French Open Betting / Jack Houghton / 20 May 2011 /

It's not just a lazy assumption that Jack Houghton is making - the stats say that Novak's dream run will come to an end before the men's French Open final and that makes the Serbian maestro a lay in the winner market

The Monte Carlo Fallacy lies at the root of a lot of bad punting. Given a run of reds, the fallacy goes, the next spin should return black. This approach forgets that a roulette wheel has no memory. Each spin is a new event. And, for each spin, black and red hold equal chance of showing.

Bearing this great gambling fallacy in mind, it would be ridiculous for someone of my weighty intellect to write an article along the lines of: "Djokovic has won a lot of matches in a row. Logic says it's about time someone beat him. It's the law of averages."

The strange thing is, that's exactly the article I'm about to write.

If Novak Djokovic reaches the French Open final, it will take his match record for 2011 to an impressive 43 wins with no losses. That will beat the previous best start to a season by a man in the Open era, set when John McEnroe won his first 42 matches in 1984, his winning-streak ending when he lost to Ivan Lendl in the final at Roland Garros that year.

Djokovic is already charting territory unexplored in recent years: the last time a man remained unbeaten in a season for more than 20 matches was when Lendl notched up 29 straight wins in 1986. Of late, no-one, not even Federer, has progressed beyond the high teens before suffering their first season-defeat.

There is nothing necessarily special about a winning run that begins at the start of the season of course - except that it has a certain neatness to it. Of just as much interest is any winning-streak, no matter when it starts. And it's here that the data gets interesting.

Because when you chart the lengths of various winning-streaks on a curve, whilst lots of players have been able to go 25 matches without being beaten, something seems to happen after around 35 matches that makes continuing the run exponentially more difficult.

So Guillermo Vilas (46 straight wins in 1977), Lendl (44; 1981-82), McEnroe (42; 1984), Borg (41; 1979-80), and Federer (41; 2006-07) all did something exceptional - progressing along an ever steeper statistical curve. And Djokovic is rapidly heading that way too, already lying sixth in the list of longest winning-streaks. The key question is how long he will be able to sustain the run.

That answer may lie in trying to explain why the tipping point for winning-streaks ending seems to lie in the 40s. One obvious factor is that the tennis season dictates that surfaces change regularly. Even a cursory glance at the ATP calendar shows that it would be very difficult for a player to manage more than four tournaments (approximately 20-25 matches) before having to adapt their game to a new surface. Perhaps this explains why such a significant number of historical winning-streaks end in the 20s.

It might also explain why Vllas - on 46 straight wins - sits atop such an illustrious list: his schedule in 1977 meant that all of those matches were on clay.

Another factor though must be fatigue. Winning matches has obvious benefits. Pay-cheques aside, a winning player is a confident player. But a winning player also rests less - and perhaps there comes a point, after 40 matches or so, where a winning player succumbs to a rival who is simply fresher.

When Djokovic begins his quest for his first French Open title this weekend, each match will take him closer to that winning-streak tipping point. And whilst the surface isn't about to change on him, he'll meet plenty of fresher players - none more so than Andy Murray ([26.0]) and Roger Federer ([19.0]).

I'm taking every penny I've got and sticking it on black. Then I'm rolling my winnings on to a massive lay bet of Djokovic. I can't fail - it's the law of averages.

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