Truths, Lies and Tennis Statistics / Matthew Walton / 15 February 2008 /

"Magical" Matthew Walton tells us how knowledge of stats relating to winners of the first set allows us to cash in

Before the start of this week's events in Costa Do Sauipe, Delray Beach and Marseille there had been 313 matches in the previous seven events of the 2008 season.

Of these matches, the winner has been the player who won the first set of the match 85.4% of the time.

That means only 14.6% of the matches have seen the loser of the first set bounce back to prevail - and that includes both five set and three set matches.

In rough percentage terms, that would make the winner of the first set of a match something around [1.17] to go on and win.

Ask yourself this question. How often do you see the winner of the first set of a match still trading at bigger odds than [1.17] to win the match? Answer. Pretty often.

Naturally this depends upon the odds at the start of a match. After all, Roger Federer is hardly going to drift from [1.10] to [1.30] after he's just strolled through the first set of a match 6-2. No, the case is where you have a 'live' betting market. And we're not necessarily talking about [2.0] each of two but what you might consider a relatively competitive match where a plausible case can be made for each player.

Form students will, quite rightly, produce examples to undermine this claim. And, yes, you do need to have some rudimentary understanding of which players are better at fighting back than others (a topic we've covered in this column before). However, and this is where the statistics don't lie, the figures are there in black and white that first set winners become match winners over 85% of the time. Do the calculation and you'll see that if you're still being offered (1.25) and upwards, you're onto a potentially lucrative situation - and that's regardless of who is playing.

Another aspect to this discussion is the statistics for finals. Logic would have us believe that finals are generally between two players who are fit, in form, playing well and could very well be evenly matched. And why not presume this? They've just won four, five or six matches to reach the decider and should be playing pretty well.

So, whereas in general tournament play we might see the No.1 seed facing a wild card, the final should be much more competitive. Hence, the logic would suggest, the winner of the first set isn't as important. There is less of a gulf in quality and if Player A wins the first set then Player B is highly likely to bounce back.

Not so. The figures for all ATP Tour finals going back to 2000 show that the winner of the first set of a final will still win that final 80% of the time. Only a measly 5% drop given the fact that general tournament play might well pit the No.6 in the world against the No.600 but the final could very well be between two players in the top 20.

This brings to mind the recent Australian Open final. In 2008 we've had seven finals thus far. Six have gone to the winner of the first set, only Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Melbourne failed to win after taking the first set. Yes, the Frenchman was facing Novak Djokovic but the statistics would have you believe that he should have won.

In reality, Tsonga may well be the exception that proves the rule.

So, when you're looking at the exchanges and the odds of the player who wins the first set duly shorten, just see whether they still represent value given what we've looked at here.

Punters often look at the players involved and turn away from the statistics which are staring them in the face. Value, you might find, is right there in front of you!!

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