#lilistats

[lightsouttennis]

Updating Iga’s 2025 YTD W/L sheet reminded me that last year, Iga lost at Wimbledon to Yulia Putintseva… whom Amanda beat in the 1R this year… 6-0, 6-0… ohhh how I looooove incredibly niche, pretty meaningless but nonetheless compelling statistics 😭

[lightsouttennis]

Carlos Alcaraz's Year-to-Date Wins/Losses (2025 season up to Roland Garros)

how to read the sheet

Six months and four titles into the 2025 season -- including his first defense of a Roland Garros title in thee men's match of the year -- Carlos Alcaraz must surely be feeling on top of the world.

After taking a defeat from resident child-murderer, Novak Djokovic, in the AO QFs, Alcaraz stuck to hard courts for the first time in his career post-AO. Having gone through a whopping six surface transitions last year due to playing the Golden Swing and the Olympics (H->C->H->C->G->C->H), I feel confident in saying minimizing his surface transitions has aided his game. It showed in Rotterdam -- his first indoor hardcourt title in his first tournament appearance. The same couldn't be said for his first appearance in Doha; Alcaraz's second loss of the year came at the hands of Jiri Lehecka.

The Indian Wells threepeat wasn't to be, either, with Alcaraz losing in a bizarre up-and-down match against Jack Draper who went on to win the title. Miami was even tougher; Carlitos didn't even make it to the third round, losing to a brilliant David Goffin who will retire with a positive H2H against Alcaraz.

Then came clay for the first time, and boy, did he show up! Carlitos took his first Monte-Carlo trophy home after dismantling the injured Lorenzo Musetti (bookmark that phrase...). Unfortunately, Carlitos himself suffered an injury in the Barcelona final against Holger Rune and was forced to withdraw from Madrid. Luckily, the call paid off and Carlitos was able to not only play well in Rome, but beat the returning World No. 1 and his boyfriend, Jannik Sinner, in a final that wasn't memorable so much for the tennis as the narrative significance.

The question at this point on everyone's lips -- would Roland Garros deliver the long-awaited Sinner-Alcaraz Major final? As the top two seeds, they were all but assured to make their final Sunday date, and holy fucking shit, did they!!! Coming back from two sets and a break down, saving three championship points on his serve, and winning in the very first final set tiebreak of a men's Major final in the longest final in Roland Garros history is the stuff they write books about. I would be first in line to buy it!

Now for grass -- can he defend the Channel Slam successfully? Will we be blessed with another Sinner-Alcaraz Major final, and their first on grass? What of the North American hardcourts? And is he ever going to crack the code for the indoor swing? Stay tuned!

[lightsouttennis]

It’s kind of insane how Demon and Casper have only played once on the tour???

[lightsouttennis]

Iga Swiatek's 2024 season

Considering Iga didn't play from the end of the US Open to the WTA Finals (...) and that she didn't win a title past Roland Garros in the middle of the season... damn, she's good.

how to read the sheet

She got her revenge twice over for Noskova upsetting her in Melbourne by beating her twice during the Sunshine Double -- even handing Noskova a bagel in the desert. The Kalinskaya loss aged well with the Russian making a run all the way from qualifying to the final, taking out Coco Gauff as well along the way. Casting my mind back to the Alexandrova loss doesn't reveal much in the way of details except that I have an impression that I thought she seemed tired coming off a somewhat troublesome match against -- who else! -- Noskova. Plus Iga in humidity is not really ever the best combination.

I remember looking forward to the Stuttgart Rybakina semi because of the final they'd just played in Doha (which I also thoroughly enjoyed, more for the drama and tension than quality of tennis because oh man was it windy that day!). While I was pulling for Iga, obviously, I always think a loss is somewhat tempered if that player goes on to win the tournament, which Rybakina did.

Madrid... 7-5 4-6 7-6(7)... what! a! match!!!! Besides saving three match points in the tiebreak, Iga also won her very first deciding set tiebreak in her career -- having lost the only two others she played. I genuienly don't know why that isn't in the notes. Hm.

Speaking of amazing clay matches... I mean... Osaka also had a match point. Iga only lost 20 games to players not named Osaka en route to winning her fourth Roland Garros... and she lost 17 to Osaka. Come. On!

Not playing a grass warmup event combined with running into a tough player doing well on grass spelled Iga's exit from Wimbledon and sent her straight back to Paris's clay where she was upset by Zheng (the eventual gold medalist) in the semis. Decisively winning her bronze medal match was, at least, some solace.

