The Tennis 128: No. 1, Rod Laver
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Jeff Sackmann
@tennisabstract
Tennis history, data, and analytics.
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Fifty years ago today, Rosie Casals won the biggest prize in the history of women's sport. How did she do it? Lots and lots of drop shots:
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Not shocking given the remaining draws, but interesting to see that according to my forecasts, Alcaraz (76%) has a better chance of winning the Madrid title than Swiatek (72%) does, despite have one more round to go.
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(flashscore has 4h16 for Humbert-Daniel. Looks like 4h13 might be the official match time.)
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Time to update our list of the longest Challenger matches on record (since 2010)
1. 2011 B'quilla R2 Cipolla-Farah 4h23
2. 2023 Savannah R1 Hemery-Galarneau 4h21
3. 2022 Lima QF Etcheverry-Olivo 4h17
4. 2023 Cagliari QF Humbert-Daniel 4h16
5. 2012 Guayaquil SF Lorenzi-RRH 4h07
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On this day in 1973, the Brits expected an easy Fed Cup quarter-final against Romania. Mariana Simionescu and Virginia Ruzici made sure that would never happen again:
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Fifty years ago today, an ailing, cramping Margaret Court lost early at the Family Circle Cup, missing out on the biggest first-prize check in the history of women's sport:
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On this day in 1973, two rival women's circuits set aside their differences and took a major step in the direction of the WTA tour as we know it today:
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On this day in 1973: Arthur Ashe suffered one of his worst losses as a British star came within a whisker of qualifying for the WCT Finals:
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Fifty years ago, the number one player for Macalester College's men's tennis team was a woman:
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as points out, it was Tomas Martin Etcheverry, not Machac, in the Lima match. I saw "Tomas Ma," didn't look closer, and jumped to a rather odd conclusion. Sorry about that.
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Legends galore on this list.
Both Cipolla-Farah and Machac-Olivo had a 7-5 set. Lorenzi-RRH was previously the longest three-tiebreak special. Only six CH matches in the last 13+ years have crossed the four-hour mark.
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I have (most) Challenger match times back to 2010. Looks like its the second longest:
1. 2011 Barranquilla R2 Cipolla d. Farah, 4h23
2. 2023 Savannah R1 Hemery. d Galarneau 4h21
3. 2022 Lima QF Machac d. Olivo 4h17
4. 2012 Guayaquil SF Lorenzi d Ramirez Hidalgo 4h07
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.@ATPChallenger Is 4:21 the longest Challenger match on record? I know it's not longest ever, 4:41 appears there.
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With the Barcelona title (and Djokovic's loss), Carlos Alcaraz reclaims to the top spot on the Elo ranking table. He also has a significant lead in the clay-specific Elo ratings.
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Botic had 5-2, 40-15 in the third set. Assuming for simplicity that the players were equal at that point, his chances of winning were 99.5%.
Using my pre-match Elo ratings, Rune had a much better shot; Botic's odds at the first match point were a mere 99.2%.
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I’d love to know the actual statistical odds of coming back from this. It must be incredibly low cc @tennisabstract twitter.com/vanshv2k/statu…
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Not a 500, but worth adding that Kecmanovic pulled this off in Estoril a few weeks ago.
Also: I limited this to the last ten years, but if we go back three more, we can count Rafa's 2010 Monte Carlo, where he entered the final with 30 return games, 20 of them breaks.
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At 500s or higher, only 2-3 players per year go into a final with a break rate above 50%. Here is the list since 2013:
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Stat of the week from Barcelona courtesy @nicklester ….Opponents vs Alcaraz, when stepping up to serve, have more chance of getting broken, than holding! 
#Sheeeeet
#Sheeeeet2
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Here are the last 32 meetings between ATP #1 and ATP #2:
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I found 32 WTA matches since 2000 between the #1 and #2 ranked players at the time. Here they are:
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On this day in 1973:
16-year-old Nick Saviano triumphed at the prestigious Easter Bowl junior tournament, then held at Tennis 59 in Manhattan.
The 14-and-under champ? A promising lefty from Queens named John McEnroe.
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50 years ago today, Chris Evert won again. So did Margaret Court:
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Althea Gibson and on the Joan Rivers show in 1990. Really delightful to watch, especially how much Althea seemed to enjoy herself:
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On this day in 1973, the Australians began their march to a long-delayed Davis Cup title:
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The difference btw top 100s is also a bigger deal than it sounds.
A core of 6 events offer equal opps (slams+iw+miami). Another 4 biggies are equal-ish.
Take those out, and the 23.7 to 18.5 (ranks 31-50) is 13.7 to 8.5. More than half-again as many opps for men in those weeks.
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The big gap is in Challenger level opportunities. Comparing tourneys in the $50k-plus range (men's CHs, women's CHs + ITF $60K+)
ranked 151-200: men got 17.5 direct entries, women got 9.9.
ranked 201-250: men 18.1, women 8.6
ranked 251-300: 14.2, women 7.1
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I had expected that the women ranked 51-100 spent more time in qualies/challs/ITFs than similarly ranked men, but that wasn't really the case -- both genders in that ranking range got main draw direct entries for a bit more than 60% of the tourneys they played.
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A propos of this week's limited options for WTAers, just did a quick tally of playing opportunities in 2022.
Players ranked 11-30:
- men entered an average of 22.6 events
- women 19.1
Ranked 31-50:
- men entered 23.7
- women 18.5
Ranked 51-100:
- men entered 26
- women 22.5
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I've been daydreaming:
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No worries, just learned at the Norwegian National Museum:
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TennisTV put the Danish flag next to Casper's name in their IG story... 
And Casper's account reposted it...
And Casper's account reposted it... 1
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On this day in 1973: The WCT troupe made a geographically inexplicable detour to Johannesburg. Less than 24 hours after touching down in SA, the hottest player on the circuit was out of the draw:
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Seems like a good day to re-up my Althea Gibson essay:
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Fifty years ago: The Australians were feeling pretty good about their Davis Cup chances. Then, on the way to their first-round tie, Vijay Amritraj beat the whole team:
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On this day in 1973, 20-year-old Guillermo Vilas came to the rescue of the splintered international tennis community. Really!
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On this day in 1973, Bobby Riggs played doubles against a grandfather of three... and lost.
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Fifty years ago today, Billie Jean King returned to action. She didn't like sitting on the sidelines, but even she recognized a rest might do her good. She didn't yet know how much she would need it:
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On this day in 1973, Margaret Court won the first-ever women's pro tourney in Philadelphia. A big week for Philly tennis, a typically breezy one for Margaret:
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Fifty years ago today, baseball took a giant step in a new direction. The parallels between the DH rule and the adoption of the tiebreak are striking.
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