Extension to the Cluster Analysis done earlier

As an extension of the Cluster Analysis piece, I had tried to pitch the various serve and return statistics for each of these clusters to see how the combination works.

The ideal state for players to be across all the scatters is the top right corner as all variables considered are %s that are good-to-have-it-high. Unsurprisingly, the group that the big 3 of Roger, Rafa and Novak belong dominate this position in 2 of the 4 scatters (brown dots). The other interesting thing to note is the Pink group being in the centre of almost all the scatters and seem to be breathing under the neck of the brown dots. No wonder it is the cluster to which multiple few time GS champs like Murray, Stan, Cilic, Hewitt belong!

In the battle of the On & Off ones (involving Grigor, Haas etc.) against the consistent journeymen (comprising the likes of Seppi, Chardy etc.) the presence of Red UNDER Green easily explains who wins the battle of the return games. While the Reds are better in terms of Serving stats (the fact that their dots are mostly to the RIGHT side of Green ones), they would be better off getting better return stats.

The next thing I had done was to just select the best group (Brown) and dissect the same stats by players under this group. This is what it resulted in:

Again, the ideal state is the top right corner and the worst place to be is at the bottom left. No wonder, Verdasco, a clear outlier in this group fits to the bottom left in all 4 plots.

Novak, Roger and Rafa place themselves closer to the ideal section of the plot in at least 3 of the 4 plots. If you compare by the Return Stats (visualise drawing a horizontal line to include only the dots at the top), the guys owning up the best numbers are Rafa, Novak with the surprising presence of David Ferrer and Davydenko above Roger in all these categories! So, you now know where Roger's hiccup lied in. 

Similarly for Rafa, the presence of many names to the right of him in the first serves won % shows where his primary problems lie. Juan staying at Bottom-middle or Bottom-right indicates he has miles to go with his return game before he can actually add some legend tag against him. The positive news is, he has made his presence felt in the cluster. The bad news is, he is still recuperating and one knows not if he would be the same old Juan when he gets back on court!

Vika - The Lady Djokovic!

Is Azarenka the new Djokovic? Will get to that question later in the piece.

While the ATP players are fighting it out at Basel and Valencia to secure the much-coveted final few berths left to play the year end Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, the creme de la creme of the WTA circuit are already set to find who's who in the year end championships at Istanbul,Turkey. After 2 days of action in the ongoing round robin phase, there have not been any upsets: Top seeds Azarenka, Maria & Serena are progressing unscathed; With a win and a loss against her name, Radwanska is close on the heels of the top 3. Even after a valiant attempt against Vika (in one of the matches of the year), German Championships debutant Angelique Kerber is staring down the barrel after 2 defeats. Errani, Li Na & defending champion Kvitova are yet to open their 'win account' in their groups.The actions today and tomorrow will heat things up and let us see if one/more of the second-4 can dash the hopes of atleast one top-4!

Now, to the match of the tournament and later,a digression towards focusing on the Lady Match Point Saver Victoria Azarenka!

In her first match of the championships this year, World No.1 Victoria Azarenka, fresh from titles at Linz and Beijing, played a marathon 3-setter against Kerber. After losing the first set tiebreaker at a 11-13 and at 4-5 15-40 she faced two match points! Taking cue from her 'M.P.-save-in-vain' in the Istanbul final last year against Kvitova and a leaf out of Nole's book (titled..perhaps 'How to save match points?'!?!), she saved both match points she faced, won the second set breaker a convincing 7-2 and furthered her authority on the year end No.1 ranking position. She now needs one more win at Istanbul to guarantee herself the stay at the rankings pent-house irrespective of how World No.2 Maria Sharapova fares in the reminder of her matches.

Back to back titles, dancing and enjoying at the trophy ceremony, year end No.1-to-be, saver of match points : Do all these points not take your minds to another Tennis Player of another gender from another country playing, perhaps like he's from another planet?! The guy named Novak Djokovic? A closer look at not just the recent past but at a 1-2 year time frame shows a lot more striking similarities Vika and Nole's careers have had. Here are some:

• Both Nole & Vika have had their first Grand Slam Triumph at the Rod Laver Arena, Australian Open!
• Both have saved match points against past champions at Flushing Meadows sending the crowd into frenzy at the U.S. Open (Nole in '10 & '11 against Federer; Vika in '12 against Stosur)
• Both have had some good streaks in the past 2 years (Nole with his 41 match streak in '11; Vika with her 26 match streak in '12)
• Both are crowd-pleasers and have had their share of famous post-victory celebrations!
• Both reside in the princely and picturesque tax haven Monte-Carlo!
• Both are popular twitterbugs on the social networking site & regularly post their Hotel,Airport pics!They give a slice of their private lives to their fans!
• Both have had Olympic singles medals (Nole with a Silver in '08; Vika with a Bronze in '12)
• Both are dubious for their record in terms of withdrawals/Retirements from matches citing injuries/ailments (Nole was; Vika still is!)
• More than all these, the trollers on social network have tried proving how similar the facial features of the two are!

