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.
For the next few weeks we take a look at the stats from the 2023 Australian Open Junior event.
Over the course of 6 matches, Alexander Blockx played a total of 861 points. In keeping with most tournament champions, he won 55% of these points. Of all points played between the German and his opponents, 72% of points ended in an error. The remaining 28% were winners.
Just under 3 of every 4 points ended in an error.
Blockx hit 2% fewer winners than his opponents (13% vs 15%). So, how did Blockz win the event? He made considerably fewer errors, 12% less than his opponents. This more than made up for the winners differential.
Another way of looking at things:
- Blockx made 2 errors to each winner
- Opponents made 3 errors for each winner
As Craig O’Shannessy (Brain Game) puts it: “Your opponent is the most important person on the court, not you. Your job is to make your opponent uncomfortable out there.”
Knowing that this is a game of errors, you need to do the things that force your opponent to hit uncomfortable shots – using pace, spin, depth, height, angle, consistency. Winning ugly is better than losing pretty.
The ability to learn from your own errors is key to improving your game.
Filtering Winners and Errors in your match.
