth round.
Cheers,
Craig