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This was a very Good article to help people see the full impact of Stats! I loved the way the Sampras/Agassi match was integrated to make several great points about the unforced error.
It also points out how point of views can differ on what stats tell us, as I felt the forced error strongly pointed out how much Agassi dominated this match off the ground. (when you dismiss the big serving advantage of Sampras)
First we can look at this seemly great match up between the best server ever against Agassi, the best returner of his time, and see that it really is not that great of a match up. Despite the fact that a great server will almost always win this head to head comparison when serving well, Both of their approaches to this battle favors Sampras in a big way and the stats pointing that out.
Andre takes a territory down the heart of the service lane and says come in here at your own risk. If you do, I will punish you for your arrogance! He strives to make you double fault more with this approach. Outside that lane, on each side of it, Andre is not so dangerous and actually gives up quite a few aces and winners to the server who can keep it in the 2 outside lanes of the box with some heat.
Now lets see, who is the best in the business at bringing heat right down those 2 outside lanes on a consistent basis, not to mention the best clutch, pressure server, while still using those 2 lanes. Mr. Pete Sampras.
Only Andre’s underrated serve and Pete’s avg at best return, kept this as close as it was.
Federer and Hewitt are much tougher returners for Pete as they don't give up many aces and make you play many more points. Guess that's why Fed beat Pete at Wimby and Hewitt got him in straights at the US Open. Dull his one big advantage and it makes a monster difference, especially for great groundstrokers.
Back to the Stats on Forced errors--
Taking the serve out of the equation, we can see by John's numbers that Andre forced 8 more errors while giving up **21 less unforced errors** in the process,
and 2 more clean winners to boot, (even though Pete was taking much more risk with his shots based on the big numbers of his unforced errors)
for a total domination of a 31 point advantage in the ground game!
In Pro tennis this is a huge margin. Very few servers can make up a margin like this against even a good returner! Almost enough to win all 4 sets by a margin of 6-2, I believe. And this is without breaking out any advantage on net points won, which I still see as part of the ground game.
But as you can see, the baseline groundstroke advantage would be even bigger taking net play into account!
If you lost one of the sets 6-2 (one set loss to push it to 4 sets); then the score could even be 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 in the other 3.
Again great article on all we can pick out from better Stats. I'm pretty sure I've heard Pat Mac comment on the importance of the forced error as well.
thanks for the Great Article!
It also points out how point of views can differ on what stats tell us, as I felt the forced error strongly pointed out how much Agassi dominated this match off the ground. (when you dismiss the big serving advantage of Sampras)
First we can look at this seemly great match up between the best server ever against Agassi, the best returner of his time, and see that it really is not that great of a match up. Despite the fact that a great server will almost always win this head to head comparison when serving well, Both of their approaches to this battle favors Sampras in a big way and the stats pointing that out.
Andre takes a territory down the heart of the service lane and says come in here at your own risk. If you do, I will punish you for your arrogance! He strives to make you double fault more with this approach. Outside that lane, on each side of it, Andre is not so dangerous and actually gives up quite a few aces and winners to the server who can keep it in the 2 outside lanes of the box with some heat.
Now lets see, who is the best in the business at bringing heat right down those 2 outside lanes on a consistent basis, not to mention the best clutch, pressure server, while still using those 2 lanes. Mr. Pete Sampras.
Only Andre’s underrated serve and Pete’s avg at best return, kept this as close as it was.
Federer and Hewitt are much tougher returners for Pete as they don't give up many aces and make you play many more points. Guess that's why Fed beat Pete at Wimby and Hewitt got him in straights at the US Open. Dull his one big advantage and it makes a monster difference, especially for great groundstrokers.
Back to the Stats on Forced errors--
Taking the serve out of the equation, we can see by John's numbers that Andre forced 8 more errors while giving up **21 less unforced errors** in the process,
and 2 more clean winners to boot, (even though Pete was taking much more risk with his shots based on the big numbers of his unforced errors)
for a total domination of a 31 point advantage in the ground game!
In Pro tennis this is a huge margin. Very few servers can make up a margin like this against even a good returner! Almost enough to win all 4 sets by a margin of 6-2, I believe. And this is without breaking out any advantage on net points won, which I still see as part of the ground game.
But as you can see, the baseline groundstroke advantage would be even bigger taking net play into account!
If you lost one of the sets 6-2 (one set loss to push it to 4 sets); then the score could even be 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 in the other 3.
Again great article on all we can pick out from better Stats. I'm pretty sure I've heard Pat Mac comment on the importance of the forced error as well.
thanks for the Great Article!
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