She got absolutely hit off Cincy's courts by Aryna, but the fact that she'd just come off clay and still made the semis of her first hardcourt event back means I was neither surprised nor upset by that loss. Plus, again, it aged well with Aryna going on to win Cincy & the US Open.

Iga's own US Open wasn't as successful, losing to Pegula for only the second time in nine meetings, but Pegula was that rare player who transitioned smoothly from the Olympics to the North American hard courts. She was in excellent form and Iga is no less for having lost to her then.

Having tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) on 12 August and being informed of it 12 September along with a provisional ban meant Iga's season was virtually over save for her participation in the WTA Finals early November. Having been banned from competition for 30 days, Iga served 22 of those days prior to the Finals which meant she was forced to miss the Asian swing and forfeit defense of her Beijing title, consequently losing World No.1 to Aryna Sabalenka.

This season saw Iga Swiatek enjoying some of the greatest benefits of being World No.1 -- good draws, adulatory fans, the incomparable LEGO Poland sponsorship -- as well as the more negative effects -- heightened scrutiny resulting in increased drug tests which will undoubtedly have lasting effects on her psyche and potentially her career. As a particular fan of her tennis and person, I can only hope that all pains are taken to fully clear Iga's name. In any case, I find myself looking forward to her 2025 season -- maybe 2025 is the year she makes a splash Down Under!

[lightsouttennis]

lightsouttennis's 2024 season win/loss stats

Sometime in the summer as I was updating my Wimbledon tournament stats sheets for various players, it occurred to me that I'd like to track a handful of young players across their careers, and that I might as well start now. I've been developing these career win/loss statistics sheets over the past few months, adding in and removing statistics to try to tease out a structure that's both intuitive and informative and I think I've landed on something that works -- for now!

Carlitos || Coco || Jannik || Iga

The best way to read these is to start in the middle where the green & red highlighted wins and losses are. To the left of this column (year-match number) are statistics which place each match in context of the season. To the right (opponent's rank-score) are match-specific statistics. Any notes may be found to the right and include but are not limited to career statistics.

Year - I have sheets built for each year of each player's career going back to ITFs

Week of - starting date (usually Monday) of each event's beginning week

Rank - player's current rank

Surface - H (hard), C (clay), G (grass); Blue = outdoor hard; Purple = indoor hard; Pink = indoor clay; Orange = outdoor clay; Green = grass (florals in spring)

Tournament - the darker the teal, the more important the tournament; for events such as the Olympics (3rd darkest = same level as 1000s) and BJK/Davis Cups (2nd darkest = same level as 500s, bolded to indicate difference), I chose the corresponding colors to indicate level of importance, judging an Olympic medal to be worth more generally to a player than a BJK Cup

Round - if a player's tournament starts from the second round (2R) that player received a bye; blue highlighted rounds indicate results for each tournament

Match no. - the # of a match played by a player in the season, minus Laver Cup bc I'm sorry. but no.

W/L - green for wins, red for losses

Opp.'s rank - Okay bear with me here. An opponent's (O) rank will be bolded if O was seeded at that tournament; O's rank will be colored in dark green if the player (P) beat them and O is a Top 5 player; O's rank will be a lighter green if P beat them and O is a Top 10 player; O's rank will be lightest green if P beat them and O is a Top 20 player; O's rank will not be highlighted in any color if P beat them and O is a player outside of the Top 20. O's rank will be dark red if O beat P and O is a player outside of the Top 20. O's rank will be lighter red if O beat P and O is a Top 20 player. O's rank will be lighter red x2 if O beat P and O is a Top 10 player. O's rank will be light pink if O beat P and O is a Top 5 player. The idea is that opponents (X) a player (P) should beat will reward less of a victory and more of a defeat. So if X beats P, it's a worse problem than if P loses to a Top 5 (Y) player. The inverse is true, with P beating a Y to be judged as a greater victory than if P beat X. The degree of 'should' is broken down to Top 5, Top 10, Top 20, and all other players because a player has to be beating the lower-ranked players consistently to hope to be a threat, and that logic holds true with lessening degrees all the way to the top.

Opponent - all of the above, minus any bolding

H2H - head-to-head in the POV of the player (P); *an asterisk indicates the player and opponent played in Challengers, ITFs, or juniors which sometimes may be included in the notes section if I felt like adding it

Score - written in POV of the player (ie, Gauff d Swiatek looks like '63 64' for Coco and '36 46' for Iga)

Match time - not included bc I didn't finish this oooooops!