Looks like the two are made for each other! I'm sorry..'Made Like Each Other, Not For'.Note the correction Ristic and Bubka Jr.!

Here's hoping that Azarenka breaks the shackles in her lop-sided H2H against Serena, comes up trumps in their coming encounters and lightens up the WTA circuit to make it shine even brighter just like Nole did reversing his trend against Rafa in 2011!

Beware of the cornered tigers!

While the tennis world is abuzz with the longest and most strenuous grand slam final that happened on Sunday, there would be two men who would be thinking they ought to have been there that very day clashing against each other in a repeat of the 2010 Australian Open Final. That was how close they came to reach the final at Melbourne. Murray, in his semi final against Djokovic dug deep in the decider and even had a break point at 5-5. Federer didn’t get that close in his semi final against Rafa but the way he started the match would have made people feel – ‘slam no.17 is on its way’. But, with the result of the semi-final going against them, with two better gladiators surviving their onslaught, it is time for some reconnaissance for the Swiss and the Scot.

Talks of a Djokovic Calendar Slam, Calendar Golden Slam (with the Olympics about to happen in July this year), Novak Slam (which he will do if he wins the French title) and a Novak-Rafa Slam (if he defeats Rafa in the French final, he would have slammed Rafa in the final in all 4 slams) are already on! Rafa is not far behind the radar. As the clay season gets underway, he would be the toast of tennis paparazzi. That leaves behind the two men behind them. How will they fare? Will they somehow throw a surprise and take the limelight away from worlds No.1 and 2.? We will try to get an answer to these questions looking at how good or bad they have done in the past few months.

1. Andy Murray

His 2011 campaign started off with a bang where he came second only to Novak Djokovic at the final in Melbourne. But a third final loss in a slam took its toll on him and he faced shocking early round losses in the masters at Miami and Indian Wells. He came back on track at Monte Carlo, where he surprisingly took Rafa to three sets in the semis – A place where Rafa is yet to lose (He is a clean 35-0 there). He came tantalisingly close to breaking the Nole streak in Rome but succumbed in a third-set tiebreaker. At Roland Garros , he fell to eventual champion Nadal (again in the semis) in three straight but intriguing sets. Another shuddering semis loss at the same Majorcan hands at Wimbledon did him no good.He ended up losing a first round tie in the follow-up masters event in Canada. After a better showing in Cincinnati (where he won the title owing to Djoker’s retirement in the final), he did well at US Open but nothing prevented him from losing to Nadal in another semi-final! Then came the Asian swing where he was the man on the roll; He went on to win titles at Thailand, Japan (where he defeated Rafa in the final – a consolation to all his heartbreaking losses to the Spaniard) and Shangai. He came to London’s World tour final as one of the contenders but fizzled out with an injury.

His new year 2012 started with an association with one of the greats of the game Ivan Lendl and the results are already showing it seems if tennis pundits are to be believed. 

Djokovic  said “Yes.  He was more confident on the court.  He was taking his chances.  He was being moreaggressive.  I think he was playing better (than last year’s final)”.

Key Take-aways: 2011 hasn’t been all that bad for Murray. If not for Rafa, he might have been a slam winner. He gave himself the chance by being there at least in the semis in all slams. The later part of the year was good. He has started off 2012 decently. If only he doesn’t let a concentration lapse, with better outings at Miami and Indian Wells (where he defends too less points) he can go past Roger to No.3 and that will do him a world of good in addition to the Lendl potion that is getting brewed and served!

2. Roger Federer

For Federer’s lofty standards, 2011 was one of his bad years. The first year since 2002 when he went slamless. After a terrific start to the season with a title at Doha, he succumbed to Djokovic for the second time in a semis clash at Melbourne. He followed that up with routine losses to Djoker in the final at Dubai and in the semis at Miami. At Indian Wells, his semis loss was at the hands of nemesis Nadal. A poor showing in the clay masters at Monte Carlo and Rome ( defeats to Melzer and Gasquet) threw him off the limelight and he came so close to getting back when he took a set off Rafa in the semis at Madrid. But that was all he could as Rafa improved his H2H against Roger to 16-9. At Roland Garros, Federer became red hot news for breaking the 41 match winning streak of Djokovic in an epic semi-final classic but he couldn’t cross the final mile against Rafa in the final. Back to back Wimbledon and Montreal losses to Tsonga and a thumping whacking by Tomas Berdych at Cincinnati took Federer still down but he came back well at Flushing Meadows where he nearly did the Roland Garros trick against Nole but eventully couldn’t close out. A break during the Asian swing was much welcome and back to back titles at Basel, Bercy and London’s World Tour Final put Roger right back on track to be the favourite for this year’s Australian Open. But Rafa again, a loss again and he must be kicking himself somewhere in the Swiss Alps pondering on how he can solve the riddles posted by Djoker and Rafa.

