Tie-Break Strategy

[jhm36]

Hi Folks,

Over the past couple of days I've been doing some basic number crunching of who in the ATP over the last couple of years gets into tie-breaks more often than others and who's better at winning and how those percentages compare to other basic serve and return statistics in an effort to find some non-trivial correlation among them and hopefully, in the end, being able to generate some general rules that will enable me to make informed predictions such as: given the history of players X and Y, in a tie-break Y should win the set. I'm still looking and haven't reached any conclusions yet, and even if I don't reach anything firm I'll still probably post the stats sometime later.

Meanwhile, has anyone else looked into this? Maybe I'm walking on ground already covered and I just haven't been able to find the tracks.

On a more practical note, anyone have good strategies for winning tie-breaks? Anyone have hard facts on how they are won? Person with fewest errors usually win? How about the man with the better serve? The dude with the highest aggressive margain is the tie-break top dog? Maybe it's the person with the better return game? Maybe the person who has won the most points up the tie-break usually wins? I've heard it said that the person who wins the first point usually wins the set. Is that true? Anyone ever looked at the stats?

How about the importance of getting your first serves in? Or maybe second serve points become magnified in importance during a tie-break. Is it better to turn up the aggression on your return game or to tone it down and bit and be sure to get the return back in play. Maybe the person who gets the most returns back in play usual wins the tie-break.

What's the better tie-break motto? Hold your serve and you'll never lose. Or Never break serve and you'll never win. Neither? Both? Another?

Who has the edge in a tie-break, the better server or the better returner?

So many questions, and many more still left.

Thanks for any help.

[jhm36]

Any thoughts on this essay? Short discussion of tie-break points in it, claiming that the first point in the tie-break is far from being the most important one.

http://members.aol.com/Tennis999/situations.html

[mdhubert]

I guess holding the serve and mental toughness are two key elements. Still a bit of a lottery at the end.

[johnyandell]

Really good questions and I don't know of any analysis. I do wonder if the numbers would show breakers favor the big servers. But other than that, a winning game is usually a winning game.

Dick Gould, the Stanford coach, said something really interesting to me. In college they've been thru quite a few format changes. They used to play no ad. Now they play lets on serve. The doubles is now one pro set and played first, not last.

He said that he felt however you changed the format, the better players would eventually adapt and find a way to win.

[jhm36]

Tough subject to really wrap your head around. I've been thinking about this and making notes on matches for the last few weeks and still can't see a significant pattern. What we need are recordings of a large number of tie-breaks so we can see easily track what's happening during the individual points, but I don't know of any such video.

Here's a list of the tie-break records and winning percentages of some of the biggest servers on tour, including those that win a lot of service games as well as those who hit a lot of aces. Not sure what to make of it other than some big servers are good at tie-breaks, and others are not.


Nadal 19-9 68

Fed 26-14 65

Roddick 17-12 59

Stepanek 13-11 54

Karlovic 20-19 52

Ancic 15-14 52

Ljubicic 17-19 47

Mirnyi 10-13 43

Berdych 8-11 42

One of the strangest stats up there for me is Ljubicic's record. He's winning a lot of matches this year, often gets in tie-breaks, yet has a lossing record in them. Something mental going on there, I suspect.


Here are the top eight palyers at winning return games and their tie-break records, excluding Federer and Nadal for duplication reasons.

Davydenko 8-10 44

Ferrer 9-8 53

Murray 10-10 50

Hewitt 9-8 53

Nalbandian 4-7 36

Rochus 12-9 57

Gaudio 8-7 53

Robredo 8-6 57

Once again, some are good, some are not, some right around 50 percent. How about Nalbandian's record? Another odd stat.


Djokovic, by the way, is just about the best on tour at winning tie-breaks and has been for a couple of years. He’s 16-2, winning at 89 percent. What does that say about him?