Notes - could be career stats, could be fun facts, could be personal observations!

[lightsouttennis]

it’s gonna be really close but I think Carlitos is going to pull it off. he’s outperforming Jannik in almost every area consistently (first serve in play %; first & second serve won %; first & second serve return won %; allowing fewer break points on his serve — although they both have only been broken once in this entire tournament. interestingly, Jannik’s service points won % is higher than Carlitos’, but I must mention that he’s also had to consistently play more points on his serve — meaning that Carlitos’ serving has been more efficient.

statistics, my fucking beloveds.

[lightsouttennis]

US Open Week 1 (1R-4R) Match Stats (Sinner & Medvedev)

Both [1] Jannik Sinner and [5] Daniil Medvedev had the (increasingly obvious) bad luck of having drawn each other in the same quarter of this year’s US Open, and are scheduled to meet Wednesday 4 September on Arthur Ashe. Ahead of their third meeting this year (at a major and overall), let’s look at how they’ve been faring so far on Flushing Meadows’s hard courts.

After dropping the first set played to Brandon Nakashima 2-6 in the first round, Jannik hasn’t dropped a set since — and has only lost service six times since that first set for a total of eight service breaks in the first four rounds. He’s also broken his opponents a combined twenty-five times, breaking three times for every break suffered despite getting his first serve in play about 3% less. When you save 12 of 20 break points on your serve, and convert 25 of 41 break points on your opponents’ serves’, those are the kind of statistics you can put up as top seed and world number one.

Impressively, Jannik’s won about 21% and 19% more of his service points than each opponent, showing that his serve has largely been untouchable. Coupled with the fact that he’s won about 17% and 19% more of the points on return than his opponents, and it’s no wonder Jannik’s only dropped the one set.

Jannik isn’t playing it safe, either; he’s been in the green on both winners & unforced errors counts, meaning he’s both been more aggressive and more successful than his opponents in going for his shots. (On balance, he’s notched about 13 more winners and 10 fewer unforced errors.) Alex Michelsen, another big server, is the only opponent of his who’s equaled Jannik in aces; otherwise, Jannik has outaced his opponents in double digits each time. He’s also consistently had fewer double faults than his opponents and only had one in his 4R match against [14] Tommy Paul. He’s come into the net less often, but more successfully, tending to come in an average of four points less and winning about 13% more of net points he’s played.

Daniil, too, has only dropped one set, also in the first round. He’s lost serve a total of 10 times and broken his opponents a collective 29 times. He had a bit of a seesaw match in terms of holding serve and breaking in his 2R meeting with Fabian Marozsan, exchanging 12 total breaks and yet managing to win in straight sets.

Arguably, Daniil’s biggest opponent on his serve is himself; Nuno Borges is the only opponent of his so far who’s double faulted more than him. In total, he’s double faulted an astounding 33 times. That’s the same as giving away 8 service games, and going down 0-15 in your ninth service game.

On the other hand, Daniil’s generated 61 break points and converted 29 of them — which means he’s converting about 1 out of every 2 BPs he creates. That’s a fantastic break rate, so it’s only as slight wonder he’s won his 2R, 3R, and 4R matches in straight sets.

However, it should be noted that he’s been less efficient than Jannik. Compared to Jannik, Daniil has required 20 more BPs to create just 4 more breaks over 4 rounds. On Wednesday, this might look like Daniil needing to generate more BPs to break the same amount of times as Jannik who — we must remember — is serving far better than any of the opponents Daniil’s faced thus far.

Daniil has also earned 14 fewer winners and made 12 more unforced errors overall than Jannik has in the tournament so far. Given how Jannik tends to favor a more aggressive style than Daniil does (who doesn’t?), if he goes for his shots (and he will!), he ought to make them before he makes a mistake in a rally, which is what Daniil will be waiting for.

I’m going to say Jannik wins in 4 sets and drops the second either in a tiebreak or 5-7. But then, I also picked Jannik to win at Wimbledon, so, who knows!

[lightsouttennis]

this event, I started out tracking Iga, Aryna, Coco, Jasmine, Diana, Mirra, Naomi, Jannik, Carlitos, & Daniil while adding Muchová & Lehecka and now I’m down to 5/12 :(