Who wins the Cliff-hanger sets?!

It’s a known fact that since Safin’s ceremonious Australian Open victory in 2005, the quartet of Roger, Rafa, Nole and Andy have won 30 of the 31 grand slams contested since 2005 (Though Djokovic comes into the picture only in 2008 and Murray only in 2012!). They are considered by many former players, legends like McEnroe included, to be part of the best top-4 in any era of Men’s tennis. One reason for such domination is the way they have been able to handle pressure in situations that were demanding.

Who wins the cliffhangers?!

 The ethereal beauty of the sport that tennis is, has been the fact that in tough contests, the player who wins the important points, more often than not, wins a match. More of this in the last paragraph of this article! A lot of such important points pop-up in what is known as the business end of sets. This piece takes a look at how these 4 players, when playing among themselves, have handled situations after set scores have read 5-5! Against other lower ranked opponents, all 4 have been mightily successful in finishing sets off when push comes to shove at a 5-5 or a 6-6. Here, we’ll see who has been the most dominant of the top-4 in the 7-5, 7-6 cliffhangers played among themselves!

Here’s a matrix showing the number of tie-break sets the 4 have played against one another.

Federer and Nadal have played 38 TB sets (a staggering 20 TB sets between themselves!), almost twice the number of TB sets Murray has played against the other three! Big guys like some thrill, eh? No wonder most of the Federer Nadal sagas turn out to be epics.

When it comes to the 7-5 sets, here’s the matrix showing the number of such sets these players have played among themselves.

Nadal (23) separates himself from Federer (32) here; If Nadal gets to 5-5, it is almost certain that the set is to go to a Tie Breaker. He doesn’t like them 7-5 sets!  Djokovic, meanwhile, has a special liking for 7-5 sets, it seems. He tops this list with 35 sets! Federer-Djokovic matches are bound to have a lot of 7-5 sets; The duo account for 15 of the 54 7-5 sets held within the 4! The Murray-Nadal duels, (they are less in number compared to the Federer-Djokovic encounters) account for only 2 of the 54 7-5 sets in question!

Now to a list of how the 7-6 and 7-5 sets have influenced the outcome of matches!

Unsurprisingly, the numbers are skewed in favour of the winners. Still, there are some interesting insights one could gather from this list. Look at the Federer vs Nadal row! Among the 20 TB sets they have played, 12 have been won by the winner and the loser comes close winning 8 of them! Mentally, the two are rock solid and do not get as bogged down as say, Djokovic, when they face off! The Federer-Djokovic row tells a nice little story that men who bet for a living would be interested in. 23 off 28 such sets have gone to the winner!

Now, a little more deep-diving. Let us see how each of them have performed against one another in terms of a ratio of sets won to sets played.

Tiebreakers first!

The men who have held tennis duopoly for about 7 years have never gone below 50% in any of their tie-break match-ups with the other 3 (Their numbers are all green – over 50% success rate). Djokovic’s record (all in Red) is dubious; That too for someone who is considered to be currently,the best returner in the sport! He doesn’t have even a 50% success in tie-breakers when he plays the others in the 3. So, for the other 3, one goal when they face off Djokovic would be to somehow hold serve and get the set to a tie-break from where they could seek history’s help! On the other hand, for all the criticism the Nadal serve has taken (supposedly the weakest part of his game), he has the best record of them all in Tiebreakers: a game which supposedly favours the big servers! ‘Nerves first, Serves next!’ seems to be the unsaid truth regarding tie-breakers from what we see in the table here.

7-5 sets now!

Here, Federer loses the stranglehold he otherwise held in the other stats so far. He has a below par record against Murray and Nadal and only slightly, edges past Djokovic, who again, is the worst of the lot! In all matches Murray has played against the other 3, never has the match loser won a set 7-5! Again, a stat for the betters and superstitious to watch out for. Rafa dominates the other 3 here as well, with winning %s of 7-5 sets won!

Now for the result!

If one needed to choose just one hero for the cliffhanger tale, just the one who handles pressure best in match-ups of top-4, all stats point to one name – Rafael Nadal! No wonder he has a winning record against the other 3! Another myth that this busts is that Djokovic, with a super serve and a super return and a will to save match points and win contests, is not at his best when it comes to tight sets against his beloved top-runners!

If you still feel the 7-5 7-6 sets are not any more important than other sets in deciding match outcomes, here’s something. Federer had won more points than Nadal in both the Rome final of 2006 and the Australian Open final of 2009. But Rafa pulled off 4 of the 5 ’7-5 7-6′ sets contested in these matches and won both the encounters!

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.