Key Take aways: Like Murray, Federer too had a terrific end of season last year and was up there in at least the semis in 3 slams in 2011. But, with Murray about to surpass him as world no.3, it would get mighty difficult for Federer to break back to the top and sail his 286^th week as No.1. That goal has to wait for a long time it seems. But he would be looking forward to the US Masters events to see if he can break the semis jinx against the top 2. If he can, he might well be on his way to week No.286 at the helm!

Wounded tigers lick their wounds for some time, ponder on how their hunt went wrong but they don’t just stop there. They come back stronger & hungrier at the unexpected moment. Beware Rafa and Nole – Watch out for some high decibel roars from Dunblane and Basel! If one of them turn it around and get into the top 2, that would change the entire dynamics opening up different possible semi final and final clashes (witthin the four of course!) which would make the men’s game even more interesting.

Lessons for life from the 6 hour epic!

I am wondering if there is any other sport that can keep one engrossed continuously for hours together! There’s no sport like tennis in that regard and the duo of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal just proved that displaying athleticism, true grit and passion for the sport in style and in the process, they have added a glorious chapter in the ‘book of rivalries’ that the sport of tennis has given us over the years. In addition to the entertainment that the two gladiators offered, there were lessons for life – of immense value – that was intrinsically part of the 6 hour saga at Rod Laver Arena. Shown below are 5 distinct lessons that I could decipher from the contest that kept me engrossed to my television set and even dumbfounded me at some crucial moments.

1. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over” goes the tagline of Stallone’s Rocky! A tennis crusader who has an unmistakable resemblance to the Rambo actor showed exactly that after Rafael Nadal went 4-2 up in the decider. He churned out a comeback that was miraculous given the fact that he had exceeded ten hours of marathon tennis in the last 48 hours prior to reaching that score line! Anyone else in the ATP circuit would have faltered (whether or not they would have stretched Rafa to five sets is a different question) if Nadal was at such a commanding position in the fifth set in such a humdinger but not a certain Nole from Serbia.  The fact that Djokovic proved the Rocky verse in the US Open ’11 semis against Roger Federer when the Swiss was serving at 5-3 40-15 match point is another startling point!

2. Your past has got nothing to do with what you are/ what you will be.

Novak Djokovic was once a bunny of the likes of Andy Roddick and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. There was even a time when he used to retire prematurely from grand slam matches. He was the last name one would associate with fitness.

“Isn’t it both of them? And a back and a hip? A cramp, Bird flu, Anthrax, SARS, Common cough and cold” – Roddick would quip on Djokovic’s fitness before their quarterfinal clash at US Open in 2008. But when Djokovic nearly pulled off a victory after battling 4 hours with Nadal on the dirt in Madrid in 2009, there was enough evidence that a turn of tables was around the corner. Yesterday, after battling out the defense of Nadal (arguably the fittest of them all) for 5 hours and 53 minutes, there is no doubt on how brilliantly the Serb has turned his fitness around in the last few years.  Even Roddick knows it now. He tweeted after the epic “Djokovic-Rafa. Absolute war. Physicality of tennis has been taken to another level in the last 5 years. 6 straight hours of power/speed”

3. Defeats need not always be the worst of things. One could feel ‘happy’ about defeats that follow struggle.

Nadal, in his post-match presser (where he used the word ‘happy’ 9 times in the conference) said “I am not happy to lose the final, yes, but that’s one of the losses that I am more happy in my career.” Need I say more! Pearls of wisdom these from Rafa.

4. Seize the opportunity that comes your way; Else, the payoff could be huge.

Ask Djokovic how he would have wished to play better if given another chance when Rafa was 0-40 down at 3-4 in the 4^th set. You may get second opinion from Rafa on how he rues the missed pass when he was 4-2 30-15 up in the deciding set.

5. Never,ever give up – Even when what you are up against is a mountain of trouble.

The point that explains this – the 31 shot rally at 4-4 in set 5;

The mountain – Novak Djokovic who came up with at least 4 potential winners in the course of the rally;

The one who gives the lesson on not to give up – Rafael Nadal who defended with immense determination and made Nole fall down.

Who knows? On another day, such a point would have sapped Nole’s confidence and Rafa might have broken in the next game to win the slam. The way Nole bounced back after the rally is another proven elucidation of the fact that one must never, ever give up!

These are among the lessons that the final, in particular, and tennis, in general, have taught us time and again. Whether we take it in or not is a question that is best left to personal pondering.

Having born in the 80s, I am glad that I was born in an era that has allowed me to watch and appreciate the rivalries of Edberg-Becker, Pete-Andre, Roger-Rafa and now Rafa-Nole, each special in its own distinct way! As I had mentioned earlier, with the Australian open final of 2012, a new chapter of epic proportions just got added to a classic book and the lessons these chapters have brought forth are worth remembering and reminiscing for the years